Wallis & Futuna
“Who?!” you ask.
“Wallis and Futuna.”
“… Weren’t they the neighbors that had that incident when someone ate a funny whelk?”
“Erm … no.”
Wallis & Futuna is a set of islands in the deep pacific, about half-way between Fiji and Samoa. The only reason I know this is because my obsessed friend, KE7JSM, called me about 22.30h t’other night; the conversation might have been something like …
“Wallis & Futuna on 20 right now!”
“You don’t say.”
“Get on 20. Wallis and Futuna is on. Right now.”
“And what are they doing there?”
“Not who; it’s a where.”
“Well, where is that?”
“I don’t know, but they’re on 20!”
Thus I can well imagine your confusion. Anyway, there was the nice Young Lady named Jan on 20-meters, having a quick chat with anyone who would chat, then she got down to business and worked as many stations as she could get while the band held.
I calculated from Wallis Island (Wikipedia has a nice map), where Jan said she was operating from, to my home QTH in UT: just over 5500 (statute) miles. She gave my 100W a generous 59, and I gave her 75W a 57 — completely subjective, because she was hardly moving the S-meter, but she was very easy to understand above the static and noise.
All that with the poor, droopy 80m horizontal loop that I’m replacing. Now I really wish I’d gotten that G5RV finished, so I could have done some A/B comparisons. Oh well. The price of procrastination.
At least I got the Q. 
Tags: 80-m loop, dxing, iota, notable qso