Often it is far too easy to complain about things that aren’t working well, than to recognize when things work so smoothly that you don’t even notice them. This was the case with the ARRL and the DXCC Desk. I can’t believe that I applied for 160m DXCC at 9 PM, and had the award issued by 3 PM the next day. That’s simply outstanding service!
So thank you ARRL!
When I woke up this morning, I checked LotW and noted that I had received confirmation #100 in LotW for 160m from Ark 4O7CC (Montenegro). Just like that, my quest for 160 meter DXCC was complete. I received a nice note from Ark, after thanking him for being #100 – turns out he is a master on 160, with 325+ confirmed on that band, mostly from his home station in Russia UA4CC.
I filled in an application via LotW about 7:30 AM, and by 3 PM today, it had been completed. So things are official now.
Thanks to John V47JA in Saint Kitts & Nevis, I now have 99 confirmed countries in LotW. I have a QSL card from Warwick E51WL in the North Cook Islands, so that makes 100 confirmed counties – it’s just a matter of waiting for the paper QSL to be processed by the DXCC desk before the official 160m DXCC award is granted. Close enough in my book to consider 160m DXCC accomplished in 2021, which means for the first time ever, I have completed all my goals.
I’ve worked Barbados, and Argentina multiple times, with stations that have uploaded to LotW in November, so I am hoping one of those might confirm before the end of the year. In addition, I’ve made contacts with Bermuda, Bosnia, Cape Verde, Cypress, Montenegro, and Wales as well (don’t think they use LotW).
After almost giving up hope on completing 160m DXCC this year (my one remaining goal for 2021), I’ve gotten VERY close. With a LotW confirmation from Sander JW4PUA in Svalbard , I now have 98 confirmations in LotW for 160 meters.
I have been holding a QSL card from Warwick E51WL in the North Cook Islands on 160m, so technically I am sitting at 99 confirmed and need one more to complete DXCC.
Recently I’ve worked Barbados, and Argentina multiple times, with stations that have uploaded to LotW in November, so there is some hope that they may confirm a contact. In addition I’ve worked stations in Bermuda, Bosnia, Cape Verde, Cypress, Montenegro, and Wales, so there is always a possibility that I might be able to request a card from them, or perhaps a LotW confirmation might show up eventually.
There isn’t much time left in 2021, but there is still hope!
The ARRL delivered my 1500 band-point medallion yesterday, and it is now mounted on my DXCC Challenge Plaque. I had acquired the 1000 band-point plaque after about 3 years of DXing. It took almost 7 years to work the next 500 band-points during the bottom on Solar Cycle 24, and the beginning of 25.
Greyline propagation is always a plus. A couple of weeks ago, I thought I worked my 1st Australian station on 160m. Unfortunately the contact wasn’t complete. Since then I was mostly trying to work the higher frequency bands to complete my 1,500 DXCC Challenge band-points. With that complete I turned back to 160m.
As usual I’ve heard multiple Brazil, Argentinian, and other South American stations on 160m, but they never hear me. I did work Montenegro and am awaiting LotW confirmation. That gave me some hope.
This morning around local sunrise (1130UTC) I saw Japan and Australia coming in pretty strong. I worked both, and have received a LotW confirmation from VK3NX (thanks Charlie). I also worked Peter VK5PW, the station I had worked two weeks earlier, as well JE7GXQ in Japan.
So I now stand at 94 confirmed countries in LotW, with possible 2 more coming in, and one QSL card. This renewed my hope that I might be able to get DXCC on 160m by next spring.
The award for activating 50 parks came in this morning. It isn’t a big deal, some have activated over a thousand. But it looks like I’m in the top 10% (337 out of 3416 for 2021). It also represents a lot of fun and about 1000 QSOs.
Well the day started off on the wrong foot when I forgot to take into account the clock change and showed up for the 1300Z CWT an hour late! (I couldn’t figure out why the band was dead.) I recovered from that and worked 30 stations on 40m in a half hour at 1900z. That appears to be my 80th CWT for this year. While I started the CWTs too late to finish the year with a gold medallion, that will be a goal for next year. I’m still happy with silver for my 1st year.
Many thanks to everyone at CWops and all the CWT participants. Especially thanks to Joe Spencer, KK5NA, who was my CWA Advanced Class instructor, and Bruce Blain, K1BG, who spoke at my radio club (Newport County Radio Club) and introduced us to CWops and the CW Academy.
Not hard to do these days, given all the CWTs I’ve been participating in, as well as POTA activations.
The percentage of confirmed contacts has been dropping, primarily due to the large number of state-side QSOs I’ve had. Apparently, few of the POTA or CWT folks bother to upload their logs to LotW. Since ARRL membership is a requirement, perhaps that is an indication that fewer of those folks belong to the ARRL.
I started 2021 with 12,000 QSOs in the log, so this is 4,000 more since then. One of my goals for 2021 was to add 1,500 QSOs. Got that one by a mile.
Lynn and I had anticipated that today would be a stellar fall day in Rhode Island, and it certainly was. We left the house around 11 AM, and by noon (1700Z) I was on the air at the Blackstone River State Park (K-2869). With quiet RF conditions it was easy to complete 30+ contacts in 40 minutes.
About a half-hour later I was on the air at the World War II Veterans Memorial Park in Woonsocket. This is an inner city park, complete with RF noise coming from nearby buildings, cars, etc. The noise floor was about S7. Nevertheless, a dozen contacts were made (including 3 from one family: KN4VKW, KN4VKX, and KN4VKY).
RI is a very small state, about 45 miles from end to end. Sometimes we joke that the state is so small you have go to Massachusetts to make a U-turn. Such was the case today, as we traveled about 40 miles through MA, CT and back into RI to get to the Buck Hill Wildlife Management Area (K-7714), which was only about 10 miles away as the crow flies. That put me about an hour behind schedule, just getting there. Like almost all the Wildlife Management Areas in RI, it is about wildlife, not people, so no trails, no obvious places to park, etc. But the good news was it was far enough away that there was no RF noise. 20+ contacts were quickly added to the log.
With those three parks completed, that brings my total RI Activations up to 50, which was another goal for 2021. Now only two parks remain; Beach Pond (K-6980) on the border of RI and CT, as well as Block Island (K-0513), which requires an expensive ferry ride to access. I will leave these as goals for 2022.
