CORRECTED: September 8, 2019

On my way to Circle K in Williams, this evening (this evening being Saturday, September 7), I stopped off at Bellemont to check out Route 66 On-The-Air. My goal was to get more experience in HF. I had a lot of fun and made 61 confirmed kills, uhhh, contacts. It also just happens to be one of Prince’s favorite spots along Route 66. Prince and I wandered around a bit while Andrew WA7DPS made his contacts.

When my turn came up I had keep in mind 3-kHz for sideband and 6-kHz for straight AM. Of course we were working sideband. So I stepped up to the mic and began calling out. Surprisingly they kept rolling in creating what is commonly called a “pile up.”

It was a little difficult, at first. I soon realized that I when I caught a partial call sign, I called for that and was able to make contact. Another method used by W6G (we were W6T) was to call for call signs by numbers. In other words, he called for call signs with 0 first, then 9’s and worked his way down. Ron KG7OH explained that is a technique used the help clear the pile ups.

I also learned that people on HF use a different set of phonetics from those in the ARRL books. The phonetics used actually seem to work better for HF.

The contacts rolled after I figured that out. I even made contact with one QRP station and one working on solar power—although by that time he was working off of the batteries. In the end I made 63 contacts. I’m still waiting to see if my final count beat Andrew’s.

I learned a little more about working the many knobs and dials on the HF rig and how to check the SWR with the internal meter.

And I learned HF can be fun. I got to talk with people in places I have been such as Napa Valley, Oklahoma City and Fort Smith, Arkansas.

So if you have not thought about upgrading to a General, you should think about it.