In this post, written once back home from last summer holidays, I told about how troposheric reception enhancement allowed good signals, on the beach of Cattolica (loc. JN63IX) and with a simple HT, from the 9A0VRI 2m repeater, located in Ucka, Croatia (loc. JN75CG). One morning, I noticed that tropo was so strong, that not only receiving the repeater, but also transiting through it proved possible. So, with just its “rubber” antenna and around 5 Watts, my Wouxun KG-UV2D did it across the Adriatic sea, for a distance of 186 kilometers. After a couple calls in English (all the traffic I heard in the previous days was in Croatian), Darko 9A7KDT answered. He was mobile, heading to the island of Krk. Communicating wasn’t, honestly, that easy. I was exciting the repeater, but with high noise and fragmented voice. However, we managed to exchange full callsigns and position data, then greeted. Last week, I received Darko’s QSL for that QSO, in answer to my card. I wanted this contact confirmed, as it’s the kind of thing you go remembering for a long time. Thanks a lot Darko, it’s the kind of thing that on the Adriatic can happen, making radio even more enjoyable, and people on the two shores of the sea, even closer.

73 de Chris