I was pleasantly surprised today after seeing Norman Banks (5B4AIF) spotted on 20m from South Cook Islands as E51E to hear him quite well when I pointed the beam at him. Within a short time, a huge pile-up had developed, and he was unable to hear anyone. So he started working by numbers. Having started with 0 and working a few, he went to 1 and there weren't many 1s either. Pretty soon he was moving onto 2.
The above video shows my first call at him - the camera was running but I really didn't expect to get him with my first call. If you listen carefully you can hear that I hadn't even cleared my throat properly for the call. He heard me first call and I was in the log in no time.
Sorry about the loudness in the video, but I didn't realise how close I was to the camera at the time!! You can hear my whoops of delight at the end. South Cook Islands (E5-S) are 15,700 km from me, in the south Pacific Ocean. I was beaming northwest, on the short path, with the SP7IDX broadband hexbeam, running 400 watts. It was a new country for me on 20m.
