Comments (4)

By John AE5X, February 17, 2013

After 7 hours of contest time, it’s over for me. One of the systems at my work QTH requires that I be there Sunday – so much for the contest. That bit of knowledge took the wind out of my sails, demotivating me and lessening the fun of the contest.

But gotta make a living, right?!

From what little I saw of the contest the bands seemed to be in great shape – all of them.

Highlights: Continue reading '2013 ARRL DX contest'»

Comments (4)

By John AE5X, November 26, 2012

Whew – that was fun…

I had high hopes for this year’s contest due to having something more than a dipole for once.

Goals were to:

• Exceed my 2011 score (but not by too much, otherwise I make 2013 more difficult!)
• Use the contest as a testing ground for comparing the Yagi to the dipole and for testing my power consumption
• Work as many new band-countries and band-zones as possible
• Get through the micro-split pile-ups as quickly as possible (this will be a future post) Continue reading 'CQWW 2012'»

Comments (10)

By John AE5X, May 27, 2012

What a great week – returned from a trip to New Orleans, installed a ceiling fan, repaired the riding lawn mower, isolated myself for 16 hours of contesting, then emerged to grill kielbasa on the patio while numerous redbirds flittered about as my CW-addled brain involuntarily assigns Morse characters to their chatter.

Life is good.

So another contest goes into the books Continue reading 'CQ-WPX (CW) 2012'»

Comments (5)

By John AE5X, April 10, 2012

A nice surprise arrived in the mail today. I had no idea…

This years’ CQ-WPX (CW) is May 26-27 and is a great contest for other US ops with a 2X1 callsign since your prefix probably isn’t shared by many. It’s nice to experience pile-ups and be “rare” without having to travel anywhere.

And speaking of traveling, I just worked Guy N7UN who is currently VP2MUN in Montserrat. He and the group have two KX3′s with them – not sure if that’s the rig he was using for our brief QSO but he had a FB signal.

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Comments (11)

By John AE5X, February 20, 2012

Lightning storms with thunder that shook the house kept me off the air for much of late Friday & early Saturday. QRN lasted for too long after the storms passed, affecting 40/80 more than the higher bands and took a bit of the wind out of my sails as far as enthusiasm and dedication to the contest was concerned.

I operated single op, all bands, QRO with K3/AL80BQ and dipole.

A few observations: Continue reading '2012 ARRL DX Contest (CW)'»

Comments (3)

By John AE5X, February 17, 2012

"Swell"

Just as the bands kick back into high gear with good DX and strong signals for this weekend’s contest, a drought-ending series of thunderstorms is headed to southern Texas.

As Clint would hiss, “Swell.” Continue reading 'DX vs. WX'»