Well, May has proven to be good for new CQ Marathon countries – added this month are: 4J, 4L, 4O, 5U, 5W, 5X, 8P, C3, CP, GJ, HB0, JW, OA, OJ0, OY, V4, V5, V8, VP2E, VP8, ZB2 and ZP4, taking me up to 190 DXCC worked so far this year, and all 40 CQ Zones. Most of these calls were on 10 or 12m FT8, with a few on 17 & 15m.
At almost the end of May, I have now made some 4500 QSO’s.
Well, all of those nice DXCC entities worked during March have now been confirmed on LoTW, so very happy with that.
April has started well with some nice DX too… 3D2TS 15m FT8 (called me!!), T30UN 15m FT4, and others.
Now up to almost 3500 Q’s this year, with 157 DXCC and all 40 CQ zones worked.
March has been very good to me, with several new slots worked…. eg:
CY0S on 30/20/17 & 10m, 9X5RU on 30/15 & 10m, plus LU1ZV, JD1BOI & ST2NH on 10m, FK8HM, TZ1CE & KG6DX on 12m, V26EI on 40m, all FT8.
So far this year, I have worked 151 DXCC and all 40 CQ zones, and made just shy of 3000 contacts this year.
When you are operating in a RTTY contest, please consider the following tips@
If you are calling CQ, then make your F1 macro something like this: CQ GU0SUP GU0SUP CQ (end with another CQ!). If you come across my call whilst tuning around, you can be sure that I am indeed calling CQ, and not responding to another station.
If you see me calling CQ, ONLY send your call! Twice, if conditions are great, three times if not. What I do NOT want to see is GU0SUP GU0SUP DE W1AW W1AW. If you do this, then there is a good chance I might miss your call, especially when QSB is around, or several stations are calling me. Only send your call!
When I send you a report, it will look like this: W1AW 599 001 001 001 W1AW. That way you can be sure the report was meant for W1AW and not someone else.
You would then send GU0SUP 599 100 100 100 W1AW so that I am sure I have the call right, and you heard me. Please do NOT send GU0SUP QSL UR 001 001 TU 599 599 100 100 100. I know what I sent you, and there is a chance I may not see the rest of your exchange, and then think you are sending me 001, and not 100 – again, especially when there are others trying to work me.
If I ask for a repeat (eg NR AGN? or NR? NR?) then DO NOT send your whole exchange! Create a macro that ONLY sends your serial number (or whatever the exchange is) and nothing else.
When the contact is complete, I would then send W1AW TU (CR/LF) GU0SUP CQ
At the every least, when operating in a contest, take a few minutes to watch and see how folk operate, and what their macros look like.
Thanks for reading this! I hope it helps….
Had a play in the WPX RTTY contest at the weekend (11/12th Feb 2023), although it was only a part time effort.
As I had things to do on Saturday morning, I though I would operate in the “Classic” 24hr category, and fired up the rig around midday.
To my surprise, 10m was buzzing, so I ended up doing a SB LP entry on 10m.
I managed to get just over 6 hours operating on Saturday before the band closed, but bagged a few nice DX calls, including KH6ZM at 1806UTC, which did surprise me, as he was loud here.
Sunday started with a few JA’s and BY’s in the log, and a good few EU stations, including GM.
Both afternoons saw a good opening into west coast USA, who were generally stronger than the east coast stations.
Here are a few of the choice DX worked….
C5YK, 9N7AA, D4L, FY5KE, PJ2T, TI2OY, V26OC, V55Y, V31MA, KH6ZM, P49X, VU2IBI & VU2DED, plus JA, BY, VE6, PY, LU, XE, KP4, CX, and US States AZ, WA, UT, OR, CA, WY, CO, NV, SD and many others.
I ended up with 313 QSO’s, 253 Prefixes and 207966 points.
Not a bad effort for some 15 hours of lazy S&P’ing I thought….
The latest batch of QSL cards arrived in January 2023, and contain mostly cards from 2020. This may be down to delays in the postal system due to Covid, and also because of the disruption to the Royal Mail service in December ’22 and January.’23.
These cards are now all done and sent to the RSGB QSL Bureau for distribution.