VK9LA Lord Howe : 40m QSO, All Time New One !!!!!!!!!

Hi all,

Hey, this is a great day for sure. I was calling VK9LA on 40m SSB this morning, starting at about 06:30z....His signal was not that strong here (about S4-S5 max), and with a split up 2 to 5, he was very often overwhelmed by splatters !!!!!!!
That was almost impossible to hear him completely, and nearly abandoned at 07:30z....First time I was hearing Lord Howe, but what a ZOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!  He tried to call by numbers, but everybody was still calling.So I saifd to myself that because this is the first time he goes on 40m SSB, ans as a little pistol, that was normal not to get him on this very first day

After a coffee, and I don't know why, I decided to come back at about 08:00z...His signal was even weaker (S3 max), but there were only a very few Europeans calling him 3KHz up (mainly EA's....). The propagation on the long Path was over for the rest of Europe, that was my chance !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I gave a few calls, and heard "the French station, again ?".. i very quickly turned my VFO to hear iof another French was calling, nothing heard, so I jumped into the mike and gave my call a couple of times. Then I heard "OK, got it, F8AFC you are 5/9, tnx"..And that was it  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I feel very lucky to live in the Western part of EU when this kind of LP propagation happens. Main difficulty is to wait for the propagation to decrease for the rest of the EU, and praying that it remains open for me, even more than 1 hour after my sunrise !!!!!!!

But hey, an ALL TIME NEW ONE, YES ! Lord Howe is ranked at position 23 for Europe, that's great !!!!!!!

Look for him ont he other bands now ! (as well as on the online log...just in case)

Ronan