DIG CEPT Diplom awarded

I wanted to apply for this specific award for years, since I first started showing interest for Diplom Interessen Gruppe awards and trophies, but it somehow lost my attention.

Being integrated into DARC`s DCL diplom system, it was easy to apply and be awarded this nice DIG CEPT Nr. 386 diplom.

Here it is:

Many thanks to Alfons, DJ8VC for all his invaluable help, throughout all of my award/trophy applications made via DCL.

6m season begins in SV5 !!

 

We clearly verified all signs of previous days, as well as last week`s VHF and up propagation forecast.

6m band opened up today for the first serious Trans-Equatorial Propagation (TEP) opening of the season.

ZS6WN was the first station to get audible in our area and was very easy to work. 559 both ways with no QSB/QRN.

Afterwards, ZS6BTE was heard, as well as another ZS station calling a S57.

So, 6m season seems to start on time here on SV5 land.

We`ll be looking for any occasional openings and will try to complete the 6m DXCC this summer, too.

73

Stathis, SV5DKL

DJ60DXMB Award - 60 years Jubilee of DARC's DX-Newsletter - 1954-2014

60 years ago, the first DXNL was published, by DX section of DARC e.V.

A commemorative Special event station under the callsign DJ60DXMB ,with a Special S-DOK 60DXMB and a respective 60DXMB Special award, will be aired for all 2014.

More detailed Info on the Special event and the conditions of the Special award, may be found here: http://www.qrz.com/db/dj60dxmb

It is important that applications for 60DXMB award may only be applied through DARC's DCL system here: http://dcl.darc.de/~dcl/public/index.php

I have already applied and was awarded 60DXMB Special award with Serial nr. 014, with a very simple procedure through DCL. Below is an image of my award:

 

YL WPX Trophy

Got another one !!

Another beautiful, prestigious plaque arrived today at my shack.
The YL WPX trophy is another great addition to my long ago acquired LY WPX Trophy Honor Roll Plaque.

Sam, LY5W, was very helpful and kind to send me this nice YL WPX Trophy which will decorate another empty space at our living room.

Below is the YL WPX Trophy nr. 3 acquired:

Info on how to obtain the YL WPX Trophy yourself can be found here:

http://www.lrsk.lv/awards

and Trophy Holders list can be seen here:

http://www.lrsk.lv/awards/plaquenr

WAS Triple Play Award arrived

The prestigious Worked All States Triple Play Award numbered 1008 arrived yesterday in the mailbox.

This was the outcome of MANY hours on-air, both in contests and in casual daily QSOs.

It is reminded that WAS TPA is available to all licensed amateur radio operators that have confirmed at least one QSO in SSB & CW & DATA with all 50 United States, solely by LotW confirmations.

Application procedure is done via LotW and once you fulfill the aforementioned prerequisites, applying becomes a piece of cake.



FT5ZM - Amsterdam Island DXpedition - A Battle for iron steel nerves

A long awaited DXpedition from Amsterdam Island in the South Indian Ocean is currently on air, giving a new one, ATNO for many, to radio amateurs around the globe.

This $450.000 budget, multi-national DXpedition is manned by some of the most experienced DXpeditioners around. Plans are to activate Amsterdam Isl. on air for about 18 days, until about the 11th of February on all HF bands in SSB, CW & RTTY.

Such DXCC entities are commonly activated approximately every 10-15 years, so worldwide demand is factual.

This specific type of DXpedition is not like the ones of holiday type, we are used to. This one demands absolute discipline, devotion, pre- and post-organization, great logistics support and provision for that nasty little detail that usually will be forgotten back home.

On the air, since the very first QSOs on January 26th, pileups have been endless and far more than disciplined. FT5ZM Ops are being very patient and try to be accurate when copying callers` callsign. Still, QSO rate is constant and when starting on a given band/mode, pileup takes less than 1 minute to form and split disperses up to 30Khz !!

