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This Saturday I had the opportunity to get on the air and play with PSK and Olivia. However when I went to 14.070 MHz I found the area was occupied with odd signals. They sounded like fast morse code and looked like railroad tracks on the waterfall. I quickly cycled through various digital modalities and discovered they were RTTY! A new (for me) digital mode! I listened to a few conversations and found that there was a contest going on. The exchanges were simple; the other call, your call, and your state. After watching until I felt confident I wouldn't frustrate any experienced operators, I ventured in and had 4 quick RTTY contacts. You have to type very fast to keep up with RTTY. Next time I'll make some macros.
After this I had to do some other activities and so came back to the rig after dark. I decided to see what was going on in the 160 meter band during the grayline time. To my surprise the digital parts of 160 meters were alive with SSB phone transmissions. I changed my settings from USB Data to LSB, increased power to 100 watts and listened in. Now usually 160 meters is the haunt of old timers chatting with their friends, and not too welcoming to strangers. I have never heard anyone call "CQ" on 160 meters, and never had anyone answer my calls. That night it was like the band had been taken over by a huge flock of squawking birds calling "CQ Contest". Up and down the band it was wall to wall signals. I dove in and answered some of these calls, and within about 45 minutes had 16 contacts on 160 meter SSB phone! Unfortunately I had come upon the contest late, and at 2200 PST the band suddenly went dead. I thought I had disconnected my antenna coax or something, but then I heard a lone "CQ Contest" and tuned in on him. He had a reply, which informed him that the contest was over. Very disappointing.
I did learn from the experience that 160 meters has some distant communication potential, even for a low antenna (10 meters up dipole) and low power (100 watts) station like mine. I could hear and communicate with Mexico, Ontario, Florida, Mississippi, and etc. It is too bad that it is so hard to get a QSO going on 160 meters when contests are not filling the band. I think I will have to find a net, or maybe try to convince some of the old timers to let a young whipper snapper into their roundtable conversations so I can explore the low band further.
73
AD7QQ
