3B8MM, close…but no cigar.
I fired up the rig on 40m last night, around 9:40pm local time, just to see what was around. I tuned slowly up the band and eventually found a bit of a pile-up between 2 and 3 kHz up from 7.008MHz where I heard 3B8MM (on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean).
I listened for a while and 3B8MM was peaking about S5 with me and dipping down to S0 so not the best of chances of a QSO. Undeterred I decided to send my call a few times whenever his signal peaked. He was moving around a bit in terms of where he was listening, variously stating either 2 or 3 up as one or the other became too crowded.
Around 10:30pm I though I had him when he came back (in what felt like a response to my call in terms of timing) with a G0? to which I replied with my call again, hoping to hear him come back with G0RIF 599…but no, nothing. I listened but heard nothing. I sent my call again but I reckon he’d moved on because he was soon calling CQ again and working another station. I stayed on frequency for another 10 or 15 minutes but he was fading so I decided it was a fight best left for another day.
Close (or so it felt), but no cigar. Some you win, some you lose. C’est la vie!