This was a much lighter year for blog posts, things have become traditional, went to the Florida Contest Group Contest dinner in Orlando for Hamcation, I won a HT Heil headset. I got 1st place in WCF for the RTTY Roundup somehow, I’ve done much better other years and not gotten first. I did complete a goal from last year of adding a second antenna, the Loop on Ground antenna, it’s not great and don’t use it much. I skipped Dayton this year as one of my friends gave me a ticket to a Spartan Race at Tampa Stadium that weekend, which started me on a new hobby, CrossFit. In October I…
CQ WW CW 2023 – 347 QSOs
Was shooting for 700 Q’s, once I realized that wasn’t gonna happen I slowed down a lot. I need to spend more time on 40m on Friday night, my 40m stats were much lower. I got a few new ones, hadn’t ever worked China and got two China stations in 5 minutes, also South Korea and Kazakhstan which I missed last year.
2023 RTTY Roundup 1st Place WCF
I didn’t get a ton of contacts but ended up with a 1st Place in the section in the 2023 RTTY Roundup contest.
IARU HF Championship 2023 – 103 contacts
Put in a casual effort in the IARU HF Championship for 103 Contacts. This was also WRTC but I was only able to work 2 of the station for that. I worked quite a few of the HQ station for the different countries’ amateur radio organizations.
CQ WW CW 2022 6th place District 4!
Saw the stats for CW WW CW 2022, came in 6th in Call Area 4. Got credit for 671 contacts out of 675 logged, pretty good I think. https://aa0o.radio/2022/11/28/cq-ww-cw-2022-675-contacts/ Contest post
ARRL DX CW 2023 – 57 contacts
Only managed a little over an hour with the ARRL DX CW contest this weekend but made 57 contacts. Added some new DXCC’s on 10m with Greenland, Kenya and Mexico, probably some others as well.
Hamcation 2023
Hamcation fell on the 2nd weekend in February again this year so I was able to attend both Friday and Saturday since the club meeting is on the first Friday of the month. I picked up a N3ZN CW key to add to my collection of expensive CW keys. I also attended the FCG contest dinner where I won a Heil headset for Yaesu HT, of which I have one. I sat with the Icom reps at the dinner and AA4TI, who was sitting at my table, right next to the main Icom rep, won the grand prize of an ICOM IC-7610.
Loop on Ground RX antenna
I’ve been thinking about a 2nd antenna since I’ve got a Flexradio with a lot of antenna ports and only one connected. I came across a receive only antenna called a Loop on Ground. It’s like a poor man’s beverage antenna as it is only 15’x15′ square. Matt Roberts KK5JY has a great write up on it at his website http://www.kk5jy.net/LoG/. I built it just like he did. Here’s how it looked installed, you can see the yellow tent stakes at the corners: The transformer box is in the bushes so I don’t run it over with the lawnmower. I used 14guage THHN wire and tacked it down with landscaping…
NAQP CW Jan 2023 – 211 Q’s
Was on team W1YL Memorial-8 with the Florida Contest Group. This is a new personal best in this NAQP CW contests with 24,687 points. Though I might have less than that officially because I’m not 100% sure I got South Dakota on 80m because a lid doubled on the op. Didn’t operate for 5 hours while hosting a show with my other hobby, and cut out 50 mins before the end.
ARRL RTTY Roundup 2023 – 132 Q’s
Didn’t go hard on this one but it was fun. Got The Gambia on 10m, pretty sure that’s a new one for me.