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No matter how long you have been hamming, you will always have a favorite or most memorable contact. Be it your very first ham QSO on a 2M repeater, or your first DX contact or something different… we all have them. To celebrate our diversity of experience, I’d love to hear about others’ favorite or most memorable QSO.
My absolute most memorable QSO was made on 21 March 1995, on 20M SSB with Danny Horvatz, T93M in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. What makes this such a memorable contact? Several things. Our QSO was at the height of the war, and when we were speaking, Danny related to me that he could only operate at night when his antenna could not be seen… as the last time he operated in the day, the Serbians bombed his building to take down the antenna. We talked about his family, and what Sarajevo looked like now. Being somewhat familiar with it from watching the 1984 Olympics, I asked if the mountains were still as beautiful as we saw during the Olympics, and he replied that they weren’t there anymore … they had been bombed flat, along with most of the Olympic village during the siege. What an experience to talk to someone still on the air in the middle of a war! We chatted for a few more minutes but had to end the QSO as the pile-up for him was pretty large.
That’s not the end of the story though!
I wrote a brief article similar to this one for my then current club newsletter. Shortly after it was published, I got a call from a buddy of mine in the club… Andy Fenick, AA1GV (now K1WI). It turns out that not only did Andy know Danny, but he gave Danny the transceiver that I was talking to him on! Several years before our QSO, Andy was in Sarajevo and got to know Danny, and gave him (if I recall correctly) a Kenwood TS-520S. That’s the radio I worked Danny on!
The QSL card from that QSO is the only QSL card I have hanging in my shack. It’s a small world made smaller by Ham Radio!
I’ve worked Danny in a few contests since then and always say “Hi”.
So what’s your favorite or most memorable QSO! Leave a reply and tell us about it!
73,
Matt, WE1H
Hi, Matt.
My most memorable QSO recently popped back in my memory because a ‘vintage ham radio equipment’ group on Facebook had a picture of a Ten-Tec Century 21. This was an affordable piece of gear that did 60 watts out on all the HF bands, CW only. The receiver was pretty broad since it was a direct conversion setup, yet I was really happy to have it. I paid for it with my own paper route money as a high school kid in the late 1970s, and eventually sold it for almost what I paid for it.
The QSO was a CW ragchew I had on 20m with a ham in New Zealand in the middle of my night time. Propagation must have been strong since I recall solid copy the entire QSO, which was like 40 minutes long. My antenna was a quarter wave vertical I made from old conduit and wood for an insulator, fastened to a tree which just happened to provide a good place to strap the support for the vertical then bent so the vertical had some open space to radiate into. Baluns were unaffordium, we just soldered the center conductor to the radiator and made a ground plane out of wire.
It’s my most memorable QSO because it really created a spirit of wonder within me, one that lasts to this day. How is it I can communicate with someone literally on the opposite side of the Earth from me with such a strong signal using such basic equipment? It seemed like magic, and it still does.
That’s a cool story Dave! It is wondrous how we can make contacts with such basic gear. That sparks my memory of my first “real” HF setup… a Henry Tempo One 10-80M 100W tube rig, a borrowed Heathkit tuner, and a random wire antenna that I had to hide in the line of shrubs outside the bedroom window of our apartment. I attached the wire with TV twin lead and alligator clips when I wanted to operate. Thanks for sharing!
Matt, WE1H
My most memorable contact was the third QSO I’d ever made. It was last summer and was only a brief exchange. What made it remarkable to me was my second ever DX contact, I was on a QRP radio running 5 watts, and the remote operator was “Her Majesty The Queen.”
Well it wasn’t the Queen of England herself (may she rest in peace), rather an operator from the Radio Society of Great Britain operating in the name of the Queen. A special event station was running from the grounds of Windsor Castle during the celebration of Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee.
I had just gotten my Tech and General license at the NARS class last spring. Dave N1AI was super kind and loaned me his Flex-1500 QRP SDR and a 20 meter dipole. He helped me get the antenna strung up between some trees and get on the air.
As a real noob at this, I did a LOT of listening. I made my first QSO to a guy in Florida, and second to a guy in Northern Ireland. I was really impressed that I could make direct voice contact across the Atlantic on only 5 watts (the power of a household nightlight) and a wire antenna.
With the SDR interface, I liked that I could see the various activity around the 20-meter band and tuned into a frequency showing a bunch of activity. “So this must be what a pile-up sounds like”. It was the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee special event station, and it was a really massive pileup. I did a bunch of listening. Over time started sensing a style, pattern, and timing as to who he would call on. I started trying to call in a way that matched that pattern, but with only 5 watts compared to all the other more powerful stations worldwide, I had to be realistic that there was really no chance of getting thru.
