Around 5:30 pm Thursday November 29th, Randy was on the ham radio, finishing up with the nightly role call on the pacific seafarers net. This amateur radio net caters to boats cruising near the Big Island or underway in the Pacific Ocean. Wile making the final call for vessels to join the role call he received a radio contact from a call sign that was very unfamiliar.
The call sign, XU7ACQ, belongs to operator John transmitting from his station in Cambodia. Although the distance between his QTH (location) and our bed and breakfast in Hawaii (we’re located between Kona and Hilo) is not the furthest distance, the excitement was that John is only one of two permanent ham radio stations in Cambodia. The other station is only involved with Digital operations.
John visits his family in Cambodia annually and has a permanent ham radio station set up for his 5 week stays. He has been having these extended reunions with his family for the past 5 years. While there he is trying to get an award for working all US states from his Cambodia station.
In all those years he had not previously made a contact in the Hawaiian Islands. Randy was happy to be his first Hawaii station, from the Leilani Bed & Breakfast DMX radio lab (a feature we offer to our bed and breakfast guests).
John and Randy had an "armchair quality chat” for over an hour during which time Randy called a couple of other HAMS on the Big Island to make contact with John.
While they were on the air we were joined by other stations in Guam, Tasmania, and later South Africa.
DXing from PARADISE can be interesting and a good test of radio equipment and antennas.
Considering this is the lowest cycle of propagation for "bouncing radio signals around the world"
in many years, it just goes with the saying that at Leilani Bed and Breakfast…
****BIG ISLAND = BIG SIGNAL****
Aloha, Randy & Lynn
3 comments:
Interesting to know.
Being ham radio hobbists, we read about this Bed & Breakfast Inn with an attached ham station in QST magazine and thought this might be a location we might enjoy; much different from the usual B&B's.
In February 2010, we stayed at Leilani Bed & Breakfast and thoroughly enjoyed our time there.
The room was very clean, quiet and quite comfortable. We had our own private bath adjoining an area to visit, read or just relax. The Inn even has free Wi-Fi connection so we could catch up on our emails from home.
Randy and Lynn were wonderful hosts. Each morning we enjoyed fresh fruits from the area and Hawaiian coffee in addition to the other breakfast items.
As ham radio operators, Randy made the ham-shack available to us. I was able to contact stations in Japan, Austrailia, New Zealand, several South Pacific islands and even the US and Africa continent from their location on the Big Island. We are recommending this location to our ham friends who might be looking for a getaway vacation which will let them operate from Hawaii. Randy has all the latest equipment as well as a collection of old microphones which is most interesting. Their location is excellent for ham operators as there is very little extraneous noise to block the signal plus being near the salt-water ocean makes Interantional radio contacts easy, expecially with his big SteppIR antenna and Icom 756 Pro radio and amplifier.
The Leilani B&B is midway between Kona and Hilo near the southern part of the Big Island and is just a few minutes drive to many local attractions. We found time to visit the Volcano National Park, the Macadamia Nut Factory, and several other places of interest.
If you're looking for a quiet location, I definately recommend The Leilani B&B. Your hosts will make you feel at home and you won't want to leave. (but you eventually have to).
Wayne, AI9Q
Luther, KC7KVL
Randy, hearing your strong signal on 20m this evening drew me to this blog. When we come to HI, I think we'll skip the touristy places and book Leilani B&B so we can see the off-the-beaten-path places on the Big Island. (And maybe work a little DX as a /KH6)
73,
Dave
Post a Comment