I managed to get along to the Autumn 'Junk Sale' of previously loved equipment. It was great to meet up with many of the club members and friends. In one box of bits, I saw lurking a bit of mechanical wizardry, the drive assembly from an Edison wax cylinder recorder/player. This came from one of the many models made around 1886. Now that’s junk?
On the 6th I finally made my target of 200 DXCCs in a year. This one was an island off Brazil - not too rare but with huge pileups on FT8 and SSB, I got him on SSB with 200W and the blue wire loop.
I have been trying to sort myself out by checking my QSL cards, ClubLog, and LOTW for the many islands I have worked over the years but not claimed. The result is another 15 added to my score and qualification for the 400-island award (to be claimed in the new year together with some recently worked ones, yet to be confirmed).
On the 15th I worked G2SZ from Southampton. This station is run by David Goyder, nephew of Cecil who as a young man worked UK to ZL for the first time in 1924.
The last weekend of October sees the annual CQWW SSB contest, a great free-for-all with no on-air score, just a location zone exchange. I know that several other club members were active so it will be interesting to hear how they did? I could not make out how to check my score, but I made a submission anyway. My scores included 106 QSOs to 23 zones, 50 DXCCs and 18 IOTAs. Some interesting contacts gave credence to my earlier comments about 15 metre propagation following the sun from morning to nighttime. The usual problems of over-driven transmitters and splatter made things tough going but it was worth the effort, and I am glad I got involved and I enjoyed the challenges.
Unfortunately, due to health problems in the family the month finished on a quiet note as radio had to take second place. However the postman finally delivered my IOTA North America certificate - now to find some wall space to show it off!
As I write this, more DX has appeared, so more next month.
Good DXing
Chris, G4ZCS
