Last weekend was the biggest SSB radio contest of the year, CQ WW and I decided to put in an entry. I expected things to be slow going because we’re pretty much still at the bottom of the solar cycle. I was pleasantly surprised. Both 20m and 15m were full from bottom to top and […]
A while ago I moved some equipment around in the shack and I managed to damage the cable that goes between my MFJ-434B Voice Keyer and my TS-590SG. I could have patched it back together but it would have been very messy. I struggled to locate a UK supplier of the cable and I couldn’t […]
In 2013 I applied for M7P as a Special Contest Callsign, and have used it successfully in a large number of contests throughout the years. One of the reasons I chose that particular callsign was for the rarity value when working the WPX contests, my logic being that people are always chasing new multipliers and […]
This weekend was the ARRL RTTY Roundup contest and for the first time, FT8 was allowed. I spent a couple of hours operating just to give away a few points and get some experience using the new version of WSJT-X in contest mode. I’d been working mainly European stations and all of a sudden, I […]
I go through phases of not sleeping very well and I’m in the middle of one of those right now. Yesterday evening after a very bad night previously, I went to bed relatively early in the hope that because I was so exhausted, I might actually drop off quickly. No such luck, two hours later […]
This last weekend was the CQ World Wide DX CW Contest and I decided at short notice that I’d spend some time operating. I was planning on being out for most of the day on Saturday but had nothing arranged for Sunday which would give me a few hours. I actually managed half an hour […]
In 2017 I entered and won the 15m section of the SCC RTTY Championship and although I wasn’t available for the full 24 hours of the contest this year, I did make a token entry by operating for around four hours on the Sunday morning. The problem was that on the Sunday, conditions had absolutely […]
I keep a regular eye on the contest calendars as although I don’t have a lot of time for serious entries, it’s nice to be able to give away a few points. For example – I worked around one hundred stations in the IARU HF World Championship last weekend without too much effort. This weekend […]
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 […]
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, […]
