Monday, October 18, 2010

Day 3 - lots of Europe/JA, no luck with North/South America

Three days down and four to go. Yesterday I checked into the ANZA DX Net 14183, HHH 7190 and 7130 DX Net to try and get into North America – but I had no luck at all, for those 3 hours it just resulted in 7 QSOs and only one into USA (K3EST), hmmm so that didn’t work. Unfortunately there is a wide and steep hill blocking USA and South America short path and it also blocks VK7, 3, 2, 1 and southern VK4, so there’s not much that can be done, it’s just the way the resort sits on the island and it’s dense forest and there’s no access to a short path USA take off. On the opposite end of the spectrum, short path to Europe and Asia has been wonderful with 10m even opening up briefly.

There’s no point in me checking into the HHH or 7130 DX Nets anymore as I’ve heard nothing at all from North America on 40m. But I’ll continue to check the 7035 kHz waterfall for USA on PSK31 in the 0900-1200 UTC period, if I see any action, I’ll spot myself on the cluster and call CQ. The pile up to Europe on 14260+/- QRM wasn’t as crazy last night so maybe North America east coast will have some luck, a few east coast USA got through last night. I will listen out for W/VE in the 1400-1500 period especially.

I’m now starting to wonder about long path. I have a clear water long path to South/Central America and it’s a water take off to USA long path so maybe 20m in the 2100-2300 UTC period is an option. I’ve been going to bed at 3am 1700 UTC after the 20m Europe pile up so I’ll just tough it out and make do with a few hours sleep. This morning I worked PJ4B on SSB at 2153 UTC and ZP8AE on PSK31 at 2218 UTC, so it’s not impossible, just unlikely. So the next few mornings I’ll be on the air from 2030 UTC for a couple of hours and hopefully that will work. I don’t do CW (new year’s resolution to learn it) so it will be SSB and PSK31, and I’ll spot my frequencies on the cluster. Remember I cant see the DX cluster at my operating position, I need to walk a few minutes towards the resort to get wireless reception. It’s a big pain unplugging the CAT connection to the radio, but I just want to give people the best chance of getting this IOTA. I just want people in the America’s to know I am trying!!!

I’ll have a look at the ANZA net Wednesday UTC (not today, Tuesday UTC), if I hear USA stations checking in then I’ll check in too.

Yesterday saw a lot less QSO’s due to time spent on the nets, but I made 416 QSO’s, mainly Europe on 20m SSB and JA/Europe on 15m SSB. There was a brief opening on 10m to Europe PSK31 and SSB at 0700 UTC , but then I had to go visit the nets I promised to check into. After 3 days there are now 1961 QSOs in the log

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