The ISS is sending out an SSTV signal again and I just picked up a brand new unopened Arrow Antenna off QRZ for $100 so I tried it out. There were two passes today but both around 20 degrees so I didn’t get a great signal but I was still able to sort of make out the images. They’re doing more later in the week so I’ll try again or maybe go to the beach or a parking lot to get better ones.
I teamed up with Rich AA2MF and Tom W4CU from SPARC and FCG for the North American QSO Party RTTY July contest. Our team name was THREE-FIFTHS, since we couldn’t find the 2 others to fill out the team. Turns out those missing two were smart, Rich emailed after the contest and said it was the worst, “It was like my antennas were disconnected”. I’d have to agree with that statement. I set out to get more contacts than in the February version of this contest where I got 254, I didn’t even get close with 139. Along with terrible band conditions, there was an hour long lightning storm that…
During the IARU HF Championship I made my 5,000th contact, it was a CW contact with IB9A in Silicy. I’m going to send him a card.
This past weekend was IARU HF Championship. This is a mixed mode contest (CW & SSB) where you try to contact all the different countries radio associations. Lots of them have special callsigns ending in HQ. I ended up with 300 contacts over 15.5 of the 24 hours of the contest. I was pretty beat at 2am and called it a night. I got up for the last hour(it ends at 8am) and got it up to 300 and went back to bed. I made a few contacts into Hawaii, one into Asiatic Russia with my antenna aiming over the North Pole, and also one to New Zealand. We’ll see…
Besides the GB13COL I had a pretty easy time with this event this year. I got into it right at is was starting and got a few stations. I struggled to hear K2Z but finally had a clear signal from him on the sixth. I got a few of them on CW which was easy. GB13COL was a mess though. When I could hear him there were tons of Alpha Hotel’s yelling on top of him, I just didn’t have the patience to deal with it. This event seems to bring out the people who don’t know the DX Code of Conduct, or they’re just dickheads, probably the worst pileup…
I joined the Florida Contest Group (FCG) and also subscribed to the National Contest Journal magazine. In the latest issue they have an article about how they won’t be printing the entire contest results in the magazine anymore yet my callsign still made it to print for the February RTTY contest. FCG creates teams with funny names for this contest, I’m second string but I’ll work my way up. 22nd place isn’t great but its cool they list out all the teams and that I’m on one. Here’s the full page: ORANGE SQUEEZERS-1 came in 6th place with only 3 participants, one of which was Rich AA2MF who’s the secretary…
When I installed the 30m I used the coax run into the house from my 2m antenna. I finally bought some more coax(Davis Bury-Flex, I find it easy to work with than LMR-400 and it’s about the same as far as losses) so I installed the last lightning arrestor I have room for. There’s been a crazy bird squawking in the yard all day and he kept divebombing me the whole time I was install the connector. Bird
Cards from Greenland and Namibia came today. I had heard XP3A from Greenland a few times before but wasn’t able to complete a QSO with him until recently. When I checked on getting his card I found he used a QSL manager and that guy also manages V51MA from Namibia so I got two cards for one postage. Now I just need XP3A to confirm on LOTW.
