[TenTec] The simple joys...

[Dale L Martin]

Absolutely.

My favorite 'trick' is to leave a radio on on some odd frequency while I'm
doing something else in the room.

It's really interesting what comes by the frequency (any frequency) over the
course of a couple of hours.  I've worked some new countries by just leaving
the radio on while doing something else.

A number of years ago, I was also home on a day off and was playing around
in the radio room.  The Triton IV (with attic dipoles) was on 7012 CW.  It
was about 1600 or 1700 CST and there wasn't much activity.  But, then, I
heard a faint CQ start up.  I nearly fell out of my chair when he signed:
9v1uy (Singapore) or something like that.  I immediately called him and he
came right back to me.  We had a nice QSO--he had even been to Houston and
knew Max, Don & Dave Busick of Madison Electronics here in Houston.  I told
him I would tell them hello for him.  During our third or fourth go round, I
could hear the occasional dit being keyed obviously from more than one
station.  Subtle (or not so subtle) hints to finish it up and get out of the
way. I just KNEW there was a pileup waiting to pounce.  My using both our
callsigns at the beginning and end of the exchange didn't help matters
much--it was an opportunity to rub it in the big boys' mugs that I couldn't
pass up.  I finished up with him and, sure enough, the whole world came
a-callin'.  :-)

Fun.

73,
dale, kg5u

>
> The kids are outside playing, my wife is out with her mother, and I've
> got the day off.  What's a fella to do?
>
> While twisting the knob across 15m, I heard a relatively faint CQ.  I
> then aimed my mighty roof-mounted TGM MQ2 due north, cranked my Century
> 22 up to its full 20 watts, and proceeded to have a nice chat with
> YB1HDF.  No pileup, no "policemen", no tuner-uppers.
>
> Ain't this what it's all about?
>
> Al, K2ZN
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