A notable QSO

[time machine]

I usually have the Galaxy DX 2547 on AM 23 (27.2550mhz) but was feeling rather zealous this past Wedenesday night and turned to 37 USB (27.3750mhz). Bam, contact. There out of the mud were 2 loud sidebanders talking about coffe cups; just my niche since I am an affecianado of the bean. I listened for a bit x 2 making sure the mud wouldnt swallow them back and decided they werent going anywhere anytime soon. I keyed up on the silver salute and gave out a CQ, CQ.

We, gotta CQ out there, go ahead CQ we have you in loud and clear.

Ends up the two gentleman were 20 and 35 miles away from my loc with a third (inaudible to me) at 60 miles from my station. By far, the furthest QSO I've had line-of-sight. We shared radio models and antenna systems; they seemed inpressed with the dipole set-up I'm using, re-aligned the QSO back to coffe-cups and went back to just listening.

Beat the hell out of watching american-Idol imho.

[Slim Jim]

I stumbled upon SSB in much the same way. That's where I stay most of the time, now. The first few local SSB'ers I came across turned out to be some of my greatest radio companions. There may be a way to reach the other guy that you mentioned that is 60 miles away...maybe getting the dipole higher or shifting the direction of the whole setup a little may help. Play around with it to see what works...that's what makes the radio hobby fun! Congrats on the QSO.
-Slim "342" Jim

[time machine]

Thanks for the response Slim Jim, after that QSO I decided to swap out the dipole with a Solarcon Max 2000. Havent had a 35 mile qso yet but get a few more miles from my wifes mobile.

[CatDaddy]

SSB is the way to go for distance and good modulation. I hang on LSB 27.385 most of time.
Enjoy SSB

[channelcat]

just sit and listen and youll hear random skip rolling in. i was just fiddling around above cb at about 27.45 something and heard two guys and i called out cq and they were in Iowa. this was just driving home from work at about 6pm during january. im surprised you got them on USB most everyone except euros and latin americans use lsb. once i heard carribeans on 27.515 usb sayin "breaker 19 breaker 19"! but anyways good job with that qso! get em when you can

[TheTeZ]

very nice time machine, i dont know what the landscape is like around you, but that sounds like it may be a pretty common contact when on ssb. 30 miles isnt too far, base to base. im sure youll get them again especially with that imax, its what ive got,

i also wanted to reach those contacts that were that much further, so i got a fatboy 700, with the pre amp and ssb, great stuff, ive tried a few wpre amps, and some work pretty decent on ssb, others... dont..... but the one in the fatboy works well.... Huge difference.

[yota167]

Beat the hell out of watching american-Idol imho.

^ LOL! I couldn't agree more. For some reason I get a way bigger kick out of talking long-distance local and dx on the radio than I ever would sitting down watching prime-time television. I really need to get my old Cobra148gtl going again. That darn thing had like 300 plus channels USB and LSB.

Great story in light of a recent post stating they could never find anyone on Sideband anymore.