Sunny Summer Day in Hill
July 2015

Judy and I took a beautiful bike ride today in Old Hill Village. I worked
Israel, Poland, France and the Slovak Republic with the KX3.



We started on the Franklin end of the flood control area and rode our bikes
about 2 miles north. I stopped in a familiar spot next to an old butternut tree.
I wanted to set up a dipole, but there was a huge poison ivy patch at the base
of the second tree, and I thought better of it. I put up a 28 foot wire as a vertical
and used a 9:1 unun.



I sat right down at the edge of the road and tuned around 20 meters. I was glad to hear some stations
after a couple of weeks of poor conditions. I worked SQ9C, Tom in Poland with one or two calls
to his CQ. We exchanged quick 599s and I switched to 17 meters to see how that was. Right away
I heard 4X6FR, Zvi in Israel. He answered me and gave me a 559. Fantastic!


View from my operating position

Next I heard a Turkish station... TA2AO. He was strong and I was sure he'd hear
me. I called several times and couldn't get a reply, so I moved on. I went to
15 meters where Fred F5NBX was calling CQ from France. He answered and
gave me a 559. For my last QSO, I went back to 17 meters and worked
Jozef OM3GI in the Slovak Republic.

There seemed to be pretty rapid QSB on all three bands, but at least I was hearing
stations and working them. I operated for almost a half hour and we headed back.

What a beautiful afternoon... in the low 70s F with a nice breeze. A great day to be
alive and working DX along the way.