Although I had confirmed Amsterdam from my old QTH in Athens as SV1DKL, I still needed it as an ATNO for my current SV5DKL callsign and of course in as many bands as possible for my DXCC Challenge points. As I heard callers` behavior since day 1, first thought was to let the steam go for the first few days, let the big guns fight with each other at the splits, and afterwards to try and work it myself, from my modest city lot radio installations. Indeed, there was obviously too much pressure and anxiety to work a new one, that on-air behavior, especially by specific European races, was unacceptable and brutish. 

A real battle for iron steel nerves !!

On the other hand, FT5ZM`s signals were trully AMAZING, especially on the higher HF bands. Propagation was favoring my location at specific daytime hours, so I let myself in the battlefield and managed to finish up all of the high bands, at least for SSB and CW for the time being, plus 30 and 40 meters in CW.

Up to now, January 29th, and as the DXpedition progresses, here is my worked QSO list from my log:

 

Just today evening, I *think* I completed a CW QSO on 160m, but I will be certain, only when they upload their logs to ClubLog.

Speaking of which, there have been many complaints on why the logs are not uploaded yet, while on their web site (http://www.amsterdamdx.org/), it is clearly mentioned that an online log would be available as soon as the DXpedition was aired. I guess there is some kind of issue with the Sat Link hardware and they are trying to solve it out somehow. Still, proper special provisions should have been made beforehand for such an issue, IMHO. Especially, when having Inmarsat as a major Business Sponsor.

Personally, I am not bothered the least by this, it is just that there will be many more dupes in the log, from all those that are not 100% certain they made it through (I am one of those for my 160m contact, hi!). Not to mention the extra generated traffic ...

Having Internet access and real-time online log is, nowadays, a common part of the game. We are all pretty much spoiled on these and their lack attracts negative remarks. I would love to view a range of photos/footages from their arrival, primary installations, first QSOs, how they live on the island and on what comforts, while at the same time verifying a QSO of mine through real-time online logging.

Col, MM0NDX, who is the EU pilot of FT5ZM has already announced there are some issues with internet access (zero access until now), but has promised to upload the first logs to Clublog ASAP. That statement is fine for me, for now.

Really waiting for the RTTY operations to begin and at the same time, keeping an eye on DX-Cluster for that 80m QSO ...

More news on this activation to follow here, or at their web site:

http://www.amsterdamdx.org/news/

WAS Triple Play Award achieved

It was not long ago (http://sv5dkl.blogspot.gr/2014/01/some-help-for-completing-my-triple-play.html), that I was seeking for my last 5 slots for achieving ARRL's WAS Triple Play LotW award.

Thanks to my NA friends hanging out at K3UK's forum, I managed in a very short time period to fill out all the missing slots and apply for TPA, through LotW award application process.

My application has already been accepted by Awards Desk and I became the 2nd Greek Amateur Radio Operator, after my good friend Kostas, SV1DPI, to obtain this honourable award. My TPA's s/n is 1008, dated 26/Jan/2014.

Looking forward to receiving the TPA to my mailbox anytime soon.

2nd Balkan HST Championship - Bulletin 1 - Organized in Romania by FRR

 

If you are reading this, you are among the first ones to get informed on the organization of the 2nd Balkan HST Championship, which will be organized by FRR in Piatra Neamt, Romania between 13-15 June 2014.



Format of the championship will be exactly the same like in Lovech, Bulgaria last year, so no major surprises expected.

Here is Bulletin nr. 1 of the 2nd Balkan HST Championship, which has not yet been officially published:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2pGUI_hdLXGd0gyUmFsTl9iMkE/edit?usp=sharing

 

73

SV5DKL

 



RSGB IOTA 2013 results published

Year by year, RSGB is getting faster in publishing IOTA contest's results !!

2013's RSGB IOTA contest final scores are published and can be found here.

Having put significant effort into this one resulted in winning the
Island - Single Operator - Assisted - SSB - 12 hours - Low Power category, setting at the same time a World record for this specific category, see here.

Besides the 2013 IOTA Contest Award, RSGB awarded me also the 2013 IOTA Contest Centenary Award for my scores.

Both awards are shown below:

 

More Info on RSGB's Centenary Award here.

 

RSGB IOTA