A while back I bought a second hand radio: the Kenwood TM-742E. A great radio with 2m, 70cm and 23cm module!
The man who sold it is a heavy smoker, so I had to clean the rig intensively. But after doing a good job the radio is like brand new. No scratch on it.
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This weekend I entered the CQ WPX RTTY contest with target to improve my personal total QSO-record in a contest. I think the current personal record stems from a PACC-contest a few years ago and was around 450 Q’s. There was only one catch: in this same weekend the PACC-contest is organized. PACC-contest is a 24-hour contest where you only work Dutch amateurs (PA) to collect all the Dutch provinces which are handed out as exchange. Because the Netherlands is small country, this contest is only successful if there are enough Dutch amateurs participating. It’s a unwritten rule to always participate as Dutch amateur, if only for a few Q’s.
PACC is in CW- and SSB-mode. In CW I’m not yet able to be in running mode and SSB is far from my favorite mode. But for this one contest I want to make an exception and plug in the microphone. I switched back and forward from CW S&P and SSB and collect a poor 100 Q’s. BUT…… I did participate!
When I logged 100 Q’s in the PACC I immediately switched back to RTTY for the WPX. Saturday I ran around 250 Q’s and Sunday was good for another 350! Weird propagation (an A-index of 23!) on Sunday which was noticeable.
A fun moment in this contest was the very close encounter with my friend Jim Wilson, K5ND. We have an ongoing saga to just work each other once in a contest. I was in line to work another station when I saw Jim work him just before me. I switched antennas from vertical to horizontal to copy Jim’s signal but I couldn’t. When I tried to work the next calling station, K5ND again appeared on my screen! So Jim was Search & Pouncing just before me down the band! I figured if I skipped one or two calling stations and call the third, maybe Jim would arrive at that station just when I was working it. I worked NR5M and afterwards I wait a little to see if Jim arrived. I didn’t seen his call anymore, but this morning I read his blog update and it seems he did see me in QSO with NR5M! Ah well, maybe more luck in the next contest. I did broke my personal Q’s record, so it was a fun weekend.
The next few weekends I have some DIY-resonsibilities in and around the house. So I have to throttle back a little on the contesting.
Last 24 hours I let WSPR running on 20 meters with my new FD3-antenna. It seems I hear the whole world including west Canada, Venezuela and Australia. More important: some of these stations hear me too! So I’m very happy with the results until now. Made some cw-QSO’s last night which also went fine.
