Monthly Archives: April 2009

Georgia QSO Party

Had a little free time on Saturday evening and Sunday morning so I made some contacts in the GA QSO Party. I thought I’d hear more operators on then I did but maybe it was the holiday weekend that caused there to be less folks on the air. On Sunday morning I was only on for a short time and there wasn’t a lot of activity so most contacts were Saturday late in the day/early in the evening.

Thanks to all the Georgia apps for the contacts. As always, QSO Party contest ops take the time to thank those calling in and it makes for a generally more pleasant QSO, even if it is still short.

The score summary from N1MM shows:

        Band  Mode  QSOs    Pts  Sec
         3.5  CW       2      4    0
         3.5  LSB      1      1    0
           7  CW      13      26   11
           7  LSB     23      23   18
          14  CW      12      24   12
          14  USB      4      4    2
       Total  Both    55      82   43

            Score : 3,526

73,
K2DSL

First contact logged with Sudan

Saw a spot on the cluster for a DX station in Sudan so I switched over to 20m RTTY. ST2EB was listening up 5, so I watched how he worked. He seemed to be exactly 5 down from whatever station he was working. If the station was really up 5.1, he’d be down 5.1. So I set my split exactly 5 over the frequency we could hear him on and after 3 or 4 calls. He was coming in very strong with a near 100% copy.

I fired off an email, as per his QRZ page, before sending direct for a QSL card. It will nice to add this to the confirmed list.

73,
K2DSL

LoTW Triple Play Award completed !!!

With the help of everyone below. I was able to complete the LoTW Triple Play Award (TPA) today with the final contacts being confirmed. It might seen obvious, but without the help of the 135 different operators that were on the other half of the 150 contacts, this would have been impossible. So my thanks go out to each of them for taking the time to make a contact with me.

I applied online today and I will post when I receive my number/certificate from the ARRL.

Edit: I did some quick Excel work to see how much others that already received the Triple Play Award helped me in achieving mine. 59 of the 150 contacts were made with others that, as of 4/2/2009, received their Triple Play Award. Those 59 logged Q’s were from 48 individuals which received their Triple Play Award already. The LoTW site was last updated back on 4/3, so in the 10 days following that, there might have been others as well that provided me Q’s.

EntityCWPhoneDigital
AlabamaKN4OKWA1FCNKE4KWE
AlaskaKL5ONL7VKL8DX
ArizonaKE8DMK7ACSW7ZR
ArkansasW5JAYWA5SOGN5ZM
CaliforniaK6IIIN6IEKD4HXT
ColoradoW0KITN0KEKT0DX
ConnecticutK1MVMW3IZK1ZZ
DelawareK1RYK1RYN3ME
FloridaWT4YNZ5NN4BP
GeorgiaWX4PRK4ODWF4W
HawaiiKH6LCAH6RRNH7C
IdahoW7ZRCK0IPN7UVH
IllinoisKS9WN2BJKS9W
IndianaN9DDKB9YGDN9DD
IowaK0NONT0FN0NI
KansasK0RUW0BHK0WA
KentuckyND4XKZ4GKO4XJ
LouisianaWB5TEQW5WMUKI5XP
MaineK1LOGK1LOGAC1O
MarylandN3THN3IIK3MM
MassachusettsKE1VK1YAN1MGO
MichiganKD8GOXW8MJK8ZZ
MinnesotaKE0NK0MPHK0TI
MississippiW8DMW8DMKK5OQ
MissouriKU1CWK0OUKO0Z
MontanaKB7QN9RVKB7Q
NebraskaN0OBN0OBK0IDT
NevadaNX7FW7PEBK7GQ
New HampshireK1BDK1QOK1RO
New JerseyK2ZCK2DLSK2DBK
New MexicoK1GMDWA5ZUPWA5ZUP
New YorkW2DXW2DXWA2MCR
North CarolinaN2TUKZ2IK4FX
North DakotaW0JERKE0AKD4POJ
OhioK8QWYN8KOJK1LT
OklahomaW5IFW5IFNX5O
OregonW7JYK7ZSN7MQ
PennsylvaniaKW3FK3WWN3YEA
Rhode IslandN1GKEN1HRAKI1G
South CarolinaKI4AOQKI4AOQAF4OX
South DakotaW0FVRK0PIR/MKD0S
TennesseeK4EDIAB4GGAD4EB
TexasK5PBRK5NZK5DU
UtahWA7YAZNN7ZZW7CT
VermontWB1ABQWB1ABQWE1H
VirginiaW6HGFWK4YK4GMH
WashingtonN7XRN7XRN6MZ
West VirginiaKZ8EAJ1MAB8RL
WisconsinK9WISN9ZDDWE9V
WyomingWY7FDWY7FDWY7FD

73,
K2DSL

Chagos Island confirmed and the Triple Play sprint

Received a direct QSL card from VQ9LA confirming our CW contact so that’s another new DXCC confirmed for me. Saint Marti, confirmed this past week via a QSL card was also confirmed on LoTW, so I stand at 101 DXCCs confirmed via LoTW and 18 more via QSL cards for a total of 119. The 20m DXCC is at 98 confirmed via LoTW. When that hits 100 on LoTW, I’ll submit for DXCC just via LoTW and factor in the QSL cards at a later date.

