[ADXA] Todays DX. 40 meters and a bit of history.

[Dennis Schaefer]

Very interesting, Randy!  I was a Novice in 1963 and I had two crystals
7.161 and 7.191.  I worked 48 states, but never got Alaska or Hawaii.  My
first DX was KZ5FC in the Panama Canal Zone.  I also worked a WP4 in Puerto
Rico.  The biggest thrill of all was hearing and calling KC4USH in
Antarctica.  No contact, but still a kick.

I finally got a couple of crystals for 15M but got my General soon after
that so no more Novice DX.

I’ve been camping on the Little Red last week but reading the mail.  My
camping equipment is only suitable for better weather than we had.  In
fact, on the night it was 24 degrees, some of us moved to another campsite
that had a king size bed, and coffee in the morning from a machine that
ground the beans and then brewed the coffee!

73,
Dennis/RZ

On Mon, Mar 23, 2026 at 12:33 AM Randell Curtis, W5ZJ via ADXA <
adxa at mailman.qth.net> wrote:

>
> Back in late 1974 I made my first contact ever on the 40 meter band as a
> novice. At that time, I thought that 40 was a mostly local band, and DX was
> nearly impossible to find there. Over the years, I found that to be not at
> all true.
>
> I did have a run in with the law during that time when the Johnson Viking
> Ranger drifted a few cycles low out of the novice band and I got a nasty
> letter in the mail from the FCC that required me to respond with a written
> reply in triplicate why this happened. It liked to have scared me plumb out
> of the hobby, and I atribute my nevous twitch, stutter, and hair loss, to
> this stressful event. I didn't have any way to do triplicate so I wrote my
> reply by hand 3 times. I would have have been much more comfortable writing
> a sentance 100 times stating "I will not exceed my novice frequency
> privelges for any reason". I was very experienced at writing similar
> sentence from my time at public school and this punishment would have been
> more in my comfort zone.
>
> Over the years I found DXing on 40 to be quite fun.I got married and moved
> to the location we are still at. My first real DX antenna on 40. was a full
> size 4 element delta loop fixed toward Oceonia. This allowed much DX into
> VK and ZL pretty much every morning. My most memorable catch during this
> time was Madagascar long path CW. It took 3 days to figure out his pattern,
> and on the 3rd day I was sitting at the rig tuned on his frequency with key
> in hand. When he made his first call that day, I was his first answer. The
> prior 2 days I couldn't break through the QRM with 100 watts.
>
> After working a bunch of stations that direction I was ready for something
> different, and the delta loop came down. I had accumulated a bunch of
> aluminum from taking down damaged antennas off the cb towers over the years
> and I was able to build a full size aluminum dipole for 40 and hung it at
> the top of the 65ft tower favoring NE and SW It was amazing as it was
> completely in the clear and I was able to work much CW and SSB DX. However
> on one tower climbing day, I discovered that the torque from the 66 feet of
> tubing was breaking the welds on the top section of rohn 25 so it had to
> come down.
>
> After being QRT from 1995 till early 2017, another delta loop went up on
> 40. It was a 3 element delta loop that I could reverse NE to SW or SW to
> NE. This stayed up for awhile until it seemed I was seeing the same
> stations over and over. The most memorable contact with this antenna was
> with G0EVY where I rag chewed with him for about 30 minutes SSB. I was
> running 15 watts from a homebrew bitX40 transceiver
>
> Of course 2 direction only QSO's got old and omni-directional antennas
> took their place. A full wave tuned horizontal loop at 60 feet allowed a
> WSPR report from VK longpath with 3/4 watt. The most memorable 2 way qso
> being with the same VK station one moring and one evening consecutive in
> the log with one being long path and the other being short path completing
> entirely around the world communication.
>
> It has taken me a long time  to get to todays DX but a short session
> around 0400z let me know the 40 is still fun. Nothing rare, but still loads
> of fun. I suppose when I get tired of a non-USA call replying, I'll take up
> golf.
>
> Have a great day and good DXing my firends!
> Randy/W5ZJ
>
>
>
>
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