Topband: 9M2AX finally after 15 years

[ve6wz at shaw.ca]

For at least 15 years (perhaps more) I have been chasing Ross 9M2AX for a new one on 160m.
For some reason, a QSO has eluded us.

>From VE6 Ross is 13,000km at 320 degrees AZ, and the path is usually skewed southward.
Every morning this winter season I have been at the radio RX for Ross, but in spite of fair-good reports from ops down south in AZ and CA, I have never copied him.

For some reason, this morning his signal peaked up just before my sunrise.
My tower was cranked down, so I had to wait for it to get to full height and the amp to warm up.

After many calls and a few QRZ? Ross gave a 6 ?.  A few more calls and he had my call, but gave me a VE6WZ ?? without a report.
I responded with ONLY his report and made sure NOT to send my call again.  I was getting quite concerned that I might lose the contact after I sent my report many times.
Finally, Ross came back with a 339 and we completed the QSO.
Our QSO was at 1452z, 10min before my sunrise at 1502z.

Ross struggles with very high QRN in 9M2 so I am very grateful he was able to pull me out.
Because I have waited so many years for this QSO, I wanted it to be as "pure" as possible, so I avoided any packet cluster "hints" that I was calling, and I did not acknowledge I was even QRV in the KST chat room.

I must say that Ross is a true QRN-warrior to persevere through what must be painful RX conditions!

I was TX with the 2 el Parasitic array, and listening in diversity.

Here is a recording of our QSO.  If you listen, you will understand why I was quite worried I was going to lose the QSO.
This morning his signal seemed almost equal on the direct path, and the skew west path.
In the left ear is the west 4 element BSEF Beverage (BOG) array, and the right ear is the Asia 2 el Beverage (BOG) broadside phased pair.
(the clicking is poor internet packet dropouts on my connection to my remote 100km north of my home)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ot1RhA1Gim1VoHEw6u0QA3T7QShf9bCE/view?usp=sharing

73, de steve, ve6wz
https://www.youtube.com/@ve6wz/videos