Got my full license early 2008 and still not worked 100 countries (confirmed). You could say I had a lot of off-air time. But since 2013 I participate in more then a few contests and my first DXCC-award (mixed) is appearing on the horizon. I do have a shoe box full of QSL-cards and mixed with my Logbook of The World confirms I do have 100 countries confirmed. I did look in to the process of having my cards checked and apply them for the award but I decided that’s too much hassle. In LoTW I have 96 confirmed countries, so four more and I can apply for DXCC mixed without even opening my QSL shoe box.
Sounds nice to me! Don get me wrong, I do like to receive paper QSL’s, especially from special stations or very remote locations. But for award checking it is far more convenient to have digitally confirmations.
CQ WW CW contest
Yes, my first CW-contest! This weekend I participated in the last big world wide contest of 2013 and in CW-modus none the less. OK I admit, my CW-skills are not yet at 25-30wpm so I had to rely on CW-skimmer for a lot of contacts. But it was the best CW-training I ever did! At the end of the weekend I started to copy calls at over 30 wpm.
I didn’t worked new countries this contest, but had great fun. Propagation was still good. Especially on 10 meters I made great contacts (even with New Zealand)! For this time of year I think that’s cool. I wonder how many months we can enjoy these good propagation at the top of the sun cycle.
Ending on Sunday night with 300 Q’s in the log and deep respect for my fellow amateurs who copy my call so quickly and error-less.
It was a great experience and I’m entering more CW-contests in the future. Maybe soon without CW-skimmer 🙂
Echolink
As every weekday morning when I’m enjoying my breakfast around 6:00 am, I listen to our local repeater PI2NOS. For a while now this repeater has an Echolink connection. Amateurs who use this repeater almost every morning, driving to work and chatting with each other.
This morning a US-HAM, Jasper KK4UFD logged in the repeater via Echolink. It was 12 o’clock pm at his QTH and he was preparing for a night sleep. The dutch amateur was driving to work as every morning and they had a fun chat about HAM-licenses, the weather, and some other subjects.
It’s great to hear a 15 year old US-kid talk to a 51 year old Dutch guy and (besides the language differences) have a really nice conversation about HAM-related subjects.
We do have a GREAT hobby! 🙂