Delighted to speak with Jim E51JD in the Cook Islands (Raratonga Island, IOTA OC-13) on 20m SSB this morning. Good signal here (59). 16208Km.
E51JD – South Cook Islands – new SSB DXCC
Category: HF DXing
My 5 band fan dipole
Spacers are 3D printed from my own design (printed in Black PETG for uV protection)
Spacing between each element is 10cm (4″). The spacers (21cm long):
The mast top piece is also 3D printed in PETG:
Email me if you would like the STL files for the spreaders and mast top piece. At £20 a roll of PETG the spreaders cost 17p each, the mast head piece 29p. Less than a cup of Costa Coffee – a total of 18 spreaders. The spacers were printed on my Anycubic Vyper 3D printer.
The mast is a DX Commander Classic mast available from M0MCX at DX Commander here.
Approximate radiation pattern on a Great Circle Map from my home QTH:
The great circle maps were generated here: https://ns6t.net/azimuth/azimuth.html
I know the radiation patterns are not totally accurate, but they’re good enough!
Nice to be called from New Zealand – 40m
Nice – ZL4AS on 40m FT8 – 19079Km
St Helena on 15m/21MHz
160m FT8 making it into USA
As I had the (base loaded) G7FEK (double inverted L) still up after the CQWW CW contest I thought I’d put out a few calls on FT8 (1840KHz), nice to see that my peanut station is making it into the USA albeit within a fairly tight area:
Malawi – 7Q7CT on 15m for a new DXCC
PJ7P – SPFIH on Sint Maarten Island
15m FT8 Fox and Hounds mode
Where’s St Maarten?
Some interesting DX lately
Plus J5HKT on 10m FT8, and 3DA0WW on 20m FT8
UPDATE: S9OK – Eventually broke the pile-up!
20+ stations calling S9OK in Sao Tome & Principe on every ‘over’ (and that’s just the one’s I could decode!)
David was using FT4 but on two frequencies (NOT F&H so I assume he was using MSHV to get two transmissions per over.
More information on the S9OK DXpedition is at dxnews here: https://dxnews.com/s9ok/
Checking the log I see that I have actually worked the island twice before (both 2019), the previous QSO were on 20m and 60m.
Interesting article: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/sao-tome-and-principe-africa/index.html
Ten things you didn’t know about Sao Tome and Principe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Bu88Qwx_Rk
UPDATED!
Also worked on 20m, nice to see the QSO in ClubLog Live!
Grey line into JA – 30m FT8
… and into VK and ZL
3DA0RU – updated
Despite some strange conditions on the bands today (including a pretty major geomagnetic storm), I managed to work the DXpedition callasign 3DA0RU (Kingdom of Eswatini – otherwise known as Swaziland) on 3 bands: 10m, 12m and 15m. I hope they are QSLing via ARRL LOTW!
More info here: https://www.dx-world.net/3da0ru-eswatini/
Update
3 bands confirmed on club log:
13th in Europe in Batavia (Indonesian) contest
Happy with with placing in the Batavia (QSO with Indonesia) contest considering I was only using 80W and wire antennas (and no resonant antenna for 15m at the time!), most QSO on 20m with a handful on 40m. Second in UK.
Rodriguez Island on 12m
That took some doing, but on the second day of trying I managed it!
DX-pedition to Saint Martin – W8HC and W6IZT confirmations on LOTW
Nice to get 4 new DXCCs confirmed on LOTW from the recent dx-pedition to Saint Martin Island (IOTA NA-105) by W8HC and W6IZT.
Read more on the DXpedition here: https://www.dx-world.net/fs-w6izt-fs-w8hc-st-martin/
Indonesian FT8 Contest 7-8 Aug 21
EA RTTY HF Contest 2021 – 12th out of 465
Delighted to have come 12th out of 465 entries in the Low Power category and top UK station, in all power categories!)
USA States worked on 6m 2021 at 1st July
The map below shows the 21 USA States worked and confirmed on Logbook of the World:
States worked but not confirmed on LOTW:
South Dakota
West Virginia
Update at 11th July 2021, now 24 states confirmed on LOTW:
Another great North America opening on 6m
Digital Modes awards
There are about half a dozen Digital Modes club offering colourful awards for simply uploading your log and it being compared against their database. The awards are off course completely useless as far as DXCC as so on is concerned but they are at least colourful! I’ve printed a couple out to add some colour to the shack alongside DXCC and various ‘proper’ contest certificates.
For uploading my log and applying for awards I use the excellent Ultimate AAC application available here:
