A new set of firsts.

Yesterday I finally got around to my first HF QSO. Peter VK3ZPF was doing a park activation in Bunyip State Park. I heard him on 40m and he was pretty busy, so I hung around. Then he moved to 80m. I moved across, and could bearly make him out for a few minutes. He had some calls, and the fade was unnerving. Still, he called CQ again, so I responded. I managed to grab him while he was 5/9, and he reported me as the same. The fade then came back so I gave him a 73. Another one for his log book. The start of mine on SSB. Later in the evening on 40m, 7.145 to be precise at 19:30, I'm listening to the widest net I've ever heard. Various VKs - including VK5s (who I rarely hear), K6MIC, W4KR, and a ZL. This using the flag dipole that a couple of days ago surprised me by picking up VK2s. Over at 7.150, another cross pond ragchew going on - this one to Canada. Maybe all this work is starting to yield results afterall. I didn't actually expect to be hearing as far away as South Carolina USA on the dipole, so definitely happy with that. The next trick would be to see if I could actually get that far at 10w. Don't like my chances around a whole lot of advanced calls pushing a lot more power over the pond to get a word in, but maybe soon.