marcspaz Posted April 13, 2023 Report Posted April 13, 2023 I have been keeping a logbook of people that I speak to on the radio. I have been licensed for 2 decades, but used HF very infrequently up until the COVID19 pandemic started. Starting in 2019 to now, it has been a fun 3 years since I have started using HF regularly. My favorite part is the new friends and acquaintances I have met around the world. Two good friends... Lauro Zanoli in Italy and Helio De Olivera in Brazil. My acquaintances Janez and Slovko Celarc in Slovenia, Ross Biggar in New Zealand, Javier Salazar in Costa Rica, Chris Taylor in Wales, just to name a few. Amateur Radio in the US is a dying field. I wanted to share this information to encourage more people... younger people to give the radio a try. Maybe get into it as a hobby, using it as a tool for community service, or even just to make a few new friends. Using HF radio I have spoken to people in every state in the US and on every continent around the globe. This is a list of countries and distant US states/territories where I have chatted with people on the radio... some from home, some while driving to work. A total of 97 distant lands and all of the US. Hopefully someone finds it interesting. Alaska Anguilla Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Aruba Australia Austria Azores Bahamas Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Bermuda Bonaire Bosnia and Herzegovina Brazil Bulgaria Canada Canary Islands Cape Verde Cayman Islands Ceuta and Melilla Chile Colombia Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Curacao Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Dominican Republic Ecuador England Estonia Finland France French Guiana Germany Greece Guadeloupe Guyana Haiti Hawaii Honduras Hungary Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Madeira Island Malta Martinique Mexico Montserrat Morocco Netherlands New Caledonia New Zealand Northern Ireland Panama Paraguay Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Romania Russia San Marino Sardinia Scotland Serbia Slovak Republic Slovenia South Africa South Cook Islands Spain St Helena Island St Kitts and Nevis St Lucia St Martin St. Maarten Suriname Svalbard Sweden Switzerland Trinidad and Tobago Turks and Caicos Islands Ukraine United States Uruguay US Virgin Islands Venezuela Wales mrobisr 1 Quote
tweiss3 Posted April 13, 2023 Report Posted April 13, 2023 I'm always surprised what can be done with only 5 watts on HF when things align. Since becoming licensed in 2020, I have 93 countries confirmed, totaling 648 grid squares. Lots of Europe and South America. I also got a new Africa station on Monday that isn't in my total log yet. marcspaz and PACNWComms 2 Quote
marcspaz Posted April 13, 2023 Author Report Posted April 13, 2023 Very cool! That's a good number of countries. I was being lazy one night on the radio in VA, tuning up my audio. I didn't feel like doing the extra work of running the dummy load, so I turned my power all the way down, which is 0.4w. While I was doing my audio testing, I was using my call sign and saying things to make the adjustments. When I let the key up, I guy from Ohio came back to me saying he had a great copy on me and the audio sounded really good. He asked what mic I was using... ended up chatting for about 10 minutes, to Ohio, on 0.4w. It was mind-blowing. PACNWComms and SteveShannon 2 Quote
WRQC527 Posted April 13, 2023 Report Posted April 13, 2023 2 hours ago, marcspaz said: Using HF radio I have spoken to people in every state in the US and on every continent around the globe. Nice. I'm 5 states away from working all 50 states. I've also contacted Japan, Australia, South America, eastern Europe, Canada and Mexico. Not nearly as many countries as you, but I'll get there. I've only been doing HF for a couple years. marcspaz 1 Quote
tweiss3 Posted April 13, 2023 Report Posted April 13, 2023 10, 12 & 15 meters have been killer, even way into the dark hours. I even got one 2m FT8 contact, and 6m has been open more often than usual. marcspaz 1 Quote
marcspaz Posted April 14, 2023 Author Report Posted April 14, 2023 6 hours ago, tweiss3 said: 10, 12 & 15 meters have been killer, even way into the dark hours. I even got one 2m FT8 contact, and 6m has been open more often than usual. Yeah man, no doubt. I worked a station outside of Moscow at 1:00 AM ET on 20m. Worked South Africa at 8:30 PM on 10m. Very happy with that. Quote
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