Hi Tim!
At 0331 UTC on April 3, AA5UK/KH6 and I made a quick CW contact on FO-29 – from his vacation location in BL02ic and my home in EM84ha. According to the Tiny Locator program from ON6MU, our contact covered 7,399 kilometers/4,621 miles.
Congratulations!
I know you had been working on getting Adrian in your log for some time, and Adrian's receive issues on AO-7 initially didn't help your cause. It may not be a "world record" for distance covered, but you two certainly stretched that footprint for all you could.
Adrian’s commitment to activate Hawaii – during a vacation trip with his significant other – enabled me to put state No. 50 in the satellite log. He did the same for several others – among them Rick, WA4NVM; George, WA5KBH; Alex, KC7MG; Damon, WA4HFN; Matthew, KC7EQO; and Dave, KN4OK.
It's great to see those calls, most of them being east of the Rockies and generally unable to work Hawaii on the FM birds. I know a few of the XE satellite operators also put AA5UK/KH6 in their logs. Alvaro XE2AT had already worked Hawaii in the past, but was looking for Adrian's grid on Kauai. I think Omar XE1AO and Bernardo XE2HWB also worked Adrian out there. These two may still need other states for satellite WAS, but at least they can focus on the other states using other birds. There may be other XEs that I'm not aware of, but I know Adrian chatted with several of them via e-mail trying to make those QSOs happen.
Thanks again to Adrian for making the significant time and effort to activate Hawaii as much as he has on this trip.
Yes, Adrian has tried to be on a lot of passes for the benefit of satellite operators. He had been working on this trip for months, and changing his plans so he would have more time on the satellites and still enjoy the non-radio parts of the trip (i.e., no HF activity, something he had planned to do out there originally). I hope Adrian takes time to elaborate on the trip here on the -BB or in an article for the AMSAT Journal, as that would be an interesting read.
73!
Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/