Late afternoon I turned on the KX3 and tuned onto 12m. SFI was only 89, A8 and K1 and the band sounded just about dead but I heard KW7D at 569 calling CQ so decided to see what 5 Watts would do though held out little hope. Much to my great surprise he came back and gave me 559.
I could hear little else on the band and decided to QSY to 17m and put out a CQ on 18.086 and after just a couple of minutes was called by QRP Club member YO8RIX Catalin who was running just 500 mW so I reduced power to 500mW too. He was peaking 579 and I was given 559 (off the back of my beam!)
Just goes to show that 'dead' bands can provide nice surprises.
I would have liked to have tried with even lower power but was subjected to some QRM from a 6 year old who had wandered in the shack to talk to grandpa!
