90 and counting

By my latest count, I have 90 DXCC countries. The DXCC list that the ARRL publishes is rather confusing in that some of the sub countries (Wales, Scotland, Isle of Man) are listed with separate entries, but some country's alternate calls (Saudi Arabia's 7Z) are not. I finally figured out how the list is constructed and have 90 countries. I got Isle of Man and Scotland yesterday as 15 was finally open to the north.

It is 0000Z now and not much activity on the bands. 10 m was open to the western Hemisphere last night, but very quiet tonight. 10 and 15 stayed open last night to about 1800 Z and then died out. I was able to get arm-chair copy with many east coast stations and they were rather surprised that I could hear them on 10 as well as I could. Hopefully 10 m will be open like that again. 20 m has been open from about 0300 to about 0600 Z but I have to be at school most mornings so I don't know what happens to it from about 0600 to 1200 Z.

I have two pet peeves. One for stations where both stations have signed with "sk" and they continue to exchange "73 and best wishes". Folks, "sk" means I am done! The other is when I call a station (clearly with the other's callsign 3 times) and someone else jumps right in there calling me. Give the other station at least a fighting chance! My policy now is to just ignore the intruding station and not even call them back later. Maybe if some of these folks get the cold shoulder a few more times, they will be considerate and let me at least try to call the original station. I have started to make a daily list of stations that intrude and just ignore them for the day.

I have shifted to HRD almost exclusively. MixW is a nice program and its macros work very well, but the SuperSweep feature of HRD makes it nice to watch other stations and keep an eye out for new countries. The DX spot system is fun, but many of the DX stations don't appear on the spot until long after they have left the air. The agrivating part of HRD is that the screen freezes on transmit. Maybe I can turn that off, because I would like to make the QRZ.COM log entry while transmitting my station info.

Stuck at 65

I am sort of stuck at 65 countries. I am up early (0200Z) on 20 Meters but all of the stations I hear are either in Argentina or Reunion Island. Sort of strange that the same folks are up each morning. Conditions haven't been as good on 10 and 15 for the past few days and I am hoping that the sun starts to make some noise so I can use these other bands. It is amazing how electrically quiet it is here. I can hear many stations that come back to me with "qrm" ... who apparently cannot hear my 50 watt signal.

I am hoping for some more time on the air in the next few days as things have settled down a bit. I hope that the U.S. stations can get on over the Thanksgiving holiday for a bunch of contacts. I don't have Alaska yet but have Hawaii and many of the states.

We continue to have power problems. The power was out 10 hours on Friday, 6 hours on Saturday and on and off on Sunday (during dinner). It is hard to run the FT-897 on candle power. I have a small battery (from an emergency air compressor) but it only lasts a few minutes -- even at 20 watts.

Getting into a routine

I have found that 20 m BPSK is best from about 0300 Z to 0700 Z and then 15 m BPSK is best from 1300 Z to 1700 Z. You will find me at 14.072 Mhz in the morning and 21.072 in the afternoon (Eastern Africa Time).

Let me remind you of the DX code of conduct: DX Code of Conduct If you want to talk to 5H3NP either call CQ in a clear area or wait until the conversation with other stations has completed (sk both sides). And if I call JO3CPM and you are not JO3CPM don't answer. I write down the offending stations and will not contact those who barge in.

Added DXCC countries today on 15 and 20 m are Nepal, Puerto Rico, Guam, and Switzerland. I have also completed my log update on qrz.com. Please check QRZ.COM for your QSL. I do check eQSL.cc every few days but am not updating it with all contacts. BTW I cannot use LoTW since my certificate is only valid for WB0VGI and I am logging 5H3NP.

Thanks to all who are calling me and be patient, I will try to answer as many as I can.

73 5H3NP Noel