April got off to a good start; as I mentioned last month, I had an 'eyeball' with Dick G1CWP while we waited for a Covid jab in Haywards Heath. A few hours later I saw Gavin G6DGK at the Brighton hospital.
That evening, however, something went wrong with my treatment that got worse and worse until 5 in the morning when we called for an ambulance. 7 hours of corrective treatment and I was home again but really fuddled in the head, not to mention being bruised from a subsequent fall! That took a couple of weeks to recover from, so not too much radio.
It seems that many of our club members are taking advantage of the current turmoil in the world’s commerce to buy new rigs. It is interesting to hear on-air comments about setting up these new complicated beasts. Perhaps it is only us dinosaurs that can afford them!
This month saw the 100th anniversary of the IARU, so lots of stations to chase. In addition, many countries are celebrating their own anniversaries ranging from 25 to 100 years. Unfortunately, the sun has been overactive for most of the month, so DX has been quite difficult and local ground wave hasn't been much better.
The postman has been kind again, delivering a card from the Indian equivalent of Rockall. Called 'Sacrifice Rock' (IOTA ref’ AS-161) it is just a lump of stone sticking out of the Indian Ocean. A second one from last year was the Chatham Islands, ZL7YL for IOTA OC-038, another ATNO confirmation.
As we come to the end of April which has been quiet for contacts, I managed to get the Galapagos, HD8G in their closing hours, after many attempts on both FT8 and 15m SSB. This is usually an easy DX, but for some reason this activation was especially difficult to contact.
Another interesting one for the month’s end was 4U0IARU from Austria. Finally on the evening of the 29th I was checking 20m FT8 when I heard the floating Russian Polar station. Having worked him first call, I was called by 2 VKs, then a string of DX; 3 JAs, 2 Rs, 5 Bs, 2 Es an HA, a DS, a UR, 3 SPs, one G, an SA, and a TA - all 25 in just over an hour.
That's it for this month. Catch up with you all again next time.
73's
Chris G4ZCS
