Review – April

Coincidentally April saw exactly the same number of QSOs as January although I worked more DXCCs but only one new entity.  It’s been a good month on the air with the band conditions changing a lot and now in the evenings I’m working much more 20m than I’ve done so far this year and the lower bands just aren’t getting a look in any more.  That’s not a bad thing because in the evenings and overnight I’m running QRSS largely on 40m.

Without further ado, here are the figures for the month.

QSOs made: 205
Running QSO count: 929
QSL cards sent:  86 (85 via bureau, 1 direct)
DXCC entities worked: 37
New DXCC entities worked: 1
Squares worked on 144MHz: 9
New squares worked on 144MHz: 0

Total DXCC worked: 95
Total squares worked on 144MHz: 83

28MHz hasn’t opened properly yet but hopefully that will start soon and I’m really looking forward to that happening.  I’ve made significant changes to my aerial system this month with an improved ground system for the long wire and a 20ft support pole going up in readiness for my doublet that I’ve been talking about for months.  It’s a good job I moved my wire over to it because it made me notice that the pole is a lightweight one as opposed to the heavy duty one it was supposed to be so it’ll have to be changed.

This month I’ve hardly touched VHF again.  I gave away a few points in the 2m UKAC contest back at the start of the month but that’s been it for VHF.

In April there was the big event in the UK called the Royal Wedding and because of that UK amateurs were invited to apply for an NoV to allow them to use the letter R after the initial letter in their callsigns.  I’m using GR6NHU almost exclusively on JT65 now and that will continue for the first nine days of May but in the last couple of days of April it’s already proving to be a bit of an attraction.

2 Comments

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  1. Great stuff – earth wire! Psst… how many QSL cards did you *receive* this month, though…?

  2. I think it was three or four, not sure exactly….

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