Off and on listening today and not much happening other than transports into the three Air Force bases - Andrews, Dover, McGuire. The only real exception was a GATOR 11 single ship F/A-18 flight out of Andrews heading home to Dobbins ARB, GA. GATORs are from VMFA-142. Caught him lifting off Andrews at 1435 with TRACON 257.2. No joy there so he went to Tower on 349.0 and was handed to TRACON freq 343.7 where he did his climbout to 14,000 feet. From there, it was to ZDC-Montebello 284.7 and ZDC-Azalea 263.1 where he got into a chat with the controller and let him know he was a Marine and not bothered by a little weather in his way. That was followed by GATOR 12 off Andrews about 1555 on the same route to Dobbins (KMGE).
The JOSA Common freq 283.75 was busier today than I've ever heard it. Several JOSA flights made use of it to talk/chat/complain about scheduling and weather.
I also happened to run across a BONGO 52 (spelled his callsign) with Andrews on 11175 kHz trying for a phone patch to an 800 number (no answer) and then to a 301 area code in this area. He seemed to be in a great hurry to get off the radio and cut the phone patch and asked Andrews to pass a message for him to his party. I don't have this callsign in my database.
Later heard a CONDOR 01 in a very long conversation with Andrews that was difficult to hear but I gathered he was going to somewhere in South America. Nothing on that callsign either.
Finally, early in 1800 hour and also on 11175, REACH 457 asked Andrews for a phone patch to Wright-Patterson Metro. After it went through, he asked for the weather there at his expected arrival time of 0200Z. After getting the wx, he told the ground controller at KFFO he was going to have to divert to another location. Heard him call back about 15 minutes later but he was so weak by that time that I couldn't copy his message. In the short time I listened in on 11175, I heard calls from Andrews, Offutt, Croughton and Lajes.
Add: Not sure where REACH 457 is going but late in the 2000 hour heard Puerto Rico talking to him on 11175 as REACH 0457 doing another phone patch for him to the 937 area code which is in the Wright Patterson AFB area. Could hear ground but not the aircraft.
I still need a better antenna for HF. That DX-10 active antenna I put up is a disappointment. I'm beginning to suspect I might have a bad coax connector up at the antenna - maybe even a bad antenna - although considering the antenna's construction, there's not much that could go wrong with it. It's this one:
http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/sw_ant/2868.html
I also have this one (the 60 foot version) but haven't installed it yet:
http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/sw_ant/0799.html
