YV8AD Venezuela makes it #146 on 80 metres!

I woke up at 6.30am to see if Nigel ZD9XF was on the low bands. Unfortunately, he was QRT since about 01.30z. I could hear HC2AO weak on 80 CW and he would be a new country, but unfortunately he went QRT as soon as I started calling. So I had to do something now that I was awake and the grey line was approaching!

I could hear YV8AD on 3.750 on my Icom IC-756PRO

I saw YV8AD spotted on 3.750 SSB and decided to have a listen. The band was not too noisy, and I could hear him at a 5 and 5. I went down a few KCs and tuned my inverted V with the 756PRO's internal ATU. The V is resonant right down at the bottom of the band, so it was a barefoot effort only. I called, and straight away he came back "Echo India Two Kilo Charlie, good morning Tony, you are five and six, five and six roger". I was delighted that he could hear me at all. I gave him 5 and 5 and just like that, country number 146 on 80 metres was in the log. It's not too often that I am able to work DX on SSB on 80 metres. Thankfully, I was close to my greyline, and he wasn't busy. Plus, there's not much between here and Venezuela except salt water, which helps.

Thankfully, I also managed a QSO with TY1AA on 30m CW. I need TY on 30, 40 and 80 (and of course 160!) so I was glad to get at least one low band QSO seeing as how they are QRT tomorrow.