Sometimes, it’s just a sparkle that flies. I was waiting for a ham friend (IW0HK) to visit me, after years of e-mail/Internet contacts. Initial plan was to reach a downtown’s eatery, and have a nice chat. Then, looking out of the window, and realizing the wx you can see in the featured image (and no, these aren’t chemist trails, but the evidence of a mild temperature, despite winter), I changed my mind. Texted him (who was on his way to me by train): “man, in fifteen minutes of cableway we can be at an altitude… and it could be interesting to bring a PRC-320″. Answer came in seconds, with an enthousiastic “Yes”. And so, once he got down the train, we boarded the cableway, and reached the heights of Pila, at 1800 meters above the sea.
Once there, temperature of +6 degrees Celsius welcomed us, with total sun nicely warming the terrace where we had an hamburger. Then, the look for a radio spot begun. Snow and people sliding on it was everywhere (it’s one of the ski resorts of my area), but the huge roof of a church proved a quiet corner (either we’ll burn in Hell, or we acquired right of admittance to Heaven, will tell you in the next life). Prepared the 320, configurating it with its 2.4 mt. whip and counterpoise, then lighted it up and tuned on 15 m, following Andrea’ suggestion.
“Who’s that strong one?” he asked. Fine tuned, and passed handset onto him. “Hey, that’s not an European accent”. No, it wasn’t. A W3 station, simply blasting! We then found at least a couple more. And it wasn’t just the East coast, but also Central Ohio and Alabama. Completely unexpected, as at my home QTH I have rare copy of US station on higher bands. HF are not optical, but sometimes they can play you incredible tricks. Andrea being a brass pounder, then wanted to try the narrow CW filter (250 Hz). He found a strong signal, and switched from the wide one. “Hey, it’s really tight”. “Yeah – I gave back – and who’s that guy?”. He focusized on the transmission, and smiled in seconds: “it’s N4…”. Wow, once again!
We knew we wouldn’t go that far with 30 watts, and it has also to be said those strong US stations had the while of Europe calling ‘em. However, we placed a call, and scored to work – at first attempt! – EW8A. 1830 kilometers with less than 50 watts is not QRP, but not bad either. Then, since if 15 are open, 17 should be too, we moved on 18 MHz. Not many, but US stations were there too. Sun was going down, as the clock approached 4pm, making air quite freezing. Time for some last tests. WWV was at full throttle on 15 Megs. Natural consequence was to try it on 20 too and, much to our surprise, pips and male voice were there too. New one for me, from Aosta Valley! CHU on 14670 kHz was that strong you had to lower volume to fully appreciate it, and – in the BC field – you could hear Radio Martì from Greenville on 15330 kHz like a FM local station. Ok, it’s a powerhouse, but it’s aimed to another direction (Cuba), plus there is an Ocean in between!

Enough to pack in a completely satisfied mood, being persuaded that spending the same amount of hours in a restaurant would have resulted millions of times less interesting!

73 de Chris