As luck would have it, I was free to visit the station today. As usual, Ernie was there manning the station solo and greeted me warmly when I had arrived. He was working away at the VHF/UHF station getting set for what he hoped would be a few satellite logs for the day.
I fired up the FLEX-3000 and tuned it into the familiar 14.070MHz running fldigi in PSK31 mode. With the beam turned approximately 80′ I saw EA8ATE calling CQ from the Canary Islands. I was excited and immediately answered Sergio’s call. My first trans-Atlantic QSO on HF! After a brief chat with Sergio, I went on to contact EA8CEQ (Manolo).
Then Ernie and I got to talking all things radio, electrical theory, instrumentation and so forth. This man truly is a wealth of knowledge – anyone wishing to get into Amateur Radio would be well advised to take the OVMRC course to learn from Ernie and the other knowledgeable teaching cadre (ie. VE3OIJ, VE3SUY).
As it was getting on in the afternoon, I tried for a few more contacts so I swung the beam around to 170′ and saw PR2R calling CQ. This marks my first contact: to Brazil, to South America, to a DXpedition station. The QSO was necessarily brief yet will remain memorable as one of those many radio-firsts I’ll be logging. Now I just have to get my own equipment up and running so I can get some under my own call-sign 😉
So, thus ends another fun day at VE3JW. I really am thankful to have access to such great equipment, and to be part of a great club.