On day #172 I switched the wireless on to find it still on 20m from the last QSO of the previous night and so I tuned around to hear RA3PCI, Sergey calling CQ. It would have been rude not to answer so we had a chat and then I moved to 40m to work J48O, a Special Event station on Kastri Lighthouse, EU-052. Then I worked MJ0UOO/M, Richard on Jersey who had a massive pileup of stations waiting to speak to him. After that I finished the evening by talking to another Special Event station, HF2011L.
Day #173 started with contacts with two stations I’ve already worked this year, F8CHM, Jean on 40m and then EW8A, Igor on 20m. After that I fired up fldigi to work two stations using PSK31 – RK9AN, Anvar and UR7IGJ, Vlad. I then noticed what looked like a wide PSK31 signal but I wasn’t able to decode anything and I quickly realised it was PSK63. It was JW9DL in Svalbard which is somewhere I’ve never heard of before. It took about half an hour of calling but I was very pleased to get through the huge pileup in the end and work Just. Svalbard is an archipelago inside the Arctic Circle with a population of under 2,500 so it was nice to get that particular DXCC entity in my log. I’m also very happy with that QSO at nearly 3,000km using my 40m loop.
On day #174 I had three QSOs, all on 40m SSB. I worked DJ4SU, Peter, M3NHA, Tony near Manchester Airport and finally OE3FHA, Hubert.
