Another lucky night

Tonight I was tuning around 40m and found PZ5RA (Suriname) before the hordes descended.

QSO audio

This is DXCC #105 worked for me.

A nice DX night on 40 and 30 meters

Got XR0Y (Easter Island), 5W0NM (Samoa), and TX3A (Chesterfield Island) on 40m CW tonight, around midnight local time.

Here's the TX3A QSO: Audio

What is K4M saying?

I've been listening to K4M from my desk at work (via skype to my rig at home), and I'm hearing the op send some very high-speed CW (I think) interspersed with the normal QSO traffic. It always seems to be at the end of a QSO, and I've only heard it on 20 meters. An example: listen

I isolated just the high-speed part: listen

and slowed it down 4 times: listen

It sounds to me like he said "SD5AE". Huh?

And on 17m today: listen

Just the high-speed part: listen

Slowed down 4 times: listen

That one sounds like "RL-R"

Confused

Approaching DXCC

I finally worked K4M (Midway Island DXPedition 2009) today on 40m CW. While logging the entry, I noticed that I'm up to 98 countries worked, including all my old WB8YVI contacts from the 70s. I guess there's something to be said for perseverance!

Conway Reef

I got Conway Reef (3D20CR) tonight on 40 CW, on the 3rd or 4th call. I really wasn't expecting to hear my callsign come back, since the Desecheo and Glorioso DXPeditions were such busts for me, so I'm pretty excited. Thanks to the good ops on the island for hearing my 100w and dipole!

Guam, finally

I was tuning around 20m tonight (it's been nicely open in the late evening here) and tuned across KH2L. I figured I had Guam confirmed long ago from my Ohio QTH, but just to be sure, I checked, and no, I didn't! It only took two calls to put it in the logbook. So, one more down, maybe 30 to go for DXCC.

Oh, and if I didn't mention it before, the G5RV apex is at 58 feet now (I say "60 ft" or "20 meters" on the air, but what's 2 feet between friends?). Having the antenna 38 feet higher than the old antenna, plus not having an S9+ buzzsaw in the neighbor's garage really helps with the DX!

Two new countries

The other night, using my new G5RV, I worked H44MY (Solomon Islands) and a DK2 (Niue). Some nights you listen, and there's nothing new, and some nights, there are DXpeditions!

That same night I worked a DL - it brought back some memories of working Europe from our QTH in northern Ohio where I grew up.

In contrast, I would have been really excited to work the South Pacific from Ohio. From here in California, it's not that hard...

Some Recent QSLs

A few favorite QSLs

Here are some of my favorite QSLs from 1976-79, when I had decent antennas:















This last one, KZ5FR, is special because the place (Canal Zone) no longer exists.

CQWW CW

The CQWW CW contest was this past weekend, and I spent about 7 hours doing search-and-pounce. I ended up with:

32 contacts/13 countries on 40M
53 contacts/13 countries on 20M

The 20M vertical seemed to perform about as well as I could expect. I was surprised at how many times I got a response on my first attempt. I didn't try to wade into the really big pileups (you know, the ones that sound like a symphony orchestra falling down a flight of stairs).

I think these were new countries for me (I am only starting to go back through my QSL cards from the 1970s):

P49Y Aruba
HC8N Galapagos Is
V31WA Belize
CO8LY Cuba
6K2DIO South Korea

I also learned a lot more about using the N1MM logger, including the variable-speed CW trick (every "<" character you insert into the exchange increases the speed a bit, every ">" decreases it). I didn't use that trick in any of the S&P exchanges, but did program it into my CQ (which I only used a little).

Since I had N1MM figured out pretty well, I was able to multitask and do a cycling workout while doing S&P (hey, when you've got kids, you need to make good use of the free time you have). I only needed to press 7 keys (ctrl-arrows for moving up and down the list of packet spots, up and down arrows to tune, F4 to send my call and F2 for the exchange. I think I made about 35 contacts this way:



While doing this, I looked down at my bike's power meter (I have a CycleOps PowerTap that can read/record power output at the rear hub), and realized that during my tempo interval, I was generating 225W, and my radio was only putting out 100W. Somehow that seems wrong...