OT1A in the CW 2012 WPX contest

The claimed scores of the CW WPX contest are published on the net.

I just took part during a couple of hours to test my station with a new laptop and the updated version of N1MM.  Even this was enough to end somewhere in the lower end of the middle of the worldgroup.
And a first place in ON !   ... not that difficult with only 1 participant.  

With only 13 single ON operator stations in the contest, only 3 in high power, the national competion is very poor.  It seems that CW has become too difficult to most of the new licensed operators...

At this moment, only my friend Franki, OQ5M,  seems to be able to perform very well in SOAB contests.  All the others (myself inclusive during this one) prefer to stay in bed during the night or are happy with 100W.
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Hopely, there'll be more competition during the IARU contest !

Let's have a drink on the 20m band

YJ0VK confimed our last week QSO and upgrades my 20 meter DXCC counter to 200 !

Let's have a small drink to celebrate this new milestone on the primary HF band.
Other upgrades are nearby : on 15m : 195 confirmations, on 17m : 88 cfd, on mixed mode 284 cfd.

A new milestone : DXCC Challenge achieved

Yesterday evening the ARRL Lotw confirmation counter finally achieved 1000 !

T6MO confirmed our AA-contest QSO and now I can order the DXCC Challenge plaque.  I've more than 1000 countries confirmed, but my 160m QSL cards aren't sent yet to the ARRL.

My everyday morse training continues.  I'm now able to work 100 QSO's within 30 minutes on Morserunner.  The speed increased to 35 WPM and the error rate is about 2%, which is still too high.
I'm still having some problems with fast D-B and S-H combinations.  With about 3 weeks to go before the IARU contest, this looks good.

All Asia and 12m openings

This afternoon I started with a complete clean up of the shack, and the first preparations to finish the QSLing.  This will take more time than expected, but I still want to have the QSLing ready before the end of July.

I worked some Asian stations on 15m and 20m in the All Asia contest.  Pretty good conditions ! T6 is a new one on 15m.

On 12m, big fun with wide openings to the Carribean en South-America.  I worked my first PY, LU, FG, 6Y, A6, SV on 12m this evening.  With only 36 countries confirmed, this is almost 15% of all worked 12m countries in a few hours.  So very happy with it.

So is everything so great ?  No : my OMpower ampli didn't arrive yet although it was shipped last Monday...    Hopely it will be delivered next week !

Clublog and WAZ

After writing a piece of code in order to translate and include QSL information from my own log to Adif-format, I've uploaded my complete log to Clublog (www.clublog.com).

The tool is nice and, although most DXCC information can be found in Lotw, the zone-analysis was surprising for me.  I have not confirmed zone 2 on 20m ! 
This means nobody of the worked VE stations uses lotw nor send cards by the buro.  Very disappointing...
I also never had a contact with zone 23 on 10m and no confirmation of zone 32 on that band.  This is also a surprise.  
On 15m all zones confirmed, on 40m 33 confirmations and on 80m 25 zones.  The new stations design will quickly change those results on the low bands.

So at this moment I can order the WAZ award with at least 150 zones confirmed.  Because this will take of lot of work to search all QSLs, I just will wait until this is included in Lotw.

Let's begin

Within a few months I'll be licensed for 18 years as radio-amateur.   After 3 years of allmost no activity, everything is ready to prepare a comeback.
I just received my 5BDXCC plaque from the ARRL, and I need only 3 band/country slots to achieve the DXCC Challenge. So enough motivation to go on.

Next steps :
- a daily morse training with morserunner to (re-)achieve at least 30 WPM receiving skills
- installation of a new high power amplifier which will arrive within a few days
- arrival of a voice keyer for SSB-contesting
- ordering a 80m and 40m vertical to start with, as a preparation for my highly wanted 4squares.

Goal : be ready for the IARU HF contest on the higher bands in mixed mode.  On the lower bands it will be difficult to have all antennas installed...

Everything has to be ready for the CQWW-SSB contest by the end of October.

a new start for OT1A

Just to announce that a new blog will be started tomorrow...  ON4CCP/OT1A is back in town for the next coming years !

Koen
OT1A