DX'ing from North Carolina
by Herb Rode, KE7PB and XYL Bonnie W7BON

It all started with an ad in the October 1995 issue of QST: "Beautiful beach cottage with ham radio facilities on Pamlico Sound." Three months later and 3,000 miles from home, we arrived at Ocracoke Island, North Carolina. That's NA-067 for you IOTA fans. Pronounce the name OAK-RA-COKE, not 'OPE-YOU-CHOKE.

Freezing temperatures and broken water pipes made the cottage we had rented uninhabitable. The real estate agent solved the problem by handing us keys for adjoining houses. We'd live in one house, set up and operate KE7PB from the other.

The station equipment included a Kenwood TS-850 and an Astron RS-35 power supply (my equipment). The antenna was a GAP Challenger vertical with an extensive ground system "built in". My interest was to try DX to Europe, South America, and Africa on 75/80 meters. I was moderately successful, but operating with a vertical antenna and no amplifier, I was another "little pistol" competing with the "big guns" on the East coast. I did, however, get a few "new ones" in Europe.

Had better luck on 20 meters, even made it back home. Worked John, NL7TB, in Benton City and put NC-001-S in the record book for the U.S. Islands program. That contact created a mini-pileup as other island hunters joined in to work Ocracoke.

We took in the nearby sights to keep the XYL happy. Worthwhile stops include the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, the Wright Brothers Memorial, and the Lost Colony on Roanoke Island.

Ocracoke's claim to fame is that Lieutenant Robert Maynard of the English Navy captured and beheaded Captain Edward Teach, alias Blackbeard the Pirate, in the Ocracoke harbor in 1718. The locals, mostly Howards, O'Neills, and Gaskills, who are ancestors of Blackbeard's crew, claim his headless ghost still haunts the harbor today.

Would we do it again? You bet! Next time with a better antenna and an amplifier, we'll DX with the best of them.

Reprinted from the March 1997 issue of the TCARC Times