20M phone

06/04/21 22:48Z - 14.080 FT4 mode - A45XR at +597 Hz

This station is in Oman and he's somewhat of a regular.  Good signal strength and he's calling CW right now.  He has worked so many stations on this frequency that there is seldom a pileup and he's pretty easy to work.

06/08/21 @ 22:33 on 14.080 FT4 -- TA7I at +1373 hZ

Station is in Turkey.  He gets a few calls then calls CQ again.

And the Spot of the Day for today  is:

7X3WPL in Algeria -- 14.080 FT4 -- at +1807 Hz

This station is another semi-regular and he always has a good signal.  He's running about -10 db right now but it's somewhat up and down to.  He was calling CQ when I started typing this.

6/10/21     01:30 UTC     7.164Mhz     SSB     100W   ZL2SDX  (New Zealand)  RST: 46-sent, 57-rcvd

Only my 8th contact since I got back into Ham radio.  And the farthest.  

Awesome! He was my first New Zealand QSO a couple of weeks ago on 20M.

Wow, you guys are killing it! I was happy with my QSO with a guy in the Azores last night on 20m.

CU3HN?

Yup, Fabio.

And today is a different part of Africa.  5Z4VJ in Kenya at 2019Z on 06/10/21.  He's on 14.074 FT8 + 708 Hz and has a pretty good signal at -6db.  When I started typing this he was calling CQ.  He's another semi-regular and will likely be there a while if the band holds up.

Edit ... A45XR in Oman is there calling CQ as well.

yep

i got A45XR confirmation on LoTW

and Kenya on paper

Attached File

I confirmed A45XR on both LoTW and eQSL.  I have electronic confirmations for 7X3WPL and a paper QSL for 7X4MD in Algeria.

I really like the convenience of electronic QSLs but I miss having something tangible in the form of paper QSLs.  I have gotten a few with both paper and electronic.  Since many of the DX stations still use stateside QSL managers we can get paper cards for the price of a stamp and an SASE.

I was trying to answer a CQ from a ZL4 station and not quite making it through his noise level.  ZL2SDX came on and tried to help by relaying to the other station for me, but it just wasn't happening.  Watched a few YT vids for tips and I'm going to try tweaking my TX audio a bit (more) to see if it will help get through next time.



Conditions can be frustrating at times, but I'm having way more fun at this than I thought I would.

I geet NZ and Australia with no problem, Europe is my challenge.  When I get them it is almost always over the pole.  Africa? Fuggetaboutit.

I have a paper QSL card coming from the same Kenya guy -- I was hoping for his lion card. He was 'listening 5 up" and I had to figure out what that meant and watch a YouTube video to learn the split function on my radio. I also have a card coming from 7X4AN in Algeria. I really wish he did online confirmations. I'm now at 68 countries-- with only 52 confirmed.

Same here!

I made a quick Canary Islands QSO after work last night (my 3rd different one from there), then got a bad migraine and puked my guts up. So much for radio time last night.

I picked up another guy in England and another in Brazil last night in a short radio session. I only use phone. No digital modes.

68 countries is a good total for a short time and confirmations will always lag behind number worked.  I have 11 missing confirmations and there is little to no chance of getting some of them confirmed short of working the same country again.

Trust me, things are a lot better now than they used to be.  We had to send physical cards and IRC's (International Reply Coupons) to pay for the station's return postage if we even hoped to get a card in a timely manner.  Sometimes we got lucky and the station had a stateside QSL manager (that's still the case) in which case it only took an SASE and a couple of weeks.  The only other alternative was a QSL bureau that could take anywhere from a year to infinity to get a response.  ALL of the USSR countries had to go through one, single QSL Bureau (Central Radio Club, Box 88, Moscow, Russia) and a good return rate on those cards was about 50%.

