First things first - I’m not by nature an award chaser. However, entry to the DX Century Club (DXCC) is something I’ve had in mind ever since I was first licensed. It’s the award that most hams will identify with as being the one to work toward.
There are various DXCC awards for the common modes of operation and for stations contacted on any of the individual amateur bands but the most basic of all is the ‘mixed’ award for confirmed contacts with 100 stations across all bands and all modes.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, a few days ago I applied for the DXCC mixed award and the DXCC 20m award…through the ARRL Logbook of The World. I’ve been a LoTW user for about 4 years now and I used only LoTW confirmations when applying for the awards. This is a lot easier than submitting precious QSL cards for checking. Payment is all done online and I hope to receive the certificates before too long.
All being well I’ll soon be in a position to apply for my DXCC RTTY (currently 84 confirmed on LoTW) but beyond that I need to work hard at increasing my CW and SSB totals (currently 80 and 65 respectively). Time to hit the bands and make some contacts! CQ de G0RIF…
Dean Amateur Radio ARRL, CW, DXCC, LoTW, QSL, RTTY, SSB
I’ve seen some reports recently from amateur radio operators around the world that band conditions are improving. Certainly on the higher frequency bands (20m and up) there seems to be some excitement as more DX is worked when this just wasn’t possible in 2009.
Spaceweather.com seems to bear this out. The calculated sunspot number is currently 40 which is as high as I’ve seen it in a long time. Bear in mind that this is about 15 times more than the number of actual visible sunspots (which today stands at three, sunspots 1051, 1052 and 1053). The data also shows that 2010 so far has only 3% spotless days versus 2009 which had over 70% of days with no sunspots.
It does very much look like propagation and band conditions are slowly climbing out of the doldrums as cycle 24 picks up.
Dean Amateur Radio, Totally random propagation, Solar Cycle 24, sunspots
Construction of two prototypes began in February 1965: 001, built by Aerospatiale at Toulouse, and 002, by BAC at Filton, Bristol. Concorde 001 made its first test flight from Toulouse on this day in 1969 piloted by Andre Turcat and first went supersonic on 1 October. The first UK-built Concorde flew from Filton to RAF Fairford on 9 April 1969 piloted by Brian Trubshaw.
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Orders were received for over 70 aircraft but a combination of factors led to some cancellations - the 1973 oil crisis, financial difficulties of airlines, a crash of the competing Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 at a Paris air show, and environmental concerns such as the sonic boom, noise and pollution. Eventually only 20 aircraft were built of which 14 entered airline service.
Although familiar in British Airways and Air France colours in 1977 Concorde G-BOAD was painted in Singapore Airlines livery (on the port side only) for services between London and Singapore.
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Concorde in Singapore Airlines livery
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Concorde flew regular transatlantic flights from London Heathrow (British Airways) and Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (Air France) to New York JFK and Washington Dulles, flying these routes at record speeds in less than half the time of other airliners.
The fastest transatlantic flight was from London Heathrow to New York JFK on 7 February 1996 by British Airways’ G-BOAD in 2 hours, 52 minutes, 59 seconds from takeoff to touchdown.
Thirty-seven years after her first test flight, Concorde was announced the winner of the Great British Design Quest organised by the BBC and the Design Museum. A total of 212,000 votes were cast with Concorde beating design icons such as the Mini, mini skirt, Jaguar E-type, Tube map and the Supermarine Spitfire.
I was fortunate enough to see Concorde fly on several occasions and I consider it unlikely there will be anything to replace her in my lifetime. As someone said on the final aircraft being withdrawn from service, “today the world has become a bigger place”. She is and will be sadly missed by many.
Dean Blog, Pictures, Totally random Concorde, history, maiden flight