12m SSB!

Despite endless doom and gloom in the amateur radio press about the state of propagation, persistence usually breaks through into the open sunshine of a good DX contact, even on the higher bands.

15m was quite active this morning, with a number of VK stations coming in.  That is itself quite remarkable, seeing as a large swathe of VK-land is on fire.  We wish them well in coming through it all, and encourage their right-wing politicians to accept climate change is real, and affecting VK severely already.

Beautiful Namibia.  Image: Wikicommons/unidentified author.

As lunchtime approached, I saw V51WH appear on the cluster for 12m.  I was so transfixed on FT8 that it took me a few minutes to realise Gunter - whom I last spoke to way back in 2015, also on 12m - was actually at 24.950 - SSB!

On retuning, I could hear Gunter at R4-5, but with deep QSB.  As the minutes ticked by, he came up to about an S8.  I switched from the FT-450 and turned on the IC-746, which is a very beautiful sideband radio with audio that is hard to believe.  After a few calls, I managed a 52 into Namibia.

Although not rare, due to there still being plenty of ex-colonial German activity there, it's always nice to make a contact with Namibia, especially SSB at this dead point of the solar cycle.