In Slovenia on the 40m inverted V dipole antenna I made today!

I think I like making antennas.

Woot!

It gets addictive very quickly.

(both making antennas and making DX contacts)

[feelsgoodman]
My end fed with 50:1 transformer and 70 something' of wire....
Slapped 100' of 8x on it and about 10 turns coiled up as a choke in the middle of it.
First contact was was a rtty contact to a french station running a prefix of HR5 on 20m. Got a 599 from him with 10 watts going out. (I was dialing in the signalink while doing this.)
Followed up that with a 30m JT-65 to UT on that same 10 watts. got a -1 on him.

Pretty good weekend here. Building antennas (that work*) is fun!



(*) Full disclosure. This is the second time I tried this antenna. First one I screwed up the transformer somehow, so I went heavier toroid and killed off the idea of 9:1 for a recommended 50:1. same box, same amount of antenna wire.

Congrats!
40 meters has been in great shape lately. Lots of DX stations (both SSB and CW), especially late at night. BTW, it is wide open right now (9:38 EST, 2:38 GMT)
20 meters has been wide open this morning into Europe and Asia. I had a pile up going for over an hour and made over 80 DX contacts. Nothing rare but still nice for a change.

Good for you, OP!  There's an extra good feeling that comes by doing it with something you made yourself.

Nighttime skip on 40 Meters can be awesome. I enjoy doing it running QRP CW, but once the thunderboomers start rolling around, the QRN masks weak signals.

Good going.

I saw some Slovenia people on JT65 today but they never came back to me.  I did get an Italy on 40m JT65.  Tried to get an Azores and Guernsey but no dice.

I got a Venezuela on SSB phone today on 17m  - he was working a number of stations.  Like yours, it was my first *TRUE* DX phone contact.  I don't count Canada a.k.a the Northern States of America.  I've been getting great results with 17 and 15 lately.

It's a particular challenge for me to get DX working from the middle of the USA with a 13' vertical whip surrounded by metal buildings in an industrial park but it's still fun.  Someday I'll find somewhere to put a long wire!

How high is your wire?
>OP, Congrats.

Congrats! its a disease i think.  
If you haven't, get yourself an antenna analyzer, then you can go all mad scientist.  
It's amazing how far off even a simple dipole length can be from the formula, depending on the conditions.
Have fun.

Very cool.  One was all it took to hook me.

Its about 25' at feed point with a slight slope to 18-20' at the end.