I had almost no available time to operate this weekend with other events (mostly football – high school, college and professional) going on Fri night, all day Saturday and most of the day Sunday. For a total of 1 hour operating, I made 27 contacts, all on 10m. I’m sure I could have switched bands, but I was having fun on 10m since it’s all “new” to me with the band being open.
Saturday morning I had 30 mins from when I was ready to leave before heading out of town for the entire day so I fired up the radio to see if I could hear anything on 10m and the JARTS RTTY ham radio contest was going on and I could hear some signals so I quickly configured N1MM for this contest and made a few quick contacts. The exchange is your age which is fun to see vs a sequential serial number. In the 30 mins I made 15 contacts all with stations in Europe. I needed to run so I shut things down and didn’t think I’d be on any more this weekend.
Sunday a bit after 7pm I was able to get back on during the last hour of the contest and figured I’d see if 10m had anything and boy I’m glad I did. The first contact on 10m was a strong JA station for my first JA station logged on 10m. I worked a total of 6 JA stations on 10m RTTY in 30 mins. To top it off I worked a VK4 station in Australia, again on 10m RTTY for yet another new DXCC worked on this band. I didn’t hear any European stations coming in but did hear some US West Coast ops.
If the reported ages sent in the exchange were accurate. 4 of the 27 operators worked were younger than me and one was my age (48). The youngest sent their age as 32. The oldest op worked skipping the 99 reported age for multis was 76. There were 3 ops over the age of 70.
All this with 100w and a dipole. What a lot of fun! I don’t know how the bands were for the contest throughout the weekend but I’ll check out the reports on 3830 and see what folks have to say.
73,
K2DSL
I wondered where you were David. I usually see you even if I don’t catch you calling.
The youngest op I saw gave a 12! I saw some 82 and 80 reports. You’re right, it’s fun to see the ages of the other ops, esp the ones you see every test.
My time in the chair was limited (or should I say “frequently interrupted”) by some kind of sick bug, but I did manage 283 Qs on all 5 bands, including lots of JAs (you get EUs, I get JAs), the VK4, and new ones South Korea (confirmed on LoTW already)and Hong Kong. I did not hear some of the usual ops this weekend, but have a bunch of new calls I’ve never heard before. Go figure.
The big brown truck of joy brought me an FT-1000MP this week. Between now and CQWW I plan to have it all set up and ready to take over prime place in the shack. I can’t wait! (you know I was sick if I leave a ‘new’ rig in the box for a week hihi)
Just noticed I had previously worked a JA station on 10m so yesterday wasn’t the first time, but it was the 1st time I worked a VK station on 10m and it’s already confirmed on LoTW.
I haven’t worked South Korea or Hong Kong on any band yet so I can’t wait for that to happen! Also need to get T32C on RTTY. When I’ve been home I haven’t heard them well enough to work them on RTTY though I have them in the log 6 times across SSB and CW.
David, you should have heard them on 40M yesterday morning! Calling CQ UP around 7033 … the unruly pile was spread out all the way up to 7045 that I could hear. Made working the JARTS very difficult for this little station. I finally gave that up and went back to bed. Oh well, good luck yourself with T32C.
73, Bill N7VEA