As many of you might know, I have been having health problems for a few years. This had put a stop to my DXing as concentration was a bit compromised by the treatments I have been having. As I have had a 'holiday' from hospital treatment recently I got the urge to get back to DXing.
For the New Year I set myself a couple of targets, the main one was to work 100 DXCCs during January.
Well, I got off to a good start by fixing my broken delta loop antenna, twice!
With that and the amp' properly set up I started, only to find Rob 'KPD/M had beaten me off from the start. For the next four weeks I was chasing him up the charts always trailing by 6 to 12 (it’s probably his early morning starts that did it) I settled to work any station I could hear on any band, and to give a few points in the contests I came upon. Using my 'Electronic wrist' I used CW as well as SSB, but none of these new-fangled data-modes, (I’ll try those in the future).
Early on I managed to work some interesting stations including Greenland, Australia, Indonesia, and several in southern Africa. As this year the WRTC is being held in Italy, there was a month-long activity by about 50 stations worldwide with awards (wallpaper) being awarded for working as many stations on as many bands and modes as possible. There were some 110,000 stations involved in the chase and my final place was 2001, just outside the top 1%. It was just for a bit of fun but frustrating trying to break through the pileups to China, Japan and some of the South American stations.
So, by the end of the month I had failed miserably with 'only' 91 worked - still behind Rob with his 102.
Still, I still hope to have another 11 months to work my targets. The next big one is Bouvet island in the South Atlantic, luckily the propagation predictions suggest afternoon and early evening as the most likely times for a contact.
Reports like this one used to be a regular feature of the old paper newsletters. If you are interested, I might be able to do regular updates for as long as possible. Just let the webmaster know.
73 Chris.
[Yes please Chris! - M0XYF]
