Japan... The long way.

When it comes to making an amateur radio contact, there are generally two ways the signal can bounce off the ionosphere: the long path and the short path.

I was tuning around the 40-meter band recently and heard a few stations working an operator in Japan.

With my antenna, on a good—well, even decent—day, I can work most of the US, some of South America, and usually have no problem with Northern Africa, the Middle East, and Europe/Russia. When it comes to voice contacts, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia have always eluded me. Until now...

I looked at the cluster and saw JH7MQD calling on a frequency. I tuned to it, and I couldn't believe my ears—I could hear him. I gave my call, and he came back to me. We completed the QSO, and I emailed him to see what I needed to do to get a QSL card. All that work to get my Extra and get access to the overlap portion of 40, and I found him in the General portion!

I thought for sure this was just a coincidence until last night around the same time, 1700 EST, there he was again... Calling CQ. The Japanese stations were working the long path to the US. I called JH7MQD "Aki," and he came back to me as clear as could be. I wished him a Happy New Year and cleared the frequency so other operators could work him.

It truly amazes me that my signal from CT on a 14ga piece of THHN made it all the way down the US, across South America, over Antarctica, up across Australia, and into Japan! You really can work the world with 100 Watts and a wire. It helps that Aki and a lot of DX stations are using directional antennas and amplifiers. It makes it easier for them to hear me and for me to hear them. But hey, I'm not complaining. Now to hope my QSL card makes it to him and his gets here in one piece.