Before Christmas the 17m loop on my quad broke, then the rotator (20+ years old) packed in. Two days ago I lowered the mast and replaced the rotator which cost a fortune to replace and repaired the broken loop.
This afternoon I noted the SFI had risen a bit so decided to try CQing on 18.086 and much to my surprise and delight made a contact with VE3UZ and received a 559-579 report for my 5 Watt signal. Dave, VE3UZ was 579-599 here but he was running 100 Watts.
The transatlantic path above 20m doesn't open often at present, but it is open more often than people realise. I suspect folk scan the band, hear nothing and QSY to a lower band but if they spent a little time putting out calls they might perhaps be surprised.
