October in the shack

The first clouds after months appear in the sky. Some of them dropped even rain. What a nice feeling the changing of the season. Ham radio keeps me pretty busy. Unfortunately the propagation was very low. Sun spots refuge to appear to cheer bands a little bit up. So the Tara Rumble PSK contest turned out to be a great disappointment. I join Rumble every year but this was my worst one. Only 67 QSO, no USA, no Japan, no VKs this time. On the other hand some rare DX showed up the first days of October. It needed to sweat to work some of them but everything went ok after all. ACOM1000 helped a lot. Two new ones 3C7Y and H40MY among them left me happy, as I am approaching the final target of ARRL Honor Roll. Actually I have 321 countries confirmed till now in LoTW. With a little luck and better propagation I hope to get it in a couple of years. Be healthy all of you and enjoy the hobby.

The mother of contests

Last weekend we had a lot of fun with the CQ WW RTTY contest. It’s the biggest in the world. Every year a lot of stations participate from every place around the world. Some expeditions go there on purpose, just to have a good score. So it is a very good opportunity to work rare dx station on RTTY. That is exactly the reason I participate. I have no any chance for championship but I always enjoy it.

I always use the MixW, which it is an excellent tool for this job. This year I made 532 qso’s in all bands and 293643 points. This is my best score ever, so I have all the reasons to be happy. Rare stations on RTTY were heard and worked, like: 9U0A, HC8N, VK9LA, PZ5RA, KH6ND, D4C, KP2/NP3D and many others I cannot recollect. Some of them sent already the logs to the LoTW, which I found an excellent idea. Even propagation conditions were poor without sunspots on the sun and SFI lower than 70, I had no trouble working all these exotic stations. So let promise a sked for next year when situation will be much better. Till then we have a lot of marvelous event to join. So stay tuned.

And now what?

"The on-line log has now been updated to include all QSOs up to 03:31Z today, when 3B7C closed down. There are now 135,718 QSOs in the log....Thank you for all your kind comments on the DXpedition and your good wishes for the team's safe return. I have passed these on and they have been much appreciated by the team."With those words the pilot station of 3B7C wrote the epilogue of this tremendous dxpedition. In our island, Zante, 6 stations have worked them. Their calls are: SV8CS 24, SV8RX 23, SV8KOK 10, SV8DOU 8, SV8KOM 8 and SV8AXZ 1. The first 5 of them succeeded to get in the 100 Greek list. All these days, that it lasted, we had a lot of fun, trying to work as many slots as possible. We are all good friends and during this contest type event we had a lot of bets. So we are going to meet now to analyze the results and celebrate our achievement drinking lager.
And now what is next? What else the huge CQ WW RTTY Contest during this weekend. So I have again to shout the well known cry: See you in the pile ups!!!

Hunting 3B7C

What an expedition! It looks like a road roller. Too many stations active simultaneously in all bands in all modes for as long as 18 days. They have as a target to beat the 168,772 QSO record of D68C. I think they have good possibilities to succeed. The huge amount of equipment, big antennas, linears, and the plenty of very experienced operators guarantee big scores for sure.

“Our strategy is to run maximum power on as many bands as possible. We will have big monoband antennas on all bands 30m to 6m and verticals on the remaining bands. This way we will be heard everywhere in the world at some time of the day or night. We will also be active for around 18 days covering three weekends. By adopting this strategy we should be able to give at least one contact to anyone who wants one anywhere in the world.”

With these words describe their plan the 5 stars DX group (http://www.3b7c.com/). It is a very well organized expedition indeed.

So far they are working perfectly with absolute control of frequencies and QSO running. They are far away comparing with similar expeditions. I put here a list with bands I have already worked, with the notation that we are just at the beginning. There are 12 days left.

By the way they have promised digital modes after 15 of September. It deserves a special note the way they present their online logs and statistics. It gives a contest spirit to hams they want to work them. Good luck with them. See you on the pile ups.

Goodbye summer

Summer is dragging its last days. After three periods of high temperatures and the biggest fires that stroke Greece last 100 years, it is going to live us, fortunately. This week, temperature dropped dramatically to 15-20 degrees, quite low for the season in Greece. Anyway this weather development gave us the signal to leave cottage and come back to main QTH.

