Brief update: I’ve mostly been practicing CW during this stay-at-home order. We did the club meeting via 2m this month, that went ok. The weather’s been really nice, it’s a shame all the state parks are closed. Yesterday my cheapo web hosting server crashed and that was the last straw with them so I’ve switched to a more reputable host (that costs twice as much, $10/mo). The site should be much quicker to load from now on. Band conditions have been in and out but when they’re on it’s been good.
On Sunday I saw Fiji pop up on the DX cluster on 12m during the evening. I’ve had good luck on 12m at hours when you think it wouldn’t be good. It took a minute but I was able to complete a contact with 3D2AG, that was my first contact with Fiji.
I heard people talking about 10m being open on Facebook. On Monday evening I tried 10m and found it was open. I’ve never had much luck on 10m. I heard once it’s open it will be really open though. I heard a Mexican special event station 4A60O on CW and worked him easily. I saw lots of FT8 on the Flex so I loaded that up next. I heard 3D2AG again real loud and worked him easily. I also got FO5QB in French Polynesia which was another new one for me. I sent a text to W4BPP that 10m was open and he was able to work them both with his wire antenna that’s only 20ft up. Then I got Australia on 15m and Asiatic Russia on 20m. Also got the station at the United Nations, 4U1UN on 40m. Fun stuff!
