46 and counting…

I spent a few hours in total on 40/20/15m giving away a few points and logging about 60 contacts in total. I wasn’t trying to rack up a score and on that basis there were many stations I might have worked that I chose not to call, passing up the more common entities and tuning the bands looking for stations located in more remote or less common entities.

The highlight was the previously mentioned (see previous blog entry) VP2MNK in Montserrat (on 20m) for an all time new one. In addition I worked another 26 countries (24 on 40m, 8 on 20m and just the USA on 15m) including Austria, Belarus, Canada, the Canary Islands, Corsica, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Morocco, Serbia and Slovenia.

Dean Amateur Radio contest, RTTY, WAE

The sun is showing signs of life. Over the weekend, sunspot 1029 emerged and it is crackling with B and C class solar flares.

The sunspot’s magnetic polarity identifies it as a member of new Solar Cycle 24. If it continues to grow at this rate, sunspot 1029 could soon become the biggest sunspot of 2009.

This and more at SpaceWeather.com.

Dean Amateur Radio, Totally random contest, propagation, Solar Cycle 24, sunspot

A chance to try and work a few new ones. Unfortunately I only heard one station that would have been a new one for me, ST2KSS in Sudan on 15m, a band on which my antenna doesn’t work particularly well. I tried to call him many times but he had lots of loud stations calling him whenever I could hear him (and he was never more than strength 7 with me) so no QSO resulted.

Over the two days (in what amounted to about 2 hours operating) and making only selective calls I logged 35 stations (40m=17 20m=9 15m=8 10m=1) in 32 different countries - they were:-

Aland Islands, Balearic Islands, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, European Russia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jersey, Kaliningrad, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Madeira Island, Morocco, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, Ukraine, USA and Wales.

Not a bad little haul but no new ones. I’ll hope for better luck and better propagation for the CW contest at the end of November!

Dean Amateur Radio antenna, contest, CW, propagation, SSB

Small but significant, sunspot 1028 of cycle 24 is barely visible in the upper left quadrant of the solar disk but this is the sunspot that has broken a run of 18 consecutive days without any sunspots.

Now if only there could be a few more sunspots emerge over the next few days in the run up to the 2009 CQ World Wide DX SSB contest this weekend…

Dean Amateur Radio, Totally random contest, propagation, Solar Cycle 24, sunspot

…this time from a new country for me, Bermuda. This is for a CW (morse code) contact with Yuri (as VE3DZ/VP9) in the CQWW WPX CW contest back in May.

The colourful VE3DZ/VP9 QSL card

Here you can see the nice colourful card showing a nice view of the island basking in the sun. I sent my card direct to Yuri’s postal address (a PO box) in the USA soon after the contest in May so by my reckoning it’s taken about 4 months for the return card to reach me. That’s pretty good. I send many direct QSL cards, usually to stations that either don’t have a bureau facility or choose not to QSL via a bureau. It can take years to get a reply and anything within 6 months is pretty good!

Dean Amateur Radio, Pictures Bermuda, contest, CW, morse code, QSL, WPX

Well it came and went and I dipped my toes in the furious contest waters but nothing new or exciting for me this time. Over a total of about 2 hours operating in 4 sessions I worked some 40 stations in 21 different countries - Armenia, Canada, Croatia, Czech Rep, Denmark, Estonia, European Russia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Morocco, Serbia, Slovak Rep, Slovenia, Ukraine and USA.

What I did notice was that conditions on both 20m and 40m were much improved over my recent excursions to those bands - most stations were worked after just one call, although I was selective in just which stations I worked.

Sadly the few expected rare ones either weren’t active over the weekend or were just not heard at my location. That said I enjoyed getting back on the bands and I’m happy with my little haul and even more so with the improved band conditions.

Dean Amateur Radio 20m, 40m, contest, propagation, RTTY

Yes folks, it’s coming soon, on the weekend of the 26th and 27th of September 2009, the CQ WW DX RTTY contest - one of the biggest RTTY events in the amateur radio calendar.

As usual there are plenty of dxpeditions or dedicated contest operations to coincide with this event. Of note for me are 3A/HA3JB in Monaco (I still need a QSL card from Monaco even though I worked it many years ago) and ZF2SX on the Cayman Islands, which would be a new one for me.

Add to this the usual crop of less common countries that can be heard during a major contest and it could be an interesting weekend…if I get on the air. I’ll hope for a few hours here and there even if only to try and snag those mentioned above. Fingers crossed the bands are in good shape for this one!

Dean Amateur Radio contest, propagation, RTTY

I’m not a serious contester but I do enjoy taking advantage of high levels of activity on the bands during contests to check conditions, see how well my antenna is performing, work a few stations and hopefully log a few new ones. To those ends I spent a few hours at the radio over this past weekend during the Worked All Europe (WAE) CW contest. For those who don’t know, this is a contest where Europe works the world and the world works Europe - this means that as a European station I could only work stations outside Europe.

My operating was split over both Saturday and Sunday and my first thoughts on Saturday were that conditions were really not very good. Few stations were heard outside Europe in countries other than USA, Canada and Asiatic Russia, three countries with a high number of high power stations with good antennas. It was much the same on Sunday although it did seem to me that conditions were slightly better than Saturday.

Over the two days of the contest more than two thirds of stations I worked were from either the USA or Canada, several were from Asiatic Russia and I worked 2 stations from each of Cyprus and Uruguay. I also worked a single station in each of Georgia and Kazakhstan.

Stations heard but not worked were from Japan (several), China (2), Brazil (4), Argentina and Cuba (1 each) - of these China would have been a new one for me but despite calling one particularly loud station on Saturday for several minutes he just wasn’t hearing me. This was probably due to the fact I could only hear him because he was running high power into a decent antenna and my antenna wasn’t radiating my 80 watts of CW very well. Oh…and of course the conditions weren’t great!

All in all it was quite a disappointing event due to the lack of variety in DX stations heard and worked. Conditions weren’t great and it was hard work getting through to many stations with my modest power output and compromise antenna. Sun spot cycle 24 - where are you?

Dean Amateur Radio antenna, contest, CW, propagation, Solar Cycle 24, sun spot, WAE

Mindful of being out for much of the day it was an early start for day 2 of my contest effort. They say that the early bird catches the worm and it was oh so true on this occasion when I snagged KL7RA in Alaska for another all time new one at 06:33 UTC followed by KH6MB in Hawaii a few minutes later.

I managed about 4 hours in total, on and off through the day, finally shutting down around 21:30 UTC mindful of work the next morning. In total over the two days I logged 122 contacts in 52 countries with 3 all time new ones and 1 new US state (Idaho), not bad for a seriously compromised antenna and no more than 75 watts output.

the 52 countries worked - CQWW WPX (CW) 2009

Dean Amateur Radio contest, CW, morse code, WPX

Clear blue skies & soaring temperatures outside but I managed several hours on 20m with brief excursions to 15 and 40m. I managed to work 2 all time new ones in the form of A62A (UAE) and VE3DZ/VP9 (Bermuda) and the overall QSO/country count for my modest first day effort was 91 contacts in 43 different countries.

Day two is now well underway but as it’s another beautiful day we’re off visiting family for a BBQ so not sure at this stage if I’ll add to my day 1 numbers. Even so, I’m very pleased with the haul so far especially after a little antenna surgery immediately prior to the contest…of which more in a later post.

Dean Amateur Radio, Blog BBQ, contest, morse code, WPX