My First QSO

All the pieces aree in place. The attic dipole. The rig with the appropriate modules. The power supply. The blank logbook. And butterflies in my stomach! Now for the moment of truth...would my signal be heard??? Tuning around 20m, I hear many calls of "CQ Contest, CQ Contest..." I listen for a while to get a feel for how a typical QSOs play out.

Eventually I settle on N2BJ, and when I feel the timing is right I pressed the transmit button. "Alpha Bravo One Hotel Juliett." When I stop and listen, I hear N2BJ respond to another station. I try again...and again. I'm starting to wonder if maybe I have a problem with my station. And then it happens...the response is to me, AB1HJ and I'm getting a 59. I give a 59 as well (from what I can tell so far, it sounds like the standard signal report among contestors!) followed by a quick 73 and my call. The QSO is over almost before it started...but still, I am now officially on the air!

I didn't send out a QSL card for this (and other quick contest contacts) for quite a while, but once I had settled into the routing of QSO followed by QSL card, I decided to go back and send QSL cards (and SASEs) for all the QSOs that I had skipped. When it finally arrived, I was delighted when I realized that I now had confimation of my very first QSO! And here it is...