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There’s something surreal about waking up at 5 a.m., tuning your radio, and hearing a station from the other side of the world calling CQ. That’s exactly how my morning started—and just a few minutes later, I had my longest QSO to date.
This morning, I made contact with VK5LA in Australia on 30 meters using FT8. The distance? A jaw-dropping 10,526.9 miles from my home QTH in New York. It was my first confirmed contact breaking the 10,000-mile mark—and I did it with just 20 watts and my Wolf River Coils vertical antenna.
What made this contact even more exciting is that I specifically woke up early in hopes of working a VK station. I wasn’t even sure I’d be heard that far out with just 20W on my Xiegu G90, but within a few CQ calls, VK5LA popped up in my log—strong, clean, and right on frequency. Signal reports were -14 both ways, which just goes to show how incredible FT8 can be under the right conditions.
I’ve made over 250 DX contacts since I started on FT8 this week, but nothing has come close to this kind of distance. For comparison, my previous longest QSO was with a station in European Russia at about 5,300 miles. This doubled that!
It’s so cool to see how far your signal can get with just 20W, an antenna setup in your backyard, and the motivation to wake up at 5am to make it happen. I am loving my time on the air so far, and I cannot wait to see what comes next in my log!
73 and see you on the air,
Daniel – W2DIY
