I have been trying for the past several months to work Vietnam. For some reason it has been alluding me. The signal strength of the Vietnamese stations I have heard have typically been barely above the noise level. Yesterday, I saw that someone had worked 3W1T on long-path on 10 meters. I tuned to his frequency and rotated my 8 element log period to the South and was amazed to hear 3W1T’s S9 signal. I tuned across the pile up until I found the station he was currently working. Fortunately, he was having great difficulty getting the correct call of the station so they went back and fourth several times before they completed the QSO. I tuned about 500 Hz above that stations transmit frequency and gave a call after 3W1T thanked the other station.
He picked me up on the first try, but we also went back and forth a couple of times before he got my call correct. What a nice feeling to hear your call from a rare (to me) DX station! The next step will be to get a card. Hopefully, this will be pretty straight forward since he has a QSL Manager.
Now it is on to the next ATNO (All Time New One). The one advantage of not having worked the entire DXCC list is that I still have 60 or so DXCC entities to still work. I am not a rabid DXer, but I do enjoy working new entities as they come along.
73,
Fred, KC9QQ