On Air - latest news for M0TTB

Friday 5th March

What a good week on the bands, starting with Dickson EL2DT last Saturday, card sent on Sunday, confirmed on Wednesday... which is as quick as it ever gets for a card to come back, let alone exotic African DX. It did help having Joe EL2FM as qsl manager no more than 20 miles away from me.

Anyway, as the week progressed, the higher bands opened nicely, with a lot of W activity on 12m and some on 10m.

Today (Friday) was amazing.... every time I went into the shack, I seemed to work a new dxcc! First off, finally catching up with the 9U dxpedition, a bit later and working Carlos TI8CC to bolster my feeble tally of Central American dxcc, then later on, tuning further down the band, I heard Bob 5V7BR finishing off a qso with a SP and worked him first call.

Another nice bonus was coming across 5R8UI on 15m saying 'any more 0's'... 'get in here quick' was my thought and I did, and picked IOTA AF-057. It makes up for all those times when I come across DX calling 1's and working upwards or calling 9's and working downwards!

I will make the most of today and celebrate... I really cannot imagine ever working 3 new ones in a day from now on.

Unfortunately hrdlog.net fell over last week and has not got back up since... so my online logbook and qso map are not showing.

Friday 26 February

As usual, I had a bit of a winter break, although I was semi active on HF around the Xmas period, picking up a new dxcc on Boxing day, with an SU (already confirmed).

February has been quite active for M0TTB on the HF bands... helped by some significant solar activity and some real effect on the higher HF bands. However, until today (26th) and 'Poirot & Inspector Morse devotee' HR2J Javier, new dxcc have eluded me. Still, I have had many excellent qso's over the last month and on bands that are more rewarding. My 15m and 12m dxcc counts have gone up nicely, with the likes of VP8, ZS, Z2, 5H, TL, W, on 12m.. Being able to have decent long qso's with W's on 15m and 12m really is a great sign that things are heading in the right direction.

Even though solar activity has dropped off since the SFI touched 100, the word seems to be out and the higher bands are getting the activity that they haven't had for a long time. I'm sure there will be plenty of bleak times ahead, but the tide has turned.