First of all, my tech girl has fixed the Tiscali e-mail so it is operational again should anyone want to communicate. (Thanks Emma)
This month I am going to explore the North Pole. There is a floating ice laboratory run by the Russians using the call RI0SP and the ship is named Severny Polyus.
The operator uses FT8 and I have worked him many times. The FT8 program includes a 4 digit grid square, so the grid BR66 is longitude square B, due north of Alaska, and the latitude R is as far north as you can get. The number is 00 in the bottom left, up to 99 in the top right. Again my northern most contact was with KR98 which is due north of north cape in Norway.
This last year we worked the following squares; BR66, CR46, ER60, KR98, LR90, MR18, OR38, QR63, and RR65. It is worth a look on the web to see some maps of their travels!
On the DX front things seem to be on the up. Africa seemed to be the best with; 5V7RU Togo, TY5AD Benin, 9U1RU Burundi, 7X5CY Algeria, V51PJ Namibia, TL8GD Central African Republic, 9L8MD Sierra Leone, and 5R8XX Madagascar.
On the first I managed two VKs, VK5COL, and VK5UW one after another for OC-001.
On the 6th I was working V31MA From Belize, when we finished a Japanese station JA2JBT called me for another grid square. The 14th bought a nice surprise, two QSLs from Africa from Mozambique islands AF-098 and AF-103, pictures below. They are Chiloane Island and Inhacamba Island respectively.
On the 17th I contacted AT44I for my second Antarctic station of the year. It is worth looking up this one too, as it seems that all these Antarctic stations are built to totally different styles. On the 18th I worked NA-103, NA-091, NA-109 and between the 20th and the 29th I managed to work 25 USA counties.
Next month, as we come to the end of the year I'll try to write up a review of 2025.
Good DXing
Chris G4ZCS
[ Of note (to me...) this month, I had QSOs with T77RN on 60m (San Marino), TL8GD on 10m (Central African Republic), TY5AD on 15m (Benin), 5Z4VJ on 12m (Kenya), XW4KV on 12m (Laos) and 9U1RU on 40m (Burundi), maybe one or two more - I tend to misplace/overwrite some of my FT8 logs, and don't often record SSB contacts unless they're POTAs. I have no real idea what I'm doing, but I'm having fun all the same! Thanks to Chris for inspiring me to have a go. Berni M0XYF ]