It is frustrating and there is little we can do about it, but several of you guys are off to a good start.  If propagation ever gets back into the "Good" range you are going to have a blast!  Keeping an eye on one of the DX Clusters is a good idea (DX Watch is a good one) since you get spots from a lot of hams.  Take note of upcoming "DXPeditions" since their entire purpose is to go to places with no ham population and put them on the air.  The downside to DXPeditions is that the pileups are monumental sometimes.  Other times you get lucky.  My first super-rare DXPedition contact was with Kure Island in the Pacific.  A friend caught them just as they went on the air and called me on a 2 meter frequency we used so I got in before the pileup started.  I sat and listened for a few minutes after I worked the guy because the pileup was mind-blowing ;)

Also, limiting yourself to just SSB is not a good idea for a couple of reasons.  First is that these days there are a LOT fewer hams using CW so the pileups are frequently much smaller than they are with SSB.  Secondly is the fact that most radios have very good CW filters to reject adjacent signals so you don't hear as much noise and can hear the station better.  And third, CW is a more powerful mode.  All of your signal strength is in a narrow bandwidth and it will get through when voice will not.

Yeah, I'll have been on HF 6 weeks tomorrow, so I feel VERY blessed to have 68 countries in that time -- that's an average of 11 a week. As for confirmations, I've had to hit some countries multiple times to get them. Heck, I've hit Poland four times now and none have confirmed. Asia is my bane -- I don't even hear them, let alone try for them. By chance, I got Asiatic Russia early on. Hey, I don't count it as Asia, but "they" do. LOL! But, no confirmation from that guy either. Asia is the only country I need to complete my continents. I really need something besides a dipole.

I have a feeling that the only way I'll ever be doing CW is if I can find a program to encode my typing and decode their messages into text.

I think everyone has a certain portion of the world that turns into their "Bane", even if they have a directional, rotatable antenna.  Mine, just like yours, is Asia.  When I finished WAC I was in the same situation, all I needed was Asia.  I was a Novice and had all except Asia and got that one a couple of weeks after I got my General license.  Now I need one contact anywhere in Asia on 10 meters for 5-Band WAC.  An early morning opening into Japan would do it, but I can't even get that ;)  I "Heard" (although heard is a misnomer since it was on FT8) a Mongolian station last night but I never could find his receive frequency.

There are parts of the former USSR that truly are Asiatic.  Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and others are as Asian as you can get.  They are independent now but the east coast of Asiatic Russia adjoins the northern border of North Korea at the Sea of Japan.  The only thing to the east after that is Japan itself.  The western part I agree doesn't really strike me as "Asian".


A lot of people are doing that these days.  Since a Morse code test was eliminated as part of the license requirements more and more people are using a computer to receive.  I guess in many ways that's no different from other digital modes but to me CW has always been a human-readable mode.

I'm rusty from too many years out of radio but it's coming back.  I'm back to about 22wpm but I get lost sometimes at 25.  If I got off of digital modes for a while and used CW it would improve.  I love CW and it's frustrating that I can't send or receive as fast as I used to, but it's on me to get back to where I was.  I did it once, I can do it again ;)

Running early today but so is 20 meters.  The spot for today is 5T5PA in Mauritania.  This is a relatively rare country that isn't heard all that often.  I worked him yesterday but the only other time I've worked Mauritania was in 1978.

1911Z on 06/11/21 - 14.074 mHz FT8 - 487 Hz receive frequency - Good signal strength but up and  down from +9 to -1 - Azimuth is 84 degrees, distance 4295 miles from middle Tennessee [EM66] -> [IL10]

The bad thing is that he's receiving in a PACKED area so getting a signal in there might be difficult.  Find a clear spot to transmit from, turn on "Hold TX Freq" and give it a try.

Edit: 1917Z - Calling CQ

K6K is a special event station from Hawaii currently on the air at 14.275 MHz.

Thanks!  I just got through the pile up on my first try and made a contact!  

Awesome!

King Kamehameha Day celebration

K6K moved to 7.178

Looking for dx only

The continental USA *IS* DX for the Hawaiian Islands.  DX means not on the same continent (or in this case "Island") as the transmitting station.

