This past weekend saw the annual Worked All Europe (WAE) DX CW contest take to the bands. I was hopeful of snagging a new one or two in the course of giving away a few points over the two days on the contest.
My operating was very much on an ad hoc basis and amounted to around 4 hours spent tuning around 40, 20 and 15m in search and pounce mode.
Conditions weren’t great and no new ones were worked. The closest I came to a new one was when finding a Chinese station under a mini pile-up on 20m on Saturday morning. He was weak and I was only running 25 watts but I spent a while trying for a contact with no success. Mindful of limited time on the bands I soon tuned away to see what else was about.
Highlights of the contest for me were 5K1R (Colombia) on 15m and 20m and A65BD (United Arab Emirates) on 20m. I already have both of these countries worked but I need QSL cards for both. As both stations have European QSL managers I’m optimistic of getting cards for both this time. Interestingly A65BD is already confirmed on LoTW as I type, only 7 hours after the competition closed!
Dean Amateur Radio 5K1R, A65BD, CW, LoTW, WAE
Or so the saying goes…and if that star is a shooting star, and you have a wish to make, then now is the time to get outside and look to the heavens because the Perseid Meteor Shower is upon us.
In the northern hemisphere you’re very likely to see at least one shooting star if you have a nice clear sky. According to Nasa, the shower could produce a display of up to 80 meteors per hour!
Best advice says you should find a spot well away from local light sources as this significantly affects your ability to see the fainter shooting stars but worry not if you can’t do that. In the space of about 20 minutes last night, just stood outside the back door of the house with lots of local light pollution, I saw two lovely bright shooting stars streaking off to the south-west.
I’ll be out again tonight, weather and cloud cover permitting, in the hope of seeing some more. Try it yourself…and maybe make a wish. You never know what might happen.
Dean Totally random meteor, Perseid
One mans DX is another mans chip-shot. Your equipment, conditions, the frequency in use and any number of other factors all contribute to making certain contacts worthy of the term ‘DX’.
Case in point my attempt at a 2m SSB contact with Simon (2E0HTS) some 87 miles north of me. How hard could it be? After all, I’m a HF DX’er and I regularly work stations thousands of miles away. This should be easy, right? Wrong!
I embarked on this little exercise because I’m interested in working a bit of 2m SSB up into Burton-on-Trent where I’m getting to know a few of the locals through the Burton Amateur Radio Club. To that end Simon and I arranged a sked (a pre-arranged contact for all you non-hams out there) to see if we could establish a contact on 2m SSB.
We agreed that he would call me as he was likely to have the ‘bigger’ signal (50 watts into a homebrew IO loop beam he uses for working amateur satellites with great success). I waited and listened…and waited…and waited. At times I could tell he was there, down in the noise, but it just wasn’t readable at all. If I wasn’t hearing his 50 watts he was never going to hear my puny 8 watts into a simple 3 element beam!
We gave it our best shot but it wasn’t to be. We moved to 80m and had a quick chat (which was nice…thanks Simon!) and I’ll look forward to chatting with him again soon. For now though it seems that 87 miles on 2m, for us at least, was ‘DX too far’. I’m certainly gaining a new found respect for all the VHF/UHF (and beyond) DX’ers out there. I’ve also learned that DX need not be the other side of the world. Sometimes it isn’t even the other side of the country! It’s all relative.
Dean Amateur Radio 2E0HTS, antenna, DX, G0RIF, SSB
I recently found an interesting article over at eham.net (which if you don’t know of it is well worth a visit) by Reg Beck (VE7IG). It’s all about sending and receiving QSL cards and can be found by following this link - QSLing, Reg Beck, VE7IG.
Reg discusses not only the means by which QSL cards are exchanged but also the ethics of choosing not to QSL (either as a conscious policy decision or through just not getting around to it).
I’d recommend checking it out because it’s a well written piece and maybe you’ll also agree with Reg, as I do, when he says “If you take time from your busy schedule to operate, save some of it for QSLing.”
Dean Amateur Radio bureau, buro, QSL, VE7IG