At 0430 UTC I spotted myself on the cluster and called CQ on 20m SSB but there was no west coast USA, William FO5JV was the only one hearing me. And I didn’t hear any DX check into the ANZA net either. So I visited 15m PSK31 and made some contacts into Asia and Europe during 0530-0630 UTC. After the 10m opening the previous day, I thought I’d go there a little earlier. It certainly wasn’t as good as yesterday but from 0630 – 1000 UTC there were 85 QSOs into Europe on 10m and that was mixed in with a trip to 15m also. It wasn’t a big QSO rate but it was great fun being on 10m and making DX contacts for a change.
I had a look many times on 40m SSB and PSK31 for North America but nothing on the short path due to the hills. Surprisingly enough, the demand for Europe on 20m SSB is still there and I was quite busy at 1130-1400 UTC until the pile up died down after 2.5 hours. That’s when I goto 20m PSK31 and I spent the next 2 hours working Europe. At 1630 UTC (2:30am) I went to bed, but I had to get up at 5am (1900 UTC), despite only 2.5 hours sleep after 11 straight hours of operating, I just had to see if I could get into the America’s on 20m SSB long path.
A few signals started popping up by 2000 UTC. Around 2015 UTC I put myself on the cluster and then Dan W4DKS from Virginia called in to say I was stronger than yesterday morning, so that was encouraging. So during 2030-2130 I worked 20 x W stations, 1x VE, 1x KP4, 1x FM5, 2x YV and 1x HK. This included a quick trip to PSK31 but after working a HK station a little JA pile up started so I went back to SSB, I wanted to maximise this small opening. So 26 stations in an hour from the America’s isn’t satisfying the demand, but its an improvement over the past few days.
So tomorrow I’ll spot myself on the cluster at 2000 UTC and just stay on SSB and look for you guys from North to South America. I have a vertical on the beach so my beam headings for long path aren’t an issue, it’s just up to the radio gods. If you can hear me at a barely readable level, then you can bet I hear you loud, I have zero noise levels in the morning on 20m and everyone who worked me was very strong, it’s just a matter of hearing my tiny signal over your noise. The best bet is 2030-2130 UTC but I’ll be around at 2000-2200 UTC spotting myself at various places above 14300 to avoid the PJ action. TOMORROW WILL BE THE LAST CHANCE TO USE THE 2000-2200 UTC LONG PATH WINDOW, ON THE FINAL MORNING I’LL BE PACKING UP THE ANTENNA. So if you’re in the America’s and need this IOTA, please try for me tomorrow.
Today again I’ll go on 20m SSB at 0430 UTC and put out some cluster spotted calls for west coast USA and I’ll listen for USA check ins on the ANZA net at 0515.
Other than that I’ll be on 15m SSB and/or PSK31 today around 0530 UTC then checking 10m around 0700 UTC. Then the usual 20m activity after 1200 UTC.
Today there was 425 QSO’s to bring it up to a total of 2872 QSO’s for the five days.
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