Category Archives: Contacts

Latest DXCC and the CQ WPX SSB recap

Contacts, Contests

It’s been a week and I haven’t posted my summary from the CQ WPX SSB contest last weekend.  I made contacts with 63 different DXCCs, 2 of which were new entities for me. The new entities were Haiti and Mozambique. I logged Q’s with 45 of the 50 states.  There was a nice 15m opening where I had a contact with Falkland Islands and South Africa which is 8,000 miles from me and my longest 15m contact to date.

80m on Friday evening of the contest was fine, but it was horrible on Saturday evening and for the end of the contest on Sunday. There were no US stations on 80m because of the noise/static so I probably missed lots of additional multipliers as well as some of the missing 5 states which are close by to me and 80m would be the preferred band to make a contact with them on. But all in all, a very good effort for me and I feel good about my showing.

        Band    QSOs    Pts  WPX
         3.5      69     153   44
           7     110     191   58
          14     211     417  146
          21      28      65   17
       Total     418     826  265

            Score : 218,890

Since my last posting, I’ve received a QSL card for a contact with PJ5NA in St Eustatius confirming my only contact so far with that DXCC entity.  I still stand at 99 confirmed on LoTW and with the new QSL card I have 17 other DXCCs confirmed for a total of 116 DXCCs confirmed.

73,
K2DSL

Some new DXCC confirmations

Contacts

In the past few days I received some LoTW confirmations for the United Nations contacts I made with 4U1UN. That brings my confirmed DXCC count on LoTW to 99.

Today in the mail, I received 5 new direct QSL card responses back. Two of them are the first QSLs for some unconfirmed DXCCs. The first is a card from 7Q7HB from Malawi, Africa.  I had a 20m RTTY contact back in the middle of February with Harry and I’m really glad to the this DXCC confirmed. The other new one is from EL2DX and the American Embassy at Monrovia, Liberia. Thank you James for the CW QSO and for sending the QSL card back so quickly.

With the quick turnaround of these 2 new confirmations, I stand at 99 via LoTW and16 more via paper QSL cards for a total of 115 confirmed DXCCs.

I also need to write up the post for this past weekends CQ WPX SSB contest. A lot of work, but a lot of fun!

73,
K2DSL

British Virgin Islands Confirmed & Nigeria Logged

Contacts

In today’s mail there were 3 QSL cards. One was a very nice card from VP2VVA which was operating from the British Virgin Islands, giving me a new confirmed DXCC. The contact was on 20m CW during the recent ARRL DX CW contest. It also happens to be my only contact from that entity so it is nice to get such a quick confirmation. That puts me at 98 confirmed DXCCs via LoTW and 14 additional via paper QSL cards for 112 confirmed DXCCs.

Yesterday I was also able to get in the log a 40m CW contact with 5N/LZ1QK in Nigeria. That’s my only contact so far with Ngeria so I wrote out a QSL card to send via the bureau.

73,
K2DSL

BARTG RTTY Recap

Contacts, Contests

This past weekend was the BARTG RTTY contest. I knew I couldn’t participate on Sunday due to some other obligations, but I wanted to make a lot of contacts while I was able to get on.

I was able to get on Friday night for a few hours, most of Saturday and then the final 2 hours on Sunday evening. I did a lot of S&P but I also felt comfortable going into run mode a few times. At least with this contest I was able to find decent frequencies to get that going.  If I could have gotten a couple more hours on 20m on Sunday I might have been able to get some more DX multiplers.   If nothing much changes from what is on 3830, I did pretty good in the SOAB LP division. We’ll have to see what the final results show.

        Band    QSOs    Pts   Cty  Sec   Cnt
         3.5      61      61    7   11    3
           7     128     128    9   16    0
          14     126     126   29   13    3
       Total     315     315   45   40    6

            Score : 160,650

Besides the BARTG, I made 5 SSB contacts in the ND QSO Party, 5 contacts (2 CW & 3 SSB) in the OK QSO Party, 6 SSB contacts in the VA QSO Party and 25 contacts (14 CW & 11 SSB) in the Russian DX.

73,
K2DSL

St Lucia now confirmed

Contacts

Today in the mail I received a QSL card direct from J69DS (Frans). This is a QSL for the only contact I’ve had with St Lucia in the Caribbean which occurred back in October on 40m RTTY, so it’s nice to have this new one confirmed. Current DXC count is 98 via LoTW and 13 additional via QSL cards for a total of 111 confirmed DXCCs.  I still have 29 DXCCs logged but not yet confirmed via LoTW or printed QSL cards.

73,

K2DSL

Trinidad now confirmed

Contacts

Thanks to 9Z4AM (Anthony) I received a postal QSL card direct, allowing me to now mark Trinidad and Tobago confirmed. That gives me 98 via LoTW and 12 additional confirmations via paper QSL cards.

More confirmed DXCCs

Contacts

Yesterday on LoTW I received a QSL confirmation for Saint Kitts and Nevis as well as my only contact on Malta. Both these contacts were in the past 3 days and already confirmed. St Kitts was with V4/G4FAL on CW and the Malta QSO with 9H1SP was made on RTTY and confirmed within about 1 hour. I already have a paper SQL out direct to 9H1SP as well.

My LoTW confirmed DXCC count is now at 98 of which 95 are confirmed on 20m.

73,
K2DSL

Barbados QSL and Triple Play Award

Contacts

In the mail today I got a QSL card from KC2Q in NJ  who was 8P9MD in Barbados. This is my first QSL for Barbados. Brings my QSL count to 96 via LoTW and 11 via paper QSL for a total of 107 DXCCs.

I’ve also started to seek out contacts I can add to this years ARRL Triple Play Award (TPA). You need 150 total Q’s made in 2009 confirmed via LoTW for each state in 3 modes – CW, phone and RTTY. I have most already in RTTY and many also confirmed via phone and now I’m working on the CW Q’s and the ones I stil need on RTTY and phone. There’s a great web page at http://www.obriensweb.com/sked where folks go to hook up for contacts. It’s amazing how friendly and helpful all the ops are in moving around and trying to accomodate everyone’s requests. What a great bunch of hams! Just this morning W5IF (Howard in Oklahoma) made a 20m CW and voice contact with me  – thanks Howard!

73,
K2DSL

Australia confirmed via LoTW

Contacts

Just saw that today my SSB contact with Australia was uploaded today by VK7ZE. That makes it a new LoTW confirmation for me and gets me to 96. I previously had a digital contact with a VK station that I had a QSL card as it was my first VK contact of any kind but this is my first on LoTW. I have also sent out a direct QSL card to VK7ZE and he probably doesn’t even have it yet. Just a few more and I can do a DXCC solely based on LoTW confirmations.

73,
K2DSL

PS0F DXpedition confirmed on LoTW

Contacts

After posting earlier today about a few new DXCCs confirmed via LoTW, I see that the PS0F DXpedition team to Fernando de Noronha has returned home and already uploaded their logs to LoTW! Thanks to W9VA and K9PPY for the new one. Their page on QRZ.com shows they made over 11,000 contacts over their week stay.

That brings my LoTW DXCC count to 95 and with paper QSLs to 106 confirmed.

73,
K2DSL