I know.....but I'm in Hawaii.  Island to island isn't DX.

If I'd have still been awake, I'd have tried for a QSO with you. I'd rather have a Hawaiin Arfcommer than a special event station.

That was only yesterday, right? In other words, the event is now over, isn't it?

It ended an hour ago.

Oh well. Did you get a QSO out of it?

Sorry, I see that now.  I'm too accustomed to everyone being on my "Big Island" and didn't even look.

Yes, right before I posted the call sign in this thread.

Nice! Phone, or a digital mode?

I'm only set up for 20M phone. I'm just not attracted to digital this early in the game. I like to hear the voices of my QSO's.

OK, here you go guys.  I just turned on my DX cluster mode in my logbook software and it popped up.  It's a bit old however there is another spot for the same station on the same frequency about 30 minutes earlier so he doesn't appear to be moving.  I can't hear him here but perhaps some of you can.

1533Z 06/12/21 - 14.036 listening up 2 (that's a CW frequency) - OJ0C on Market Reef

8R1AK/P in Guyana

14.247 MHz

Good catch, there aren't many hams there and they don't show up much.

I always get a weird feeling when I work Guyana or even see it.  I had a QSO with 8R3/WB6MID in February, 1978.  Nine months later, in November, 1978, he was dead at Jonestown.  One of the suicide victims.  His QSL has a somewhat long, typed note on the back stating that he is so happy about the work that they are doing in helping the Guyanese people.  I don't know why but that's stuck with me for a long time.

Just picked up VK4KA in Australia on 14.256, but he's moved up to 14.257 calling CQ North America.




Side Note: Found out there is another Ham living about 400 yards away.  Pretty easy to tell when he's transmitting!  

Good catches, Guyana and Australia!

Using post time as a guide and assuming my math is correct:

Guyana was at 00:31 UTC
Australia was at 06:00 UTC

I know it is a moving target, but generally speaking, when do you guys see 20M and 40M really open up and/or close down, if you know?

My reception last night was not great, but I didn't stay up very late.

I'm usually home by 5PM EDT weekdays and there's usually not a whole lot happening on 20M at that time. Some afternoons the noise floor is horrible at that time. As the evening progresses, things quiet down and activity picks up. From right before dark and on seems to be the best for me, and on weekends I always see VK and ZL stations around midnight.

Thanks, for the info!

8R1AK/P from Guyana is back on 14.237 right now, but hard to hear from my QTH.

Ooh!

Hmm. Nothing here.

I wouldn't be able to get him right now if I wanted to.  I could hear him very faintly when I posted. If you have the time, keep checking the frequency. It should get better as time goes on -- provided he doesn't go QRT anytime soon.

 

Don't you know how to snipe a DX entity or DXpedition?

1. Go to DX Summit and find your target station.  Check the propagation circle so you have some idea of what your odds are. Note I said ODDS. I got Wake Island when the probagation circle said my odds were zero, 5x9+20. Sometimes shit happens...it's rare but it does sometimes.

2. In DX Summit search for your target's call sign and leave it there. You can watch as other's report a QSO with him.

3. Set your rig on the appropriate frequency. If you can hear him loud enough to work him enter the fray. If not simply leave it on as background noise. Wash your kitchen floor, dust, do dishes, clean your rifle, whatever. If he comes up, work him. If not, Oh, well.

4. DXpeditions generally run for hours on a given frequency but switch with no notice. Check DX Summit periodically to see if he is still there or has moved or gone QRT.

5. Don't get your liver in a quiver and shit a brick if it doesn't work the first time or six. Remember the most important thing a sniper needs is patience.

I've been sitting down here in the shack with 14.237 on as I do email and such. I've fooled around with all of my filters and so forth, to try to improve reception. I can hear what I think are people trying to contact him, and some chatter, but I think the Guyana guy is more or less buried in the noise. I can sometimes hear things that sound like a human voice that might be him, but can't really make them out at all, so a QSO wouldn't work.

What are you using for a URL? I get errors on all the ones I try.