First top score in a big contest

ARRL DX CW contest : 8 th place world wide 15M single operator.  (3rd place Europe).

It's the first time I can achieve such a place, and I'm very happy with it.

TF3Y is not comparable geographically, S50K has a much more efficient station with stacked yagis. 

I've only a 3 element Steppir...  
Nevertheless, even with moderate antenna's on a good location, it's possible to achieve a topscore.

Ready for Market Reef

I've been out of this blog for 3 months. 
The reason is simple : no new expeditions, no contests played, no fieldday and hundreds of km's of running.
I planned to perform half a marathon and this plan takes the exercice-time to get fit to it. 
Two weeks ago - after 8 years of no long distance running - I ran my first 21.1 km...
I'm now a full member of a local athletic club, so ham-time was limited.

Anyway, last week we did our final field test in my garden to check all material to go to Market Reef and activate OJ0V for a week.

From left to right ON8VP, ON6QO, ON4LEM, ON5JT

We placed 3 transceivers near to each other to check our little M/M setup.  No problems were detected except some warnings on the full automatic 1KW amplifier on station 1 (IC7600).

We only have 2 KW of power consumption, so it took some measurement to run 3 stations (2 powered by a ampli) at the same time.

The antennas are the two Ultrabeam verticals, one Inverted L and a 3 element yagi for 50Mhz.

Departure on Juni, 27th and the first activation on Market Reef will be probably on Saturday 29th PM.

DX season is over for OT1A

The DXCC counter is now at 297 and it seems finished for this year.

All coming Dx-peditions were worked in the past.  So finally I can now lower the tower after working T5 and A3 some hours ago.
With 5 new countries out of 6 expeditions (I never heard Temotu province or I wasn't at home) the crop seems ok.

Next goal : DXCC on 12m. 
Last year I was at a poor 27 cfd countries.  Today this has grown to 65 cfd with about 15 worked ones to be confirmed.
After this last goal on the higher bands, I'll be no more depending on a 5-bander yagi. 
Let's hope the Steppir can go for another while without errors to obtain this award.

Pse dr om winter, QSY or go QRT !  We want higher temperatures !

DXCC update completed

Finally, my DXCC problem is solved, thanks to a friendly xyl at the ARRL desk.

The DXCC update is ok now, only 3 months after start of the demand. 
There was confusion due to my 2 callsigns.

Time to get a realistic summary :
Until now, I worked only 1 of the 10 most wanted dxcc entities. 
Only 20% of the top20, and even not 40% of the top50 most wanted countries.

I still need 47 entities, even 5 situated on the mainland. and "strange" ones (SV/A and United Nations HQ).

In my "carreer" I missed 5 important expeditions due to my fault and one (Scarborough) was missed because the gentle om called 'only number 6' during all my available time.

It's sometimes hard to be a DX-man.

Tito in the zoo

It sounds like a title for a children's book. 

It's a little story about a T2 station, for away in Tuvalu, who dares to call "CQ EU, up" in cw on 20m.
He's listening, copies quite well the EU stations but get's no answer nor report back.

Here ends the children's part...

Journalists allover the continent report the following newslines :

YO3BZF-@       14019.0 T2GM         A bunch of druks demented Keep out 1603 18 Mar   Tuvalu

DF0BA-@        14020.0 T2GM         generation of idiots born          1600 18 Mar   Tuvalu

YO3BZF-@       14019.0 T2GM         Madhouse is open! Danger !         1559 18 Mar   Tuvalu

F5PLC-@        14019.0 T2GM         EU CB fest !                       1558 18 Mar   Tuvalu

UT6LX-@        14019.0 T2GM         extreme work!                      1544 18 Mar   Tuvalu

GM0LVI-@       14019.0 T2GM         Lidfest and Police :-(             1534 18 Mar  

After the terrible behaviour during the Clipperton expedition, the monster is back !

IMO there must be something done on IARU level, something with penalties, something with red cards, something with public announcements of lid's like in the big contests, but at least something.... 

It's getting worse, year after year.  And it's always the same stupid jealous behaviour. 

Guys without low angle antennas, who feel unable to work the dx, disturb the calling frequency with high angle signals.

I worked them at 11h30 utc and the same zoo was allready active.  So it's not a moment of time, but hour after hour.

In the mean time H4 was working USA on 40m without any problem...

Anyway, DXCC 295 worked.

This month is DX month

Woow,  what is happening in the world ? Everybody seems to go on expedition this month !

There is the Clipperton team, Southern Sudan is in the air, Temotu, Tuvalu, Somalia and Tonga are expected within a few weeks.

This can mean 6 new entities.  I hope to find enough time to make contacts during the week because during the weekend... what a zoo !

Sunday afternoon I listened to Clipperton. 
In ssb, Europe is a real zoo...  The poor guy on the other side did his best.  I copy 8 Hotel, only 8 Hotel.  When you listen on the split freq, a whole zoo of operators who have or 8 in the call or hotel start to cry. 
In the mean time, at the calling frequency another team of idiots starts to call, escorted by a complete police team.  The poor op continues, ok gentleman I've G something 8 something Hotel.  Now everybody with G starts also to cry (of course together with all 8's and all H's).  Incredible !


I don't know what to think of it. 
Maybe the ham licenses are too easy to obtain ? 
Maybe there are just too many hams active ?  Anyway the code of conduct and the respect for the caller is far away during major expeditions.  Especially during the weekend it isn't fun anymore to work special dx.


Back to Clipperton.  I've a special link with this entity : in the past I made my biggest ham mistake with Clipperton and today I was able to resolve this issue.
In the early 2000's there was the previous big expedition to Clipperton.  I was looking forward to contact them because on4ww was also a team-member.  The motivation was even so high that I worked them on the way (waves) to the island as /MM.
But than it went wrong : I was wrongly convinced that they stayed 2 weeks on the island and with only 100W, the plan was to wait for the second week to contact them.  In that days I worked also night shifts and the first week was such a week : working during the night, sleeping during the day and feeling like a zomby.
The second week (a full week at home with plenty of time) I turned on the tx direction Clipperton... they were returning home.  No Clipperton !   Afterwards, I went to the meeting where Mark was presenting the expedition, but no qsl for me.

This time I worked them on 20/17/15/12m and it's sufficient.  No time for 40/80m in the early morning.

Problems with DXCC endorsement

What is going wrong with the DXCC desk ?

Since a few months LOTW has serious troubles (now it seems relatively good under control), but this seems also true for the DXCC desk.

I've sent an endorsement demand via the new electronic system in December 2012.  The local card checker did a very quick job and my call appeared in the DXCC waiting list.

Since 15 January, my call disappeared and since that date, no news. 
No mail, no letter (as they did every year), no upgrade in Lotw.  Just nothing.  And even worse, everything seems deleted in the application history.

I've sent a mail to ask for information.  No answer.

Year after year I've made endorsements to grow in the DXCC program. 
It costs a lot of money, but I don't care. 

Nevertheless I expect a minimum of service and if service fails, at least a minimum of communication.

I don't know if I'm the only one, but I don't like it.