03/09/2017z
Tonight I got home from work before 7PM!  It is nice to get home before the start of a new Zulu day.  I was able to get the shack warming up and the SW40+ going before supper.  It was grilled cheese and tomato soup.  I asked if the mail was gotten out of the box yet.  "Yep". So I asked... "did I get any cards?"  "Nope" was the answer....
Oh well... After supper I went to the shack and started listening.  I certainly have better luck answering a call than calling myself it seems.  I heard a very weak station calling CQ and it was surrounded by strong stations all around.  I gave him a call and he heard me.  It is hard to hold the frequency at 1.5 watts so I get anxious to get the RST exchanged so I can log them.  We just got past that and then the strong stations moved in closer and louder.  We had exchanged both 559 RST.  It was Joe W3TTT in Baltimore, MD.  A new state!  Since the QSO was so short Joe sent me an email.  He was also using a SW40+!   The second station to be using a SW40+ I've heard since starting my WAS & daily QSO's.  I thought once was amazing but twice???  Are there more SW40+ radios on the air than I thought?
My second QSO was more solid but also short to W2KS/Ken in NY.  He was looking for SKCC numbers.  I got a RST of 589 and Ken was 599.

Some developing news for me is that I am getting a Oak Hills Research OHR400.  I have been looking for a OHR 400 or 500 for quite awhile.  WB1HGA found out about the WAS challenge between Brian KB9BVN and myself and he got in contact with Brian.  They worked out a SKED and Brian also found out that Ron had purchased his OHR400 from Brian years ago.  As it happens Ron is downsizing his the amount of radios he has and I got the opportunity to buy it.  I really couldn't pass up getting the same radio Brian once owned.  I'm very excited how this has worked out.  I can't imagine how this could have happened if we had not started the WAS challenge.  It is CRAZY how things happen.  We will also have Ron joining us with the challenge with his Heathkit HW-9.  It will be great having another QRP station joining us!  So, I am up to 18 states with the SW40+.  However, I will likely start over with the OHR.  Brian has over 20 states in the log but I should be able to recover.  We have only been going for about a month so far.  This is a marathon, not a sprint.