Remote Operation on 40m and 80m is a Joy.

I have always lived in locations where antennas of height were not possible as I live in a small townhouse complex in California.

Most of my operation has been with a 100W old AEA ISO-Loop antenna. For a short time I had a Butternut HF6V vertical, and now I have a Buddipole dipole at 14 feet. I have never used more than 100W. In addition my QTH has a very high noise level. The 80 m band is unusable. The 40 m band will be OK for WAS but additional DXCC countries are hard.

I have over 250 DXCC countries from my modest home QTH, but I knew 80m DXCC was never going to happen and that the 40m DXCC (40 more countries needed) was only a hope or a task that would take longer than my expected life time!!

I thought I would try a remote operation that had a better antenna. For cost reasons I chose a 100W site with fixed wire antennas. I would have preferred one located in California near my home in Silicon Valley, but that wasn't as inexpensive as I needed. I did locate one in CT so I gave it a try (www.remotehamradio.com,  OCF dipoles at 100 feet and a 100W rig).

Never having an antenna that was high up and in an RFI free location,I was amazed at how many signals I could hear, and work, on all bands compared to my home QTH or from a low noise local park location. I was truly amazed.

I am convinced that a good antenna is better than a lot of power.

I started looking for what for most hams with good antennas would consider "easy" DXCC countries on 40/80m but that had eluded me for over 40 years. Obviously this would help with the 50 additional QSLs needed for the ARRL Challenge Award. I was lucky to also get an ATNO, Western Sahara in the process. DXCC for 40m is insight and 80m DXCC is surely a reasonable goal with remote operation.

Results so far have been very satisfying:

Remote Ops (Around New Years 2018, about 5 days)
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Azores 40m
Baleric Isl 40m
Bulgaria 40m
Canary Isl 40m
Croatia 80m
Czeck Rep 40m, 80m
England 80m
Estonia 80m
Eur Russia 40m
France 40m
Germany 40m, 80m`
Greece 40m
Hungary 80m
Hungary 80m
Italy 40m
Maderia 40m
Portugal 40m
Puerto Rico 40m
Romania 80m
Serbia 40m
Ukraine 40m