Pile Up Busters

This post is dedicated to all the XYLs out there. We were discussing this last night during a local rag chew session on one of the local repeaters here in town. It seems the YLs have a distinct advantage over us Old men when it comes to the HF bands. Case in point was last night. We were over at Dad's house (KU4ME) playing on 20 meters and I happened upon a station from Italy. Well I tried to make contact a couple times without the amp to no avail. So then we tuned up the amp and was putting out a solid 500 watts. So I tried a couple of more times still with no luck. That's when my XYL (AJ4IJ) said let me try him. Sure enough she threw her call out there and he picked her out the very first time. She finished the contact and handed the mic over to me and I immediately made contact.
I've often thought when I throw my call out to make contact, I she increase the pitch of my voice to see what happens. However, I don't think it would be quite right. But to the YL's out there, and I'm sure I speak for all the old men out there whose XYLs are also HAMs, thank you for helping us realize we are indeed getting out to those distant stations.

By the way, the Italian station was IK4HLQ, Joe in Modena, Italy.

Well that's all I have for now. I'm still waiting on dad to send us the pics of Ashby (KJ4EGJ), who by the way is an official General Class now, operating at his station this weekend. Once I get them I'll post them up.

Until the 73 de AJ4JD.
Tim