The event was over multiple days, so I kept trying now and then in hopes of getting lucky and squeaking through. So I was stunned one time when the operator replied with my callsign! Just a short exchange, but I logged it and they confirmed. And from that I received my first (and only) paper QSL card. [QSL Card side A] [QSL card side B]
This experience, along with the camaraderie and helpfulness of other hams, have made amateur radio an activity that I hope to enjoy for a long time.
Thanks for sharing that Mike! What a cool story and an awesome contact! I’d have loved to have worked them. It’s a neat QSL too… one that I would proudly hang in my shack. It is amazing what 5 watts will get you.
73,
Matt, WE1H
The question is singular, but I had a very good morning back in April 2013, when I lived in Merrimack. I had gotten up very early (for me) because my XYL was leaving for some task. So, there I was, wide awake, I went into my shack and fired up my ICOM756 and started tuning around. I heard a contact ending on 20M. It was between an operator in western Australia and New Zealand. I jumped in after the sign off and the Aussie came back from Perth. “Your not moving my needle mate, but I can hear you.” He gave me a signal report (5/9) from 11.550 miles away! I started tuning around some more and 25 minutes later contacted an operator in Darwin. “Do you know where Darwin Is??” I replied in the affirmative and told him That I had stopped in Darwin on my R&R flight from Saigon to Sydney! Think I surprised him as There was a long pause before he came back. Obviously great propagation that day.
Tom AB1NS
Neat story Tom. Thanks for sharing! Timing is everything on life… so true in Ham Radio too. I bet that guy in Darwin never expected you’d even heard of it let alone been there! It seems that we get a pipeline between New England and VK/ZL daily here lately.
73,
Matt, WE1H
My most memorable one, of three that come immediately to mind, was my very first and took place just after I took the NARS Tech class and passed my exam.
Two years before a friend of mine invited me to a mutual friend’s house as this person was running a small class in the evening, as a favor, trying to help several of his interested friends and help them get their Tech licenses. It didn’t work out which was a frustration to this friend teaching and to some of us in the class who actually intended to to learn. Sadly, those classes dissolved. However, two years later, NARS rescued my interest. The Sunday night after I’d passed the exam I called that fellow, told him I’d just passed the exam, and that would like him to be my very first amatueur radio contact. He agreed and, as soon as I saw my license posted, we arranged a time. He didn’t live far so we used 2m simplex. It wasn’t a hard-to-get dx, or an interesting place, but he was thrilled that his efforts had finally paid off somewhere and he sent me the first QSL card I’d ever received. It’s still on my wall, next to my license. I was honored to have him as my first ever contact and still am. He’s since relocated to FL and, thanks also to NARS for my General license, we can connect on HF to this day.
Three experiences immediately come to mind but my first contact was the most memorable.
Two years before NARS helped my get my tech license, a friend had been helping several of us with evening classes toward the same. Sadly, some of his friends were there more to chit-chat than learn and it always descended into meandering topics and off-shoots of amateur radio. The classes dissolved and, while I was sorely disappointed, my friend teaching the class was even more so.
Two years later, after passing the test at the NARS class I called him on the way home to tell him I’d just passed my exam and would like him to be my first contact ever. We agreed to wait a few days for my license to post and, as soon as it did we connected on 2m simplex as he didn’t live far. He was as thrilled as I thought he’d be that, at least, someone from his class had completed the process. A few days later I received my first ever QSL card from him and it’s hanging on my “shack” wall next to my now-general license to this day.
My friend has since relocated to FL but, thanks to HF, we can still stay in touch using HF. I was honored and joyful to have him be my very first contact.
Oh! I should mention that I used a Baofeng UV5R that I won in the NARS class raffle to do this with. Man, that was my only radio for the first year or so. Used it everywhere and all the time with a mag-mount on the car.
Thanks for the nice shout-out, Mike. I’ll say I learned by example from the Elmers I had in my life. In particular, my high school teacher, Dan, W1QK. He is not only responsible for me being a ham 40 years later, but also largely responsible for me having a career in high tech too. He helped our school start a ham radio club, get a ham shack built with antennas on the roof, got loans of equipment from civil defense and from his own personal gear, started a Novice exam class complete with teaching us CW, and put up with all the nonsense that teenage boys thrive on. He was a teacher in the Vo-Tech part of our school and taught electronics. His teaching there inspired me so much that I felt confident enough to go on to a degree in Electrical Engineering, and, later, Computer Science. So, it’s all a great part of the tradition in this hobby, one I try to participate in when I get a chance.
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