My 17m challenge to work 100 separate DXCC entities using only FT8 is complete. I expected it to take a lot longer than a mere seven months. I don’t have them all confirmed but that wasn’t part of the challenge – I just wanted to work them. In the last few days I’ve worked Hong […]
Add more radials. No really, that’s it.
My DXCC count of worked and confirmed stations has been slowly increasing over the last few years and I’ve received QSLs from every entity I’ve worked except for Iran. I’ve only made one QSO with a station in Iran and up until late last year, I’ve not chased for the QSL card due to the […]
One of the biggest complaints on our local repeaters is that people are quiet with very low audio. Often they’re using the cheap Chinese handheld wirelesses such as the Baofeng UV-5R or similar which have a reputation for being quiet. There are well documented ‘fixes’ available such as drilling out the microphone hole. However it’s […]
Over the years as I’ve operated QRSS and WSPR, I’ve noticed that my original TS-590S and then the replacement TS-590SG have always been slightly off frequency and suffering from a little drift. This frequency inaccuracy was barely 30Hz which seems minuscule but when monitoring a section of the band which is only 200Hz wide, the […]
My last update on this challenge was back in October and I did very little towards it until the New Year. Â Since the last time I posted about this, I’ve worked an extra 27 DXCC entities on 17m using just FT8 taking me up to my current total of 77 entities worked. This brings my […]
In 2013 I was issued a Special Contest Callsign (SCC) and used it very successfully for a number of contests which you can see on my Contest results page. Because I wasn’t active in the qualifying contests very much after that, I couldn’t renew it when it expired at the end of 2016. Part of […]
I’d just like to record my annual stats as extracted from ClubLog for 2017 As is normal for me, most of my QSOs were data. The majority of those were RTTY although a fair few were using the new FT8 mode. I’m not unhappy with those figures, especially when you consider how poor the HF […]
What a difference five years and nearly half of a solar cycle makes. Last weekend I entered the OK DX RTTY contest and upon checking my log, I realised it’s been five years since I last operated in this contest. In December 2012 we were approaching solar maximum and conditions were excellent. Five years later, […]
Two or three years ago I had a browser tab sitting open on the Hendricks 41dB Step RF Attenuator from Pacific Antenna/QRP Kits in California. For some reason I never ordered one and when I finally remembered that I was going to get one, they were out of stock. I dropped them an email back […]
