Alaska

Just put Alaska in the log – KL7/VE7ACN was coming in about S7 to Chicago this evening, and I bagged him after about 10 minutes of chasing. To make it extra special, I he was working split on 7.001.5 UP, which makes this both (a) my first use of the Split feature of the FT-767 to work a station and (b) my first use of my Extra class privileges!

Per my New Year’s resolution, I only have 5 states left to work: Indiana, North Dakota, Nebraska, Nevada, and Utah. With 9 month’s left this year, I’m feeling confident about hitting all five before 2017’s end.

Hear you on the air!

73

KK9JEF/AE – Sterling IL Hamfest

Yesterday, I went out to the Sterling IL Hamfest. It was quite a hike from my QTH in Chicago, but it turned out to be totally worth it: I finally upgraded to an Extra class license!

I’ve been casually studying for the Element 4 exam (extra class) for be past few months, with an eye toward upgrading at some point. But what really pushed me into action this weekend was a single Croatian station working the ARRL DX SSB contest, down in the part of 20m that I, as a general, wasn’t allowed to transmit on. He was at least 10-over-S9, just begging to be worked, but I couldn’t… so, a few more practice tests and a two hour drive later first thing Sunday morning, I had the Element 4 exam in hand. An hour after that, I had my Extra.

There were a few more finds at the fest – the club table had a big ole junk in of parts. Mostly miscellaneous circuit breakers and switches, but way down at he bottom were seven or eight multi-turn pots for $0.75 each. What a steal! I bought as many as I could pull out of the bin. I also pulled a few NP0 caps an a bag of 12V DPDT relays.

What a rush of a day it was. Looking forward to excercising my new frequency privileges this week.

Hear you on the air, wherever in the band you are!

73