Well it had to happen sooner or later, the first snow of the season, a dusting here at casa-WB4SON
Now if that were all we would get, life would be grand. But winter is coming, along with brutal nor’easter storms with near hurricane strength winds. In fact, this fall, we have already had four nor’easters (rain, not snow) and the tree damage to go along with it.
Every morning I get up and hope my antenna is still up in the air.
I had obtained an Amateur Radio tag for my truck about a decade ago. It was quite an ordeal due to a lack of documentation at DMV, and their inability to be able to enter the request in their computer system. In fact, shortly after speaking with the director of the DMV at the time, a new form appeared that spelled out the process.
After 20 faithful years of service, I retired my truck this year and replaced it with a plug-hybrid. I was a tad concerned about getting the Amateur Radio tag converted over, but it was an easy process, all done at the dealer. The new plates showed up about 5 weeks later. All I had to do was pay the regular fee for obtaining a replacement tag (the old tags were beat up and did not identify it as a EV/HEV, which is important for fire services to know).
The ARRL continues to be fast; the DXCC Certificate #3,752 for 160 Meters arrived on Monday December 6th.
Back in 2012, when I got my DXCC Mixed certificate, there had been 48,128 of them issued, and no doubt many more have been issued in following 9 years. Clearly 160 meter DXCC is more rare, which is understandable due to the size of the antenna, and that the band is only usable for about half of the year due to high noise in the summer.
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.