For the Triple Play Award I continue to make progress. I’ve been able to log all but Deleware on CW. I’m hoping to try and setup a sked for that over the next day or two if it doesn’t happen on its own. All other contacts are confirmed other then Iowa and Rhode Island on CW which have been logged but need LoTW confirmations. Hopefully the ops I logged with will do that over the next day or so. Getting close!!!

73,
K2DSL

More WAS completed

I wasn’t even paying attention to the various WAS awards but I noticed this evening that I only needed 1 more 40m contact to have 40m WAS. The last state was Wyoming which was on one of the sked sites so I asked if we could make a 40m contact and WY7FD (Dwayne) said sure and I was able to log Wyoming on 40m to complete 40m WAS.

What I didn’t consider, which is very obvious, is if you complete the Triple Play Award, you also complete WAS CW, WAS Phone and WAS RTTY. I had WAS RTTY already completed last year and since I have all phone contacts for the TPA, I now have WAS Phone completed. After the next 5 CW contacts for the Triple Play, I’ll also have WAS CW.

I also need just 3 more states (mostly close ones) to complete 20m WAS so we’ll see if there’s a way to get that done too. Thanks to all the ops that have worked with me to make all these contacts!

73,
K2DSL

Saint Martin Confirmed and the Triple Play Award

A QSL card came in today confirming the 3 contacts with FS5KA during the ARRL DX SSB contest in the beginning of March. This was my first QSL for a contact with St Martin so that ups my non-LoTW contacts to 18 for a total of 118 confirmed DXCCs.

For Triple Play Award (TPA) this past weekend I tried to get a bunch of contacts for states/modes that I needed. I did pretty well and late Sunday after our club meeting I was able to make a phone contact with AH6RR to log Hawaii for my last needed SSB phone contact. So as of now I have all states confirmed in RTTY and Phone and just 6 states remaining to get confirmed via CW. I looked real hard this weekend for a Montana station on CW since it was their QSO party, but I couldn’t find one. The hunt continues.

73,
K2DSL

100 DXCCs Confirmed on LoTW

Yesterday, HH4/K4QD confirmed a CW contact on LoTW which is my 100th confirmed entity there. I have 17 additional confirmed via QSL cards for a total of 117. Woohoo!  Of those 100 confirmed on LoTW, 97 are on 20m. Maybe I’ll wait for 100 confirmed on 20m before applying for any DXCC award.

This past weekend I’ve been working on filling in some needed states/modes for the Triple Play award. I need 2 more confirmed via SSB phone (Hawaii and Mississippi) and the rest (less then 10 now) are on CW. So I’ll continue to see if I can fill in those final ones.

73,
K2DSL

Latest DXCC and the CQ WPX SSB recap

It’s been a week and I haven’t posted my summary from the CQ WPX SSB contest last weekend.  I made contacts with 63 different DXCCs, 2 of which were new entities for me. The new entities were Haiti and Mozambique. I logged Q’s with 45 of the 50 states.  There was a nice 15m opening where I had a contact with Falkland Islands and South Africa which is 8,000 miles from me and my longest 15m contact to date.

80m on Friday evening of the contest was fine, but it was horrible on Saturday evening and for the end of the contest on Sunday. There were no US stations on 80m because of the noise/static so I probably missed lots of additional multipliers as well as some of the missing 5 states which are close by to me and 80m would be the preferred band to make a contact with them on. But all in all, a very good effort for me and I feel good about my showing.

        Band    QSOs    Pts  WPX
         3.5      69     153   44
           7     110     191   58
          14     211     417  146
          21      28      65   17
       Total     418     826  265

            Score : 218,890

Since my last posting, I’ve received a QSL card for a contact with PJ5NA in St Eustatius confirming my only contact so far with that DXCC entity.  I still stand at 99 confirmed on LoTW and with the new QSL card I have 17 other DXCCs confirmed for a total of 116 DXCCs confirmed.

73,
K2DSL