Following on from last month’s effort, I finally reached my 100 target just a couple of days late, and several more besides.
Conditions have been variable to say the least, however any of you 'new' licensees who have yet to experience a sunspot peak that comes about each 11 years will be in for a treat for a couple of years.
At the beginning of the month there were some good openings to North America, and Canada in particular. I worked a handful of western provinces Including north Alberta and greater Vancouver as well as a long rag chew with a Calgary station. A couple of Alaska stations rounded off a good couple of days. To the east, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Azerbaijan were worked many times and one bonus for me was 9N7AA in Kathmandu, Nepal for an ATNO (All Time New One).
Further east a number of Chinese stations were heard but not worked, but the Isle of Bali seemed easy with 3 stations in quick succession on 15M SSB. Africa has been a bit light with several expedition stations worked CW for a quick “599 Thanks”. Again, one 10M opening allowed a rag chew with Mark V51MA in Namibia talking about his project to build a full length 160M dipole in his 'garden'.
On the 18th and 19th, the American CW contest was on. Using 200W and my wire delta loop I worked not all, but 32 of the 'lower 48' together with 6 Canadian provinces. Now I know why Montana has the abbreviation “MT” as that is what it is - Empty. I think there was only one operator there the whole weekend! I missed several of the states that I had worked earlier in the month and that was frustrating.
Ken’s 15M lunchtime net has had several visitors, including one from Iceland and one from Rimini.
Even Bob N4XAT has popped up fully audible from his small loop antenna in New Jersey!
Next month I’ll do an update on IOTA for those that might be interested.
73s & good DX
Chris, G4ZCS
