Month: November 2011

Days 331, 332 and 333 – One more CW QSO in the log

Day #331 started off with some QSOs on 12m, I worked EA9IB, Pedro, EK6TA, Hovik, EW6DX, Igor and SV2HTI, Ilias.  After that I spoke to WV4X, Don and IZ0VXL, Federico on 15m before going back to 12m to talk to YO3RU. I then had my eighth QSO of the year using Morse code.  I worked ZD8N on […]

Days 328, 329 and 330 – Another new aerial

Day #328 was very nearly the end of QSO365!  It’s incredible to think that the project could fail this close to the end but it only takes some bad propagation and it could all be over.  I got home in the evening and the HF bands were dead.  Really dead.  I mean, you may think that the […]

Days 325, 326 and 327 – Three average days on the wireless

It’s getting to the time of year now that when I get home in the evening, the bands have largely closed down and with an aerial which doesn’t seem to be performing too well on the lower bands I’m starting to struggle a little bit.  I’m aiming to take the OCFD down and replace it […]

RSGB UKAC ‘Activity Contests’ – My thoughts.

As a member of the Martello Tower Group, we operated in the RSGB UKAC contests from June 2009 until March 2011 and were reasonably successful for the full year of 2010. However the introduction of the M5 multiplier rule in 2011 really affected us badly and so we decided earlier this year that we would […]

Days 323 and 324 – The LZ DX contest

I’d planned in advance to make a bit of an effort in the LZ DX contest and so on the Saturday morning I attempted to re-route the coax that currently goes to the OCFD I have up and replace it with a mono band 40m dipole but unfortunately due to bad planning I wasn’t able […]

Days 320, 321 and 322 – Lots of JT65A reception reports

I didn’t have too many QSOs on these three days, largely because I was running some extended JT65A receive sessions which were quite interesting. On day #320 I spoke to W2WP, Mike and N4CCA, Don on 20m SSB and then I ran receive on 40m JT65 overnight.  The aerial used here was an off centre […]

Days 317, 318 and 319

I worked a few RTTY stations in the early hours of day #317 on 40m carrying on with the contest from the day before, they were W3LL, VA2UP, IK4CLF, UA9OG, OM7OM, Z37M, WA2TMC, K9NR and IW1QN.  In the morning I spoke to RW9JZ, Leo and EW6DX, Igor on 10m SSB.  Later I switched to 12m […]

Days 314, 315 and 316 – More great conditions and new DXCCs

I had a very good start to day #314, I heard two stations on 10m from New Zealand talking to each other and passing the DX they were working backwards and forwards between them.  I called a few times with no response and then the stronger of them said “I’ll take one more call and […]

Days 311, 312 and 313 – I have an amplifier

I started off day #311 on 20m when I spoke to IN3LQB, Paul before I moved to 10m and worked A61AS, Salem and TA1BX, Burhan.  I then moved to 12m to talk to JT1BV, Naran.  This was followed by three PSK31 contacts on 15m with LY2CK, Fred, UY2IC, Aleksandr and UT1Ef, Stanislav.  Later in the […]

Days 309 and 310 – The Ukrainian DX Contest

Day #309 started as any normal day, I had a few QSOs.  I first worked UA3QBL, Vlad and UA4NX, Eduard on 10m PSK31 and then spoke to UN7BEW, Alex on SSB.  I also worked IZ1DGG, Alf on 20m and then RA9KY, Nick, HZ1SK, Samir and Z21BB, Fernando in Zimbabwe for a new DXCC. A while […]