I have 1/2 a dozen contacts with Panama but none were confirmed yet until today when a QSL card arrived from HP3DX via W4WX. The other contacts did not QSL via LoTW and I’m sure return QSL cards via the bureau are en-route. Since HP3DX uses a local QSL manager in W4WX, I was glad to be able to get this one checked off.
Bill, thanks for the contact and new DXCC confirmed!
73,
K2DSL
I have more then a dozen contacts with Macedonia in the logbook with 3 different operators, but none had yet been confirmed until today. Over the weekend was the 1 day TARA RTTY contest and a contact with Z36W in Macedonia was confirmed overnight on Logbook of the World (LoTW). Thank you Venco for the contact and confirming a new DXCC for me.
73,
K2DSL
Friday night into Saturday I operated the TARA RTTY Melee contest. It’s a 24 hour contest that you can operate a max of 16 hours. I started on Friday evening and operated for about 4 hours making 103 contacts on 40m and 80m and primarily US/Canadian stations. I got back on the next morning after 8.5 hours off so I could operate as much as I wanted on Saturday.
Saturday I spent most of the day on 20m. I checked 15m a few times but never heard any stations. Even on 20m I was making contact primarily with US/Canadian stations. In total there were 24 different countries outside of mainland US and Canada I had a contact with so really not too much DX. We started to get snow flurries mid morning and it turned to large wet snow flakes which came down for the remainder of the day.
I left during the day for a couple hours to go and meet Gordon West which was fun. Other then the break for a couple hours I tried to be on the radio as much as I could. As the day/contest wore on, it was more difficult to find new stations that were in run mode, and when I went into Run mode the contacts were sporadic with extended periods of the macro calling CQ and repeating. Some 15m and 10m activity would have helped and maybe the 160m contest had some folks operating there instead.
I ended up with 260 contact which is 61 contacts better then my score in this for 2008. All contacts have been uploaded to LoTW, eQSL, HRDLog.net and ClubLog and the log file sent in. There were a few paper QSL cards to fill out for this and I did those this morning along with finishing up some lingering from last weekends CQ WW CW contest. I’ve already seen a lot of eQSL and LoTW QSLs for this contest already on the respective sites.
Here’s my score summary:
Band QSOs Pts Cty 3.5 82 82 20 7 61 61 26 14 117 117 27 Total 260 260 73 Score : 18,980
See you in the log,
K2DSL
I used Gordon West’s study guides and audio CDs to learn and pass all 3 tests. It was like a good teacher that I never actually met. Well that is until today. KJI Electronics is a local amateur radio store in NJ less then 30 mins from me and they were having a Customer Appreciation weekend and today’s special guest was Gordon West so I had to go!
I was in the middle of the TARA RTTY contest but I gave up a couple hours to drive there, meet him and hang out for a bit. He looks just like (better in fact) the pictures I’ve seen of him and his voice is exactly like it sounds on the audio CDs. I brought my Extra studt guide with me and he signed the inside of it. He also had some certificates with him and he filled one out for me as well. It was real nice to speak with him and hearing his voice brought back some good memories from listening to the CDs over and over on my commute.
If you have the chance to meet him at some event, by all means try to do so. It was a thrill and he’s a terrific fellow and great representative of our fun hobby! Thanks Gordo!!
73,
K2DSL
In order to take the greatest advantage of Logbook of The World (LoTW) QSLs for awards such as WAS or DXCC, the info associated with your or the other operators account needs to be complete and accurate. TQSL is the program used to “sign” your QSO info before uploading and that info is where your station location details are defined. This info isn’t mandatory when setting things up the first time, but without it, the other station can’t take advantage of all that a LoTW QSL can provide, so below are the steps that you can check/update your own or in the case of a QSL you receive from another ham that is missing the info, pass along this link.
Here are the steps:
1 – Launch TQSL off your Start / Programs menu.
2 – When TQSL is running, click on the Station menu and select Edit locations.
3 – Once the Edit Station Locations window opens, select the appropriate location (you might just have one) and with it highlighted, click the Edit button.
4 – In the Edit Station Location window for the selected station, you should specify your grid locator, your ITU zone and CQ zone. If you don’t know this info, in many cases you can get this by viewing your own call sign on QRZ.com and view the details. You can also use http://www.levinecentral.com/ham/grid_square.php and enter in your call or address to get your grid square. After entering this info, click the Next button.
5 – In the next window, assuming you are in the United States, select your State and then County. When done, click Next.
6 – The next window that is displayed indicates your information has been saved. Click the Finish button at the bottom and it will close the window. You’ll be back at the window listing your station location(s). Click Ok to close that window. At the main TQSL window, click File / Exit and you’re done.
Since all your existing LoTW records were processed with the previous values, you need to re-process all records that should now be tagged with the complete information. If you have operated from multiple locations, you want to only re-process the records for the location you have just updated. When you do this and re-upload them to LoTW, they will overlay the existing records and any QSL matches will now have all the detail you just configured.
I hope this helps you update your own info or if you contact another operator that has missing info that they can walk through the steps to update their info. Most operators have been very receptive to doing this, as they are already going through the LoTW upload process so this only increases the value of what they are doing. If anyone has questions or corrections, please add a comment or email me and I’ll adjust the instructions.
73,
K2DSL
Today in the mail was a card from D2NX (Koji) for a contact made in Oct 2008. It’s my only contact with Angola and now it’s confirmed.
73,
K2DSL
This past weekend was the very popular CQ Worldwide CW contest. As I’m still getting up to speed on morse code, I use DM780 to help decode the incoming morse code not unlike a RTTY signal. It works extremely well and allows me to participate.
