Contacting the Dodecanese islands on FT8.
Last evening I wandered down the hall to the radio room someplace I have not been for about 2 weeks or so. I have been taking advantage of the great weather here to get some outdoor projects done. There was a shed to level and rebuild and also a deck to level and refinish. Doing those projects during the day left me with no real energy to get on the radio in the evenings. For some reason last evening I just had a nice kick in my step and it was off to the radio room for some FT8 adventures. I found myself on 30m and it was hopping with activity at 0200 UTC. One of my contacts was to the Dodecanese and I had never heard of this location. I looked it up and it is a group of 15 large islands and 150 smaller ones. SV5DKL was from Rhodes which is the capital of the Dodecanese islands. These set islands are a part of Greece but it was very cool to contact this off the beaten path location. Overall I was very pleased with the conditions on 30m and I was on making contacts until 0300 UTC and then my internal clock told me it was time to hit the sack.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].