Hohoho!
December 25th, 2011DXCC #223 confirmed!
December 6th, 2011I received a beautiful folded 3D2R QSL card today! This was a brand new DXCC in my log. A million thanks to Hrane YT1AD and his team for putting Rotuma Island on the air; and processing the QSLs so fast!
3D2R QSL
7 QSOs on 4 bands in 3 modes (the 7th QSO is listed on a second, traditional size QSL card). Not bad! Thank you all! 
10 Meter RTTY Contest
December 6th, 2011This was a new contest for this year. I only had 3 hours to participate, from 2100Z until 2400Z. The first two hours were big fun! It got boring the last hour, as we approached sunset and the East Coast was already in darkness.
I was hoping this would be fun, and it was BIG FUN! Here’s what I saw when I fired up N1MM Logger, around 2000Z:
- 10 Meter RTTY Contest bandmap
Crazy! I haven’t seen this many spots on 10 meters RTTY in, well… I can’t remember! Too bad I could only get started 3 hours later.
Participation was very high. Thanks to Don AA5AU and Ed W0YK for organizing this one. As far as I’m concerned it was a big, instant hit!
2011 TARA RTTY Mêlée
December 5th, 2011I didn’t have a lot of time to play in this one, only 7 hours or so. I scored better than last year, and the year before that. But not better than in 2008, when I logged 263 QSOs, so that’s a bit of a disappointment. I must have been up for a full 24 hours back then!
TARA RTTY Melee 2009-2010-2011
10 and 15 didn’t behave well, here. Up and down, open and closed. Better luck next time…
Slow, slow, slow…
December 2nd, 2011If you use the Logbook of The World as much as I do then you must have noticed how slow it’s become, recently. For most of November, really. I really started seeing it after I worked BX5AA and BD4CQ, both new DXCCs in my log, and I was desperately waiting for that LoTW confirmation. That took days to receive! What are they using there nowadays, Commodore 64s?? Hey guys, you might want to upgrade to the new C-64, available now; it comes with a 3.3 GHz CPU!
Anyway. They didn’t say much about what caused the backlog (can we call it BACKlog of The World now???). The only reason I remember seeing on the News and Notes page was that the CQWW and Sweeps logs didn’t make things easier:
copyright ARRL
Hey, I understand: shid happens. And it comes with a very wise bit of advise: “if you have already uploaded a log there is no reason to upload again“. Makes sense, why upload more to an already overloaded system? So we wait, patiently.
There were a few more updates, while they frantically tried to fix the problem:
copyright ARRL
An “anomalous series of events”…. Ooh, sounds like a case for Fox Mulder! And again, the same words to the wise: if you’ve already uploaded, don’t upload again!
So another week went by, and look, good news!
copyright ARRL
Fantastic! They are making progress – only 14 hours of processing time left!!!
But, erm… the good news didn’t last long, though. Here’s what they said on the 28th:
copyright ARRL
You caught up, but now there’s a 20 hour delay? What??? I must have a problem with math! But… as long as you’re making progress…
…
Wow, what? “Progress”??? Here’s what’s in the News section today:
copyright ARRL
A 22 hour processing delay! With the 160 contest and 2 RTTY contests this weekend, plus the ARRL 10 Meter Contest the weekend after that… I don’t think this is going in the right direction!
Worse: what’s with the “please upload it again” statement, all of a sudden? Big Bad LoTW ate your logs??? Seriously, what happened to some people’s logs? Did they just disappear? They may have: I just uploaded all my November QSOs again, and sure enough, I got several matches that I didn’t get earlier.
Not good guys, really not good…
So what else happened in November?
November 30th, 2011Not a whole lot. Well, actually: quite a bit, but not much when it comes to amateur radio. Towards the start of the month I spent a little over 1,000 miles on the road. And towards the end of the month I was “down” by a very painful tooth. I eventually had to have that sucker removed…
Still, in between the many hours on the road and the dentist chair I did manage to work a few new ones. I made another QSO with V55A in Namibia in RTTY on November 1, a new DXCC on 20.
