Juan de SUPER Nova !

Juan de Nova Island

Just started! FT4JA Juan de Nova DXpedition ....

Ranked Nr 4 Most Wanted DXCC

FT4JA

And I am happy with my first QSO with them on 20M RTTY !

EI9KC QSO on 20M RTTY

Not always starting with RTTY but this time I was lucky to get that sorted.

Time for more bands now!

Good Luck for all!

Signals much stronger than VK0EK

CQ WPX SSB 2016

CQ WPX SSB 2016

76 QSOs / 75 WPX by EI9KC on 20M SSB low power in first time ever participation in WPX Contest .... probably I was the only EI9 prefix active in this competition so I am feeling like a rare one :) hihi and congratulations to all 76 lucky stations who have EI9KC in their logs :)

Hallelujah! Heard Island logged on 80 !!!!

Penguins on Heard Island 

photo by  Gavin, VK2BAX

http://vk0ek.org/

Very tricky QSO made just 3 minutes after midnight on Easter Sunday !

Great Easter bunny present :)

80M QSO - Heard Island - EI9KC

I was on their 80M QRG few hours. Signal zero or even worst. Many DQRM didn`t help at all. This weekend is CQ WPX SSB contest so traffic is smaller plus Easter Holidays traffic smaller again.

First option was how to hear them. I knew it if I can hear them I can work them.

On my 80M antenna - noise lever at S:5 to S:7 , tough ... no RX antenna , no beverages.

But I remember some trick I did recently at Papa Lima QTH where all beverages are not working at present and to hear DX on 80M I was using 30M GP vertical.

Decided try to receive VK0EK on my 30M/40M nested dipoles ... and that was it!

Signal not better but much quiet . Noise level at ZERO ... and little signal from Herad Island went trough ....CQ VK0EK VK0EK DN 1 ....

3516 - 516 is my lucky number (I had unit 516 on 11m band :)

Gave my call few times and received very very weak ... EI9KC EI9KC EI9KC 

5NN

No more to say ... R5NN TU ! I think Operator on the other side was NG2H Kenneth.

Thank you ! Great QSO very happy with that.

DX of DX - VK0EK - Heard Island !

VK0EK - Heard Island

One of the Most Wanted DXCC after 19 years of silence QRV again !!!

HEARD ISLAND ... One of the most remote places on the Earth

Location of Heard Island on the map

And , and I am happy to be in the log already ! TWICE !!!! Two bands 40/30 CW !!!

Thanks to DXA - The real-time online radio log server - Whole

World can see almost live stations logged.

http://dxa3.org/

This is my second experience with DXA

First time seen in action in 2013 during TX5X Clipperton DX-Pedition

40M QSO

Very weak signal on 40M and not many stations calling , people quite confused 

where DX is listening ??? The trick was ... DN ... It means down. 

Heard Island DXpedition next week will have to share bands with another

Most Wanted DXCC - Juan de Nova FT4JA and both teams agreed how to QRV

and do not mess with callers. Plan is Heard will listen down and Juan de Nova up ....

Will see how it works soon!

Straight after my QSO Adam EI5JQ sent his 5NN to Heard Island and we started to

celebrate. Hard work to fix antennas @ Papa Lima pays off !

30M QSO

On 30M similar situation like on 40M and after few calls got reply F9KC 5NN. Had to repeat just once. EI9KC ... EI9KC 5NN ... Happy days!

QSO managed with simply GP antenna!

Pressure is off now. Will try few more bands soon. VK0EK will QRV for three weeks!

I hope it will be enough time for us.

GL !

3C7A - Equatorial Guinea one Man show!

3C7A by LA7GIA Kenneth

4 years ago to get into the log of 3C6A took me 3 days !!!

http://ei9kc.blogspot.ie/2012/02/equatorial-guinea-on-17m.html

LA7GIA Kenneth was active from Equatorial Guinea as 3C7A

and it was big pleasure to work him on few bands!

One Man show! Great CW pile-up operator and biggest challenge was at the beginning when

his split was wide like Navassa style ;) 

I had 10M 12M and 17M confirmed already by 3C6A

This time I had hope for few new slots and : 

• First QSO with 3C7A logged on 15M CW - when his station wasn`t spotted on DX Cluster ... - NEW BAND! - DXCC - 306
• 20M CW was good fun to manage 25kHz wide split :) NEW BAND! DXCC - 310
• 30M CW - it was great surprise to find Kenneth calling endless CQ on quiet band that moment! - NEW BAND! DXCC - 282
• 15M RTTY - similar to 30M - CQ CQ 3C7A 3C7A UP - no takers. QSO managed with 100W - NEW MODE!
• 10M CW - had 28Mhz already confirmed but when I heard 3C7A calling CQ for 5 minutes without takers decided to give him a call ....

There is a few great DX-peditioners who can go to Most Wanted DXCC and do similar (or even better ) job than some "DX-peditions" Kenneth LA7GIA is One of Them !

Takk skal du ha.

Russian DX Contest 2016

Russian DX Contest

Must say - I like it! 24h you can work whole World and whole World can work you. great fun and many participants.

100W from my side as usual during contesting from home QTH 50% on Run , 50% on S/P

Low power , all bands , CW only

Missed a lot far Asiatic stations - simply they didn`t hear me.

Spotted strong QSB during some QSOs - very fast and deep from 599 to 339 

 Band     QSOs     Pts  DXC   OBL

   3.5      64     264   24    8

     7      12      52    9    2

    14     196    1107   34   38

    21      50     381   14   22

 Total     322    1804   81   70

Score: 272,404

322 QSOs in just few hours , not too bad. It was my first Russian DX Contest as far I remember.

QSO to remember : WH7AA from Hawaii Island gave my a call on my CQ!

