I did a lot of stuff with the radio club this year, I wrote a Year in Review about it on the club webpage. My big radio things this year were going to the FCG Contest Dinner at Hamcation, usually it’s on the same day as the club meeting. I got to meet quite a few people I knew from on the air and online only, also I won a power supply in the raffle. Hamcation is on the 2nd weekend in February for 2023 and I’ve already got my tickets to this year’s dinner. I also drove up to Dayton this year and did POTA camping on the way….
3 way DXCC
SX9V in Crete confirm our QSO from CQ WPX CW giving my 100th DXCC entity in LOTW, completing my 3 way digtial/voice/CW DXCC. Time to order the certificate.
All bands open!
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…
VP6R QSL Card
Got a new QSL card from the VP6R DXpedition. I made so many contacts with them it required 2 cards. First time that’s happened.
CQ WW SSB 2019 – 230 contacts
I spent some more time on this contest than last year and had much better results. All sorts of DX. I had quite a few contacts on 15m which is new to me, usually it’s pretty dead. I had my typical troubles on 40 and almost none on 80m due to the low height of my off center fed dipole. Summary:Band QSOs Zones Countries—————————— 80: 5 4 5 40: 36 9 27 20: 139 16 58 15: 48 13 32 10: 2 2 2——————————Total: 230 44 123 Total…
It’s DX season
For the past couple months things have been pretty slow in the QSO department. I made a few contacts here and there but not much new was happening. I think summer is a slow time for ham radio, which is unfortunate since I’m in Florida and it’s too hot to go outside a lot of the time. Anyhow, last week my Parks on the Air activation got all sorts of long distance (DX) contacts and this week there were a few DXpeditions that I’ve been picking up contacts with. VP6R, Comoros, and 5K0K are DXpeditions, Seychelles is really far way over 9,200 miles. I had a contact with San Andres…
Dayton Hamvention 2019 Day 1
I typically go to a music festival on this weekend of the year. Last year at that festival I realized I didn’t know anyone there anymore and I used to know everyone, so I decided then that I would do Dayton this year. Dayton totally has the music festival vibe only everyone is carrying walkie talkies instead of beers. I had a chance to talk with Julie K8VOX and Thom W8TAM from POTA, they were hanging out next to the Wolf River Coil booth. I picked up the Wolf River Coil setup and I’ll be trying that out at a park soon. Tomorrow I’m going to the DX and Contest…
World Bank QSL, Armed Forces Day and some new DX
Got a card from 4U1WB, the World Bank Amateur Radio Club, from a contact back in March of last year. This weekend was the Armed Forces Crossband Test event where amateurs try to contact the military stations by listening on their frequencies and transmitting back using split mode. I was able to contact the Pentagon, callsign WAR with voice and talked to Claude. I also talked to NSS, the Navy’s station, via morse code. Also, I made some rare, well past dark 20m contacts to the middle of the Pacific Ocean, FW5JG on Futuna Island and E51JD on South Cook Islands. Just happend to notice them on the cluster and…
Grey-line to Kazakhstan
Tonight had a good grey line connection into middle Asia via FT8. I have had trouble getting contacts in this area. I worked UN7G in Kazakhstan. I was also able to hear a China station but after many tries I was unsuccessful in contacting him. I’ll get China eventually. I got a screen capture of the PSKReporter page that almost perfectly shows the connection between me and UN7G over the grey line (see the light yellow line connecting from Florida to Asia).
April 2019 Parks on the Air adventure Day 2
After Day 1, I recalculated my plan and decided to do 5 of the 9 parks I had planned. This would get me a 5 parks in one day RaDAR award. I started out at K-1865 Fanning Springs Sate Park’s picnic area on the river. I operated FT8 from the car here. It was a nice spot to start the days activations. The next stop was the Forest Capital Museum State Park K-1868. This was the most boring activation of the trip. After this was where this trip started getting really good. It was a bit of a drive but I headed into St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge K-0256. It’s…