During summer only a little ham radio activity took place. The portable situation, you can see the wire antennas on the picture, does not give many possibilities during low propagation periods. So we continue the 6 meters marathon. We got 42 countries this year. Not bad. Next year we will go better. We also participate in the SARGT RTTY contest. It was a nice experience indeed. We made 230 qso, as a multiband operator. Lots of exotic callsigns were heard and worked, even with portable conditions.

By the way the ACOM1000 returned strong and healthy. It took only a week to be fixed and come back. The problem was a leakage of a capacitor in the main PCB (the picture shows these capacitors). Not a big deal indeed. As I had commented, it had to pass through children’s illnesses before go to real service. But the ACOM service was quite fast and friendly. My compliments to Stan (LZ1IU) and his great company. Now I feel ready for the WW CQ RTTY contest at 29-30 of September weekend.

Back Home

Well, all good things have an end. I am back to Greece a month now. The way back was very easy. My Garmin navigator Nuvi 350 drove me all the way to Ancona ferries without any mistakes. From the entire trip, about 9 hours of driving with our Citroen Picasso, we kept in memory the figure of Mont Blanc with its astonishing glacier. It was very spectacular indeed as we passed by. To all of us, SW8KOJ (my XYL) and two harmonics Nick and Nena, this scenery will be unforgettable. We came back to the hot climate of my country and it took me several days to get used of it. 25 degrees it is quite a big difference. Actually we have a very hot summer this year. Plenty of big fires all around the country make the TV news very unpleasant. The country seams paralysed. Due to this situation everything it is easily postponed for tomorrow. My posts followed this rule.

Among the unhappy things, my brand new ACOM 1000, after a few days running, presented children’s illnesses and I had to send it to Sofia for repair. Stan, LZ1IU assured me kindly that he will take care of it. I hope everything will go well and my baby comes back home healthy and ready to shout again. Unfortunately I will go without its company in the IOTA contest this weekend.

On the other hand it is summer and we live in a Greek island, a dreamy vacation destination for many people around the world. Then I should be not a nagger. Let’s go to a lovely beach, get some cold beers to cheer us up and forget all misery. 24^th cycle where are you any way?

Friedrichshafen! Part 2

"For three days Friedrichshafen was the meeting place for amateur radio operators around the globe: 18,100 visitors from as far away as Australia and California came to the HAM RADIO, which finished on Sunday", with these words the organizers of exhibition commented the end of the event. A huge number of visitors indeed. One of them was me! You can get more infos and pictures in ham radio fest page: http://www.hamradio-friedrichshafen.de
But let me continue my story. Nest day, Saturday, I decided to visit the second section which was occupied by the great firms and shops they represented them. YAESU, ICOM KENWOOD TEN TEC and others were there. Big shops as WIMO, APPELLO, CONRAND participated also. All the new equipment in front of you. Too many things to see and admire.
I had a plan coming here: to try to find if it were possible to buy an ACOM1000. I was not quite sure that they would have any in stock. This fantastic amplifier became my dream for the last two years. So I was very anxious snooping around the shops to spot one. Finally I was lucky! I found it in WIMO and after a 2 minutes purchase negotiation, and with the help of a little trailer they borrowed me, I had it in the trunk of my car. After that I was quite happy and everything I show henceforth, it looked to me more beautiful.
I admired the new TEN TEC OMNI VII and ORION II, I loved the famous HIBERLING, I impressed with FLEX radio 5000 and so many other masterpieces of nowadays technology.
In the same place I found the kiosks of amateur associations and clubs, ARRL, DARC, BAVARIAN CONTEST CLUB, RAAG and several others. In the kiosk of RAAG , I met a lot of greek hams that came all the way from Greece just to join this great fest. At noon we traditionally consumed a lot of wurst and bier and we exchanged promises for the next year to come back again.
The fest would close next day but Nick and me we decided that we had seen already enough and that it was time to return back to St Genis before getting dark. Well, not before visiting the campus with those terrible vehicles that amateurs from all over the Europe came along with. Those were our last impressions. Soon we left behind us this amazing place and with our precious cargo in the trunk we got the way back.