That changed about six weeks ago and I'm still kind of processing it, which is part of why I wanted to write this down somewhere.
I'd been watching the propagation forecasts more seriously over the past couple months. I downloaded a couple of apps, started checking the solar flux index every morning like some people check the weather, and generally started paying attention to what the bands were actually doing rather than just tuning around and wondering why I wasn't hearing much. The SFI had
I made my first real DX contact. Like, not just a domestic contact that happens to be far away. An actual across-the-ocean, different-continent, holy-cow-did-that-just-happen contact. I'm still kind of buzzing about it.
The Setup (Such As It Is)
I should explain what I'm working with so this makes sense. My station is pretty modest. I've got a used mid-range HF transceiver that I picked up locally, running about 80 watts, and my antenna is a 40-meter dipole that I hung between two trees in m