The competition for ZK2X on Niue Island was fierce, but that same day I managed to log my second phone QSO with ZK2X: ZK2X 1 Nov 2011 SSB 12m 2315Z. It’s a good thing I managed to have him correct my call!
I got TU2T in Ivory Coast on 3 bands and 3 modes, again a brand new DXCC. This recording is of the first QSO, on 15 meters. Not easy! Click to play. But yeah, everybody is still 59!
One guy I really liked working every time is Wim PJ4J. Wim is a fellow Belgian (though I don’t think we ever met there) and with a last name like his he just HAS to be a great “ham” When Bonaire gained seperate DXCC status there were quite a few stations on the air from the island; but the piles were so big that I only made a handful of QSOs back then. Thanks to Wim I got Bonaire in the log many more times now. Here’s a short QSO I had with Wim on 10 meters: PJ4J. Bedankt, waarde landgenoot! And thanks for uploading your logs to the LoTW, all confirmed!
Then, on the night of the 7th came the surprise of a lifetime, something I thought I’d never be able to put in the log with my simple wire antenna: BX5AA in Taiwan! I had been listening to 10 meters RTTY for a few hours, while I was doing some paperwork. I had stopped paying attention to the radio after a while, and hadn’t tuned the dial in at least an hour. Then, all of a sudden there’s a signal. I looked at the screen, saw Jimmy’s call, fired up MMTTY, and bam! – in the log!
- Jimmy BX5AA
Thanks for the new DXCC in my log, and for uploading your log to the LoTW, Jimmy, CUL!
On the 13th and 18th I worked ZD8F on 15, 20 and 17, all RTTY. Those were my first RTTY QSOs with Ascension Island, and all have been confirmed via the LoTW already - thanks guys!
I think that about wraps it up, for November. I’m looking forward to the TARA RTTY Mêlée and the 10 Meter RTTY Contest on December 3rd and 4th. Forty-eight hours of RTTY, yay!
2011 WAE RTTY contest
November 15th, 2011Great contest! I absolutely love the QTC exhange, and I finally got to exchange a good few again, this year!
But conditions were not as good as I expected. I felt like I wasted a lot of time on 10 and 15. As a result I didn’t pay enough attention to 20 and 40, which would have produced much better results.
Still, I worked a few dozen more than last year, and did get quite a few more mults. The result is a score that’s about a third better than in 2011. Can’t complain
- WAE RTTY 2010-2011
Highlight was getting called by ZK2V, who gave me serial # 15! That was about halfway through the contest, on 15 meters, when I was just about to QSY to 20; because I wasn’t getting any calls. But he heard me – Thanks Chris!
CQWW SSB 2011
October 31st, 2011Fun, fun, fun!! 10 meters was very “giving”!
I got 5 new DXCC entities on 40, 1 on 20, 2 on 15 and 6 new ones on 10 meters. With conditions being the way they are I spent most of my time on 10 meters.
And I’m glad I did! Not even an hour after the start of the contest I heard Keith ZK2X on Niue Island calling CQ, with nobody answering him. He wasn’t in the cluster yet, must have just moved; so I called him and got him first try! That was the first brand new DXCC entity in my log – any mode.
The second one came much later, on Sunday afternoon when I logged Salva EF9A on Ceuta/Melilla. Not sure which one he was in but since it counts as the same DXCC entity I don’t care that much! I can’t believe it took me 10 years to work this entity, though…
Thank you all for taking the time to work this little pistol! I may make it to the Honor Roll after all.
They’re here…
October 26th, 2011No, I’m not referring to the Poltergeist movie!
Instead, I’m talking about the PJ6/K9VV cards! They have arrived, in perfect shape, thanks to UX5UO’s great work.
- PJ6/K9VV QSL cards have arrived!
I have 2,000 of them; and they’re all waiting for a new owner
Oh, and yes: RIP Heather…
It doesn’t always have to be 599…
October 23rd, 2011… to work a brand new one: BD4CQ in Shanghai, China!
Thank you, Ni; you have good ears!