KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

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Operating Notes: Contesting, DXing Africa, ICQPodcast

Posted: 21 Feb 2016 11:14 AM PST
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/kb6nu...m_medium=email


Yesterday, I headed down to WA2HOM, our club station at the Ann Arbor
Hands-On Museum to meet a gentleman from Toledo, OH whos thinking about
approaching a museum down there. While I was waiting for him, I fired up
the rig and made a few contacts in the ARRL DX Contest.

I first pointed the beam south and tuned to 10m. The band was open enough
to work a bunch of stations in the Caribbean and the northern rim of South
America. I then QSYed to 15m and pointed the beam at Europe. After working
a couple of stations, my man showed up, and we had a nice conversation
about the ins and outs of a museum station.

Later in the evening at home, not wanting to get into the fray, I tuned to
7.115 MHz, the slow-speed portion of the band. For whatever reason,
contesters seem to leave the subband 7.100 MHz 7.125 MHz open,Â*which makes
it a good spot to look for contacts if you dont want to get into a contest.

Yesterday evening, I connected with Tom, WD0HBR. When I joked that he
mustnt be a contester, he replied, No, Im not. Its too much like work.
DXing Africa

In the past couple of weeks, Ive been fortunate enough to work the 7P8C and
the 3XY1T DXpeditions, both on the 30m bands. The good news is that, for
whatever reason, I seem to be able to put a decent signal into Africa. The
bad news is that there arent that many hams in Africa!

I worked 7P8C on February 10, 2016. Fortunately, I caught them when the
pileup wasnt too big, and it only took me about ten minutes to work them.



Working 3XY1T on Friday night was another story. While not huge, the pileup
for 3XY1T was considerably larger than the 7P8C pileup. I got down to the
shack just after 9pm (0200Z), and when I heard 3XY1T, I jumped in.

Normally, I lose interest in working a pileup after about ten or fifteen
minutes, but for some reason, I decided to stick with this one. I called
for a little more than an hour with no success, when I decided to give up.
I tuned up the band a bit and called CQ a few times, but when I got no
replies to my CQ, I decided to give the pileup another try. I had much
better success, working them on the fourth call!

When the 7P8C and 3XY1T logs get entered into Logbook of the World, Ill
have 149 total DXCC entities, 148 on CW, and 108 on 30m.
ICQPodcast

Ive joined the roster of commentators on the ICQPodcast, becoming, I think,
their first U.S. commentator. My first episode, #205, is now online for
your listening enjoyment. The topics we discuss include:

Googles tests onÂ*the 71 76 GHZ and 81 86 GHz bands
ARRL partnering withÂ*RFinder to provide more up-to-date repeater info
U.K. version of the ICOM comic, Alex Discovers Amateur Radio


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