I got a bit of a late start on Friday after attending a local ham radio auction. I made 33 contacts in just under 2 hours on 40m and some local 80m contacts to add as multipliers.
On Saturday I got up and started on 20m working mostly Europe. After a couple hours I checked 15m and worked some Europe and Caribbean / South American stations. I’m weak on 15m with my G5RV but in most cases if I can hear a station, they can hear me. I even checked 10m and made a contact with HI3A in the Dominican Republic and NQ4I in Georgia. I also worked V5VQ on 10m with the other couple being US stations for multipliers. The rest of Saturday was spent on 20m and 15m until I left at 2100z (4pm ET) to a party for a few hours. When I got back home I got on the air for 1 hour on 40m making contact with European and Caribbean/South America stations.
Sunday morning when I turned the radio on I was still on 40m from the night before and the station on the frequency was a Hawaii station that I was able to make contact with. 1 Mhz away was VK6AA in Australia booming in on 40m and was able to make a contact on just the first or second call. After a couple more 40m contacts I switched to 20m and then 15m throughout the day before hitting 40m & 80m at the end of the contest.
New DXCCs logged in the 2 days leading up to the event were with Faroe Island, Botswanna and Somoa. During CQ WW I logged contacts with 3 additional new DXCCs in Madagascar, Guernsey and Zambia.
I logged 25 CQ zones with all but 1 on 20m which was the Australian station logged on just 40m. I wasn’t able to copy any Asian stations such as those in Japan, etc. Zone 5 I worked on 5 bands of 10m-80m and zones 14 & 33 I worked on 4 bands of 15m-80m. I had the most Q’s to zones 15 & 14 followed by zones 8 & 5.
I worked a total of 86 DXCC’s with 5 on 80m, 44 on 40m, 71 on 20m, 39 on 15m and 3 on 10m. The 366 contacts were made with 286 distinct stations., 18 of which I worked on 3 bands. Canada had the most Q’s followed by Germany and Spain. I logged 13 US contacts all for multipliers as US stations provide no points to me.
I am truly amazed at the ability for operators to decode morse code at the speed it is sent as well as the multiple signals (seems like a hundred at a time) coming at them and even the weak signals. It’s really fascinating that they can do it is so well.
Here’s my score summary:
Band QSOs Pts Cty ZN
3.5 10 21 5 4
7 79 203 45 16
14 210 589 72 24
21 62 159 39 15
28 5 4 3 3
Total 366 976 164 62
Score : 220,576Log has been sent in as well as uploaded to LoTW, eQSL, HRDLog.net and Clublog.org. The QSLs are already coming in on eQSL and LoTW. Now to fill out the paper QSLs!
73,
K2DSL
Following on yesterdays nice contacts resulting in 2 new ham radio DXCCs logged, I was able to work 5W0KH on RTTY today. I saw Karl (DL2FAG) spotted on the cluster and fired up DM780 and after a few attempts was able to log him on his DXpedition to Samoa, an island a bit more then halfway between the west coast of the US and Austrlia and about 7,250 miles from me in NJ.
This was my first contact with a ham radio operator on Samoa so that makes 3 new DXCCs logged in the past 2 days. It’s probably all due to a lot of activity and testing of stations before the CQ WW contest gets underway in a couple of hours.
Thanks for a new one Karl – my QSL card is on its way to your home call.
73,
K2DSL
Today was Thanksgiving in the US, so as we got ready for our feast today (I’m stuffed full as I type this), I did some CW. It started out with logging a new DXCC with a contact with Faroe Island on 20m. I then logged 16 more contacts on CW across different bands. I’m guessing a bunch of folks are just getting warmed up for CQ WW coming up this weekend, but it was great. In most cases it was nothing more then a single call to get each one logged. The contacts for today were:
1) OY2J – Faroe Island – 20m * New DXCC *
2) P49V – Aruba – 17m
3) YS4/W0OR – El Salvador – 15m
4) CT3NT – Madeira Island – 15m
5) PJ2/WI9WI – Bonaire, Curacao – 17m
6) EA8/DK9TN – Canary Island – 15m
7) YS4/N0STL – El Salvador – 20m
8) V31WV – Belize – 20m
9) P40A – Aruba – 15m
10) 5N7M – Nigeria – 20m [Can’t find info on this call]
11) ZS6BQI – South Africa – 20m
12) FM/D6ARC – Martinique – 17m
13) PJ4/K4BAI – Bonaire, Curacao – 15m
14) VP5/W5CW – Turks & Caicos – 15m
15) HI3A – Dominican Republic – 30m
16) A25NW – Botswana – 20m * New DXCC *
17) J79WE – Dominica – 30m
A lot to be thankful for!
73,
K2DSL
Saw a spot on the DX Cluster on 20m CW for Vietnam so I tuned to it but didn’t hear anything. I then tuned down a little bit and hear a loud station coming in and it was OY2J on Faroe Island. I put out my call and Johan came right back to me. After a couple more calls he was spotted on the cluster and had a good pileup going. It’s nice to find a station “in the wild” and make an easy contact with them especially for a new DXCC.
Faroe Island is located between Iceland and the UK so it’s not a tough contact for me on the east coast but it’s the first time I think I’ve heard a station on from there. Maybe they are prepping for the CQ WW contest this coming weekend. Looks like I need to send direct for a QSL card so time to fill one out.
This is a nice start on Thanksgiving for me!
73,
K2DSL