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.
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| 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.