Almost all my QSOs during Russian DX 2016 Contest

St Patrick Day Award

St Patrick Day Award

Yesterday 17`th March I was St Patrick Day station calling CQ for St Patrick Day Award

Good bit of fun on quiet bands. K index was very high.

So I`ve made about 150 QSOs. Mostly on 40M. Few contacts made early in the morning

and more in the evening.

It was my pleasure to log some DX !

Many thanks for all stations for QSO and especially:

N9MT - MArtin from Indiana in USA

ZL1ALA - John - New Zealand

C5YK - Andre from Gambia

UA0ZC - Valery from Kamchatka Peninsula

VK3JEF - Jeff from Australia

YB2TJV - Dani from Indonesia

Thanks also to 5 stations from Japan logged last night.

QSO map

I hope you will enjoy St Patrick Day Award in your collection,

Antennas work @ EI0PL

Winter storms did a few damages @ EI0PL / EI1Y Conest station and antennas needs some attention. SPDX Contest is coming and also two big DX-pedition are on the way. Heard Island and Juan de Nova. It was busy day but a lot was done:

Replacing 12/17M antenna coax 

and fixing beam positions for both.

View from right tower towards Africa

New 12/17 coax is placed

80M vertical needs work as well

Uff is high

30M vertical fixed

What is wrong with 80M - coax or antenna ?

Checked SWR at the bottom of the 80M vertical.

Coax needs to be replaced!

New spring arrivals!

EI1Y Contest station QSLing

EI1Y Conest station of Papa Lima DX-Contest Group has more than 60K QSOs logged already.

Contesting is one thing , QSLin is another story.

I am helping now Adam EI5JQ to manage all QSL requests for EI1Y / EI0PL and EJ1Y

Direct and Bureau

EI1Y QSL card 1

We strongly recommend using OQRS provided by Clublog 

for both type of requests.

https://secure.clublog.org/logsearch/EI1Y

EI1Y QSL card 2

About 2000 QSL cards processed last few weeks , all Bureau requests ...

LoTW upload was done with latest QSOs made

during ARRL DX CW and SSB contests.

EI1Y QSL 3

At the moment we have in stock three different types of EI1Y QSL card!

Order your QSL now via

121 QSOs during ARRL DX SSB 2016

ARRL DX SSB by EI9KC

121 QSOs made during my short run on ARRL DX SSB 2016. Not much but I had no time and prefer CW more . But SSB can be good sometimes too especially when you calling CQ with 100W on packed 21Mhz and VE8GER Patrick from Northern Territory is giving me a call !!!

What a fantastic location and QSO to remember! It was on Saturday.

I can compare now CW and SSB and ARRL DX .... I had more US States worked on CW , much more QSO with 100W and much easier was to work stations. 

12M rocks this weekend and ACOM 1000 is dead .....

All QSOs on 12M this weekend

It was long time ago when I had 12M band in good condition like this weekend. Saturday was JA day with about 50 QSOs made with Japanese stations. Great strong signals and during my CQ I had to go split to manage huge pile-up from far Asia. 

JA / HL QSOs on 12M this weekend

JR6AG gave me a call from Okinawa Island for the second time on 12M

On Sunday 4 stations from South Korea logged.

My amplifier ACOM 1000 didn`t manage pile-up on Sunday. Got some noise during QSO and I had to switch it off. After professional expertise by Adam EI5JQ and Oleg EI7KD verdict can be only one: high voltage transformer is gone .... Replacement will be quite expensive. So well this was probably the end of the transformer life as it was about 8 years old ....

DXpedition Marquesas 2016

TX7EU on 30M CW

This is TX7EU DXpedition Marquesas 2016 - Nuku Hiva OC-027 recorded this morning on 30M CW. Wonderful signal and "easy" to work. Marquesas Islands confirmed here from on 7 bands (10-40) two emissions CW/SSB almost 5 years ago thanks to TX7M

This is rare location on HF and good to see EU Team there focused to call Europe on high bands.

I will try to get them on RTTY as new country on DIGI mode. 

K5P Palmyra Atoll QSL

K5P Palmyra Atoll QSL arrived

One of the hardest DX to work. 2 bands - one mode - CW

GITMO on 80 !!!!

KG4HF - Guantanamo Bay

Al W6HGF is back on Guantanamo Bay and I am very happy to log him on 80M as new DXCC on this band! He gave me already several new band slots with this entity. 80M tonight was very hard. Tight split and many callers. Big guns only. So it was challenge for me. 

Decided to try as I was at the first line in EU.

Advantage for sure on low bands.

Didn`t work earlier on this band Philippines DU1IST with fantastic signal in my location , had nice short QSO with 3XY1T Los Island in Guinea by Italian DX pedition Team but Guinea is not new country on 80 for me. Spot from KG4HF showed up on 80M. After long battle got magic reply EI9KC 5NN EI9KC just before he went QRT!

Very lucky QSO! GITMO now sorted from 80 to 10 all modes!

QSO already in the log on Clublog and CFM on LoTW as my 181 DXCC on 80M

EI9KC - KG4HF log

Thanks Al !

UKEICC 80m Contests - 2`nd March 2016 - SSB

UKEICC 80m Contests - 2`nd March 2016 - SSB

60 - QSOs

12 - DXCC

2 -DUPES

Longest QSO with UT2II - 3220 km

First time on high power SSB with antenna on CW portion of the band.

Not a good idea. Will try to avoid in the future.