When I got up this morning I turned on the FT-817 with the Miracle Whip mounted on its back. There were a lot of strong stations calling CQ TEST. I didn’t quite know what kind of contest it was but a quick check on the net revealed that it was nothing less than CQ WW DX 2005.
A few quick thoughts passed through my mind and I decided that I should try to call some of the strongest stations and see whether I can make any contacts using the Miracle Whip. I should remind you that I was in my apartment in Copenhagen; a big building built of thick concrete and there was no way for the Miracle Whip to have full visibility to the world outside. Approximately 30% of the top was shadowed by the walls. On the other hand, I was located on the 10. floor with free view towards East.
I attached two wires to the FT-817 chasis, one clipped for 20 and one for 17 meters, and tuned up on 15 meters. The first station I came across was RG9A, I called him and suddenly got my first Miracle Whip QSO! He replied to me after my first call! After that I swept the band a few times and made quite a few QSOs mostly with russian stations. Sometimes it was difficult to be heard, sometimes it was impossible, but sometimes I got them after the first call. Several contacts were from Asiatic Russia well over 4000 km away. I was using the FT-817 on batteries, thus running 2.5 watts at most.
Later I switched to 20 meter and made a few QSOs here as well but no DX. Here are the stations I worked during the 1.5 hours I was working:
15m:
RG9A, RK9AX, RA9FLW, RA9JP, RK9AXX, 5B/M0XAA, RX4HZ, RZ9SWR, RO4M and H2E.
20m:
LZ9W, RF3A, YT1W, UW8M, UT7L and YT1NT.
I also tried 40 meters but no luck here. Also, the receiver was very quiet at this time of the day and none of the signals were above S2-S3. For comparison, most of the station I was working on 15 and 20 meters were usually S9 or more.
This was a very good start for a Sunday. Now I do have a nice record of more that 2000 km/W using the Miracle Whip indoors. Thanks to all my QSO partners for bothering to decode my weak signals.