Didn't Make the Contact - Still Learned Something

I have always been of the opinion that if you go to bed a little smarter than when you woke up that the day was a success.  This hobby tends to do that for me on a regular basis.  Last night as I was spinning the dial listening the the very dead bands I heard that wonderful sound of "QRL?".  You know someone is about to call CQ and maybe you are the only one listening at that moment to attempt the contact.  I say "attempt" because we all know there are no sure things in QRP.  Anyway, I'm listening to the signal and it was pretty strong and then I heard a call sign I did not recognise.  I didn't have time to look it up as I wanted to be the first one on this station.  I threw my call out at what I call full QRO (5w) but I was not heard.  I tried again but was unsuccessful.  Moments later the pileup started and I knew my chances were done.  I then opened the QRZ page and entered in the call sign S01WS.  I had never heard of a country called Western Sahara but here was a club call from there.  The Sahrawi Amateur Radio Union - Club Station in Tifariti has over 200,000 lookups so I'm sure most reading this will be familiar with that station but it was new to me.  Then, of course, I had to look up this unfamiliar country to find that it is not a country at all but instead is the subject of a decades-long dispute between Morocco and Algeria.  This was news to me and a few other people I spoke with.  I love learning this sort of thing and Amateur Radio brings me many of these.  I think that is one of the reasons I like this hobby so much.  Here is a link to a profile of Western Sahara in case you are as curious as I was.

Although I didn't get the QSO, I did go to bed smarter than when I woke up and that's good enough for me...until next time, that is.

#hamradio #amateurradio #qrp #CW