46 and counting…

I’d been looking forward to this event because I was hoping I might get on the bands for a few hours for the first time since a 20m CW QSO with K9OM on the 15th of August, over 5 weeks ago.

In three sessions I made approximately 60 contacts spread over the 40, 20 and 15m bands. Conditions seems pretty good overall (sunspot number up at 57) and I was particularly surprised to find how late into the Saturday evening 15m remained open down to Central and South America. Very different to earlier in the year when I was hearing very little on 15m much after 5pm local time (16:00 UTC)…although I’m prepared to accept that my antenna will always be a limiting factor. However, same antenna then and now so things certainly seem to have improved with Argentina, Brazil, Aruba, Galapagos Islands, Kuwait and the Dominican Republic all worked on 15m on Sunday evening.

Although no new countries were worked during the contest, in spite of my best efforts to get through a minor pile-up trying to work a Chinese station (yes, I still need China despite having already worked most of the surrounding countries), I did work two new US states towards my WAS award, New Mexico in the form of WA5ZUP and Wyoming in the form of WY7SS. That is now 45 of the 50 states worked with just Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska and Utah still needed.

It was nice to get on the bands again and nice to hear so many strong RTTY signals (on 15m in particular). I’ll be hoping it’s not another 5 weeks before the next time and not too long to the next new one!

Dean Amateur Radio contest, DX, RTTY, WAS

The annual BARTG RTTY contest took place this weekend just passed. Plenty of RTTY activity on the bands and conditions were pretty good.

Highlights of the weekend for me were working AL9A in Alaska for a new one on RTTY and WX7P for a new WAS state (Washington), both on 20m.

Other DX contacts of note were YB4IR, HZ1PS and CO8LY all on 15m and P40YL on 20m. I also heard 6W2SC on 10m but he was fading in and out quite badly. I called him a few times (more in hope than expectation) but no QSO resulted.

Less impressive was my 40m effort which amounted to a meagre 3 contacts. The band was surprisingly devoid of RTTY activity (at least during the times I was able to listen in). A shame really as I’d hoped there might be some rich pickings late into Sunday evening but it just wasn’t to be.

Looking forward now to the CQ World-Wide WPX SSB contest next weekend.

Dean Amateur Radio BARTG, DX, RTTY, WAS

The recent WPX RTTY contest resulted not only in an all time new DXCC entity worked but also in a new US state being worked in the form of in KR7X in Washington county, Oregon.

This brings to 41 the number of states worked towards the ARRL WAS (Worked All States) award. Of the 41 states already logged the current QSL position is that I have 37 of them confirmed (see map below).

WAS position as at February 2010 - 41 states logged with 37 confirmed

The states still needed for WAS are: Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

Dean Amateur Radio, Pictures Oregon, QSL, RTTY, WAS