Indigo Foxtrot…

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

Following on from my ST2AR contact on Friday night (all time new one #172) I worked another new one on Sunday evening, this time it was Tajikistan in central Asia worked on 40m CW. Two new ones in three days but two very different situations.

The Republic of Tajikistan in central Asia

Further to my previous comments about pile-ups - this was very much the calling until blue in the face type scenario rather than the ‘getting lucky’ type scenario (see below, ST2AR recently worked). Ken (K4ZW) is in Tajikistan for a little over two weeks and operations commenced on the 27th so it’s no real surprise that the pile-up was pretty intense last night (it being Day 1 of Ken’s operations as EY8/K4ZW). Signals were up and down but he was peaking over S9 with me and working stations at a good rate at the bottom end of 40m, listening 1-2KHz up (more at times if you believe some of the DX cluster spots - pinch of salt works for me).

Having listened up the band to see where other stations were calling I found what seemed to be a relatively quiet spot and started calling, commencing about 22:20 UTC. Ken had a good rhythm and he did seem to be tuning up the band repeatedly working stations before dipping back down to his stated UP 1 listen frequency. I spent a while at +1.5KHz and heard him work many stations close to my frequency but for whatever reason he wasn’t hearing me - either too weak or just overwhelmed by bigger signals.

At times I tried my luck just below the pile, around 950Hz up but this was also unsuccessful. As time wore on he did at times ask EU and Asian stations to stand by while he worked a run of NA & SA stations and I could again hear stations being worked but nothing below his stated 1KHz up.

During one of these NA/SA periods I found what appeared to be a relatively quiet spot around 1.25KHz up and waited. When next Ken started working any station I still seemed to be in a pretty clear spot so with fingers crossed (at was getting late and bedtime was looming) I began calling again and around 55 minutes after joining the pile I heard Ken come back to me with a G0RIF 599 - I replied with R TU 599 73 and that was that, another all time new one in the log.

Dean Amateur Radio, Pictures CW, DXCC, G0RIF, K4ZW, Tajikistan

Worked this evening, 30m CW around 10.105MHz (split). I’d heard him loud and clear (with some QSB) earlier as I tuned up 15m in the SSB section of the band - he was running quite a pile-up and I called many times with no luck. He eventually moved to working exclusively west coast US stations and gradually faded into the noise. I resigned myself to not logging Sudan today and set about doing other things.

Having done those other things and then decided to see what there might be of interest on 30m and 40m I noticed ST2AR spotted on 30m CW on the DX clusters. I had a listen and he was good copy with me peaking a good solid S9 so I decided it was worth trying for a QSO. He was working split so I set my TX frequency about 500Hz up and sent my call.

I must have had a lucky guess because he came straight back with “IF 599″ so I sent my call again and he came back with “G0RIF 599″. I replied with a quick “599 tu” and that was it, another all time new one in the log! It just goes to show that sometimes you can call until blue in the face and not get the QSO when at other times you just get lucky in the pile-up and drop your call in exactly the right place, just where the DX happens to be listening. Of course it’s not always just luck…but that’s a whole other discussion.

Dean Amateur Radio CW, DXCC, ST2AR

Here we have a few interesting cards received this week for contacts in the CQWW CW contest in November (6Y1V) and the CQWW WPX CW contest back in May (KL7RA). Both of these are in response to direct QSL requests. Alaska (KL7RA) was an all time new one for me at the time so it’s nice to get that confirmed for number 153 (of 170) confirmed by paper QSL. 6Y1V (on 40m) was a highlight on the recent CQWW contest and I had a pretty quick response via the QSL manager in Finland (Kari, OH3RB) which was nice. The card also confirms a 20m and a 40m contact from the WPX CW contest in May. In other news, SpaceWeather.com reports that sunspot 1035, having burst onto the scene 3 days ago, continues to grow and is crackling with C-class solar flares with a chance of M-class flares.

the KL7RA and 6Y1V QSL cards

Dean Amateur Radio, Pictures 6Y1V, CW, KL7RA, QSL, sunspot

I wrote back in June that I was making good progress toward working 100 countries since moving to Lichfield in September of 2008. Well I can now report that coming out of the CQWW CW contest this past weekend I have now reached that milestone - 100 countries worked from this location.

The details are 100 countries worked with 74 on CW, 66 on RTTY and 60 on SSB. This includes 8 all time new ones in the form of Anguilla, Desecheo Island, St. Maarten & St. Eustatius, Bermuda, United Arab Emirates, Alaska, Montserrat and the British Virgin Isles.

This brings the overall numbers to 170 worked with 119 on CW, 122 on data modes (RTTY & PSK31) and 111 on SSB. Here’s to the big push towards 200!

Dean Amateur Radio, Blog CW, DXCC, G0RIF, Lichfield, RTTY, SSB

A bit of a mixed bag really with no new ones, not even one, but some nice DX worked, especially on 40m on the Sunday evening. Overall I made 85 contacts (a result of more tuning & listening than transmitting) with 48 DXCC entities logged over the weekend in several sessions on 15/20/40m bands. Details on a separate page which is here - CQWW CW contest 2009 - summary - or linked from the Radio menu above.

the 48 countries logged - CQWW CW Nov 2009

On a less serious note I have to award my ‘biggest signal on the band’ award to G3WW who was booming into Lichfield at S9+60db at very least. I’d be interested to know just what antenna was in use to get such a big intra UK signal.

Dean Amateur Radio antenna, contest, CW, DXCC, morse code, propagation

It is always nice to receive QSL cards and the beauty of the bureau system is that you get a lot of cards delivered all at once. It’s great to then look back through the log and remember some of those contacts.

Many contacts can be short & sweet though - this is the case with contest or special event stations who are intent on logging as many contacts as possible as quickly as possible. The cards shown here from OE2008A and HB2008VC are from two such special event stations setup to celebrate the Euro 2008 football tournament co-hosted by Austria and Switzerland. There were many such stations and I received over 30 of their cards in my most recent delivery, a mix of Swiss and Austrian stations for SSB, CW and RTTY contacts.

a selection of the more colourful QSL cards received from the bureau

Here (bottom right) you can also see the card received from Peruvian station OA4WW, this means that of 168 countries logged I now have 151 of them confirmed by paper QSL (rather than some electronic form such as LOTW or eQSL).

Dean Amateur Radio, Pictures bureau, CW, Euro 2008, G0RIF, LoTW, QSL, RTTY, SSB

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

…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

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