March 2nd 2012
by M0TTB - Andy on 03/02/12
Long
time no blog! I decided not to bother creating an archive of 2011, but I
have added a quasi blog from my site hosting company and we'll see how
that goes, there is a comment feature as well.
Not a huge amount of activity recently on the bands from me... but I make sure I pick up any new dxcc that I can. The
HK0NA dxped was a huge success and, as with T32C last year, it was
there for almost anyone to work no matter what they use on HF. They
seemed to be a huge signal no matter what band they were on, and I don't
think I spent much time in the pile-up trying to work them... In fact I
had them on most bands before the actual dxped officially started.
The
VP6T dxped was a different matter....I only managed them on 20 and 15m,
and they were never too strong. I spent quite a time (for me) trying to
get them on 10m, but it just didn't happen... their signal was ok but
the big wide split and not hearing anything to pick up on as far as
where they were listening was often depressing. It has to be said that
this wasn't a huge dxped, and it was far more orientated towards CW than
phone (fair enough). The main point was that I worked them for a new
one.
I
was really glad to finally pick up Trevor VK0TH on Macquarie, working
him in peace before anyone spotted him on 20m. We're very lucky that
Macquarie has had 2 consecutive operators on it. I never made it to Kev
last year, more through timing than anything, he'd often call by # and
start at zero (I'm usually in favour of that!) when propagation to the
U.K. wasn't good, and by the time he got back to zero he'd either gone
qrt due to the usual suspects or just run out of operating time.
3C
is going great guns at the moment, cracking signal and I have them on
17, 15, 12 and 10. Not sure I'll get them on 20m, they turn up on 20m
when the higher bands are dead, and by that time NA is waking up and
attention goes to them (again, fair enough to a large extent). Just a
matter of unfortunate timing. With propagation and the higher bands
picking up, 20m is the struggle, as the dxped naturally concentrate
further up.. and of course we have the dqrm and general bad behavior
issues more apparent on 20m than anywhere else. To be honest, once I
have a new dxcc, 20m is not priority as far as band slots go, it's a
last resort band and I'm not bothered with my 20m tally. Their, shorter
than planned, trip toe 3C0 will be far tougher!
Now
an active user of LoTW, I have finally dxcc confirmed on 5 bands...just
not the right bands for 5B DXCC ;-) I currently have LoTW totals of
222 mixed,
143 20m
134 17m
164 15m
100 12m
134 10m
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