Evening Pile-up

Tune around the ham bands and sometimes you will hear dozens of chirpings slightly out-of-tune from one another, some loud, some barely audible, sounding all the world like a large flock of colonial seabirds trying to attract a mate. In fact, they are trying to get the attention of a ham operator who has gone to some forlorn corner of the world and is transmitting from there. (Like birders, many ham operators are listers — what they list are the geographic entities they have made contact with.)

I heard such a colonial din this evening low on the 80 meter band. I looked up online what was attracting their attention. Appropriately enough, they were trying to contact an expedition in the Caribbean to Aves Island.