WB4SON

Man its a wet spring with more rain on the way (16+” year-to-date), but I’m not talking about the weather — I’m talking about DXCC Confirmations.

Today I finally broke the 200 mark in LotW, with confirmations for QSOs from Senegal made over two years ago with 6V7Z coming in today.  It made for an excellent surprise!

Some of the confirmations are coming in from DXpeditons that I’ve already received QSL cards from, but I still have seven QSLs that aren’t in the LotW system yet.  So the confirmed count is now 207.

Two and a half of the goals for 2014 have been completed (DXCC @ 200+, and 5BWAS, and I taught a Technician Class — doesn’t seem to be enough interest for a General course).

I was very fortunate to work Mellish Reef on 20 Meter CW around 0800Z April 4th.  While there was some discussion about them abandoning the reef due to very bad weather, they were still plugging away.  Propagation charts indicated that they should be booming into New England on 30 meters, but when I got up at 0400L, I could barely hear them on 17m, heard them weakly (S2-3) on 20m, and heard them no place else.  As I listened to the 20m station, it became apparent that there wasn’t a lot going on at his end, so I gave a couple of calls — sure enough I snagged a contact.  Shortly after that their 30m station went on the air with a S5-7 signal.  I spent the next four hours trying to make a second contact, with no luck.  Little did I know that they would be off the air for good less than six hours after my one QSO.

Confirmation of QSO with Mellish Reef, VK9MT

As for the current standings, LotW shows me at 197 countries confirmed, with 829 points toward DXCC Challenge, and I need 19 more countries on 80m to complete 5BDXCC.

Looking at my log, I’ve worked 232 countries and 1108 DXCC Challenge points.  QSL cards have brought my total to 206 confirmed with 848 DXCC Challenge points.  Finally, I need 18 more countries on 80m for 5BDXCC.

In terms of WAS, I need 13 more states on 160m, 4 more on 30m, 2 more on 17m, and 8 more for 12m to complete 9BWAS.

I received a beautiful QSL from 6V7S, Vlad, in Senegal West Africa today.  I had worked Vlad on 80/40/30/20/15/10 meters (on SSB/CW/RTTY).  This boosts my 80 meter count to 79 confirmed countries, so I need 21 more to complete my 5BDXCC.  That also boosts my DXCC Challenge count to 811.

I’m a bit late in posting this, but I was lucky enough to work FT5ZM about 18 hours after they went on the air.  Since the path from New England is right through the heart of Europe, breaking through is a challenge.  I suspect that working FT5ZM late at night (~0300 UTC) helped me as many Europeans would be sleeping at that time.

I’ve heard FT5ZM on 40-10 meters now, and they have been loudest (3-5 S units above noise level) on 20/17/15 meters.  Pileups have been wide (approaching 30 KHz) and unruly/rude (many folks sending all the time without listening, and lots of intentional QRM on the FT5ZM transmit frequency).  I will try to break through on a couple of more bands before they stop operation on Feb 12.

The snapshot below shows a 16 KHz wide segment of the 17 meter band.  FT5ZM’s xmit frequency is at the green marker on the far left.  The red marker is set to the frequency of the station FT5ZM is currently working (up about 4 KHz).  S9 is near the top of the display and the noise floor is about S0.  All of these signals were recorded while FT5ZM was transmitting another stations’s call and report.  The actual pileup was about twice this wide.

A DXpedition like Amsterdam Island is a VERY expensive undertaking.  You might want to help sponsor the event, as I have, either directly via their website donation page, or indirectly by supporting the Northern California DX Foundation.