Centennial Award is out.

Well, I have ordered the Centennial Award from ARRL. I only managed to get around 5000 Points. Actually 5.913 Points to be exact. This will get me a level 2 Award only. But that's OK as I did not start to chase the Award until end of May 2014. Any way it will be fun to get it.

Spring is here for sure. I have a few thousand of these blue flowers in my garden.

And the lawn is growing out of Control! Have to service my lawn cutter soon.

Conditions on the bands is fine at the moment. This morning I worked Alaska and Oregon with 599 plus 10 to 20 db sigs on 15 and 17 m. I have also lsn to the emergency net on 14215 KHz due to the Nepal earthquake.

That's all for now. CUL

Wow! QSL from 9Q0HQ!

Today I received the QSL for the Dem. Rep. of the Congo operation by I2YSB. The call they was using was 9Q0HQ and I worked them on some missing band slots including SSB CW and RTTY.
Very nice card.

Operation was in end of March and QSL arrived today. They understand the Word "Direct"!!!
LoTW confirmation was achieved for a few Days ago. Super!

Well, two issues in one day! Have to rest for a while!!!

CUL

Spring is here!

Yesterday I had the first Thunder and Lighting. Got around 10 quite close lighting's. So now we knew what to look forward to. There was some hail storm with the lighting. Hail around 1 cm in diam. And I also have a sign of spring in my garden. What about a carpet of Wood Anemones!!

Nice, or................................?

Have been trying to Catch ZL7E on RTTY and SSB. But not a chance to get through the Southern wall of EU constant callers! This was on 20 m. And ZL7E is very week at my location. There are a few day's of operation yet. But I guess "better luck next time"! Or get more aluminium up in the air (no Money and space for it) or more Power (no Money and no way to get my Power grid to hold as I only have 16 Amps fuse as main inlet). So I will keep on struggling on with what I have and try to be happy.

CUL

New IOTA for me!

Today I received AS-028 Kotelnyy Island. Worked R1ZBH/0 on 20 m SSB a while ago and here are the result! 75 Deg North is quite high up.

Click on it and enjoy! AS-028 is only claimed by 28% of the IOTA community. So quite rare.

One more to my IOTA score. Still not fast but I'm getting there ( I hope ).

Today I took a short ride on my bike. It was almost 16 C ( 60 F ) and sun was shining from a blue sky.

That's all for now. CUL

New Rubber on my Bike!

I had to get a new rear tire for my bike. I is a Michelin Anakee 2. Looks OK to me.

Have been trying to work ZL7E on some missing band slots. But no success so far. In the pile there are a lot of EU stations constantly Calling. When do they lsn? How can they hear if the DX is Calling them if they are constantly Calling. Or do they lsn some where else (SDR Rx on Internet on some other continent)??!!
I call just once and then lsn. And if nothing happened in a few seconds I call once again and wait. If the DX call with some letters and number that do not exist in my call I just do not call! But I'm quite alone with that behaviour.
Or are all using QSK and stops when the DX call back??!! I just try to find a spot where there are no constant callers and try to get the DX. Some times it work and some times it don't. Mostly don't!!!

I also try to get some more stations on RTTY. And I have worked a few new ones as I'm new on RTTY mode. What about C21EU, 7QAA, 9Q0HQ, 9H3KA and J28NC. All of the stations was new for me on RTTY. I have about 160 worked and 122 confirmed in LoTW. been on this mode for just a year.

Well, that's all for now. CUL