It’s true. Twenty days into the month of July and nothing in the log since the last week of June…save for 4 RTTY contacts a few days ago. So far this month I’ve just been busy doing other things and getting on the bands has taken a bit of a back seat.
The 4 RTTY contacts I mentioned were on 20 and 30m a few nights previous when I called CQ for a while to see what was out there. ‘Not very much’ was the answer! Having said that though, one of the stations worked was A61E in the United Arab Emirates for which I still need a QSL card so I’ll be sending my card to his Spanish QSL manager in the next few days.
I do keep telling myself I really should try to get back into some late night PSK31 and as 20m is often crowded with signals I may well give 30m a try. I’ll be hoping I can do that before the end of the month!
Dean Amateur Radio, Blog, Totally random A61E, G0RIF, QRT, QSL, RTTY
Well that’s it - January 2010 is no more. Over, done, finished! Blink and you would have missed it. It’s now February the 1st and before you know it winter will recede and give way to spring.
So, what did January 2010 give us? Not a lot to be fair. I was QRT for the whole of the month and my only forays onto the bands were occasional listens to 20m and 40m where I heard little of interest. I really do need something to re-enthuse me. I keep thinking I should get back to working more PSK31 on 20m but so far I haven’t even got round to doing that. I’ll hope to address that during February.
January 2010 will likely be most remembered for the cold snap and the accompanying snow and ice that brought the UK to a near standstill. That is now thankfully passed and not to be repeated anytime soon with a bit of luck. Roll on warmer weather, longer days and improving HF conditions as cycle 24 starts to gather momentum.
Dean Amateur Radio, Blog, Life..., Totally random 2010, antenna, January, QRT, Solar Cycle 24
Recent receipt of a few nice QSL cards got me to looking back through my amateur radio station logbook. It shows that September 2009 was a mostly inactive month so far as amateur radio was concerned. ‘QRT’ is amateur radio terminology for ’shutting down’ or ’station off air’ - hence the title of this post.
My logbook shows that between the 29th of August and the 26th of September I didn’t log a single station! I seem to recall that I was a little bit deflated by what I described ‘CQ fatigue’ prior to that period. Maybe I just needed a bit of a break from amateur radio!
My portable operations from Barr Beacon and a brief foray in the CQWW RTTY contest at the end of September certainly made up for that lack of activity with some good contacts and signs of improved conditions on the shortwave bands.
The results of all of that are that I have a number of outbound QSL cards to complete and send to either the RSGB bureau or to the respective stations direct. I can then look forward to the return cards arriving sometime next year with a bit of luck!
In other news, this little update also represents a minor landmark in my blog - the 100th post.
Dean Amateur Radio, Blog portable, Q-codes, QRT, QSL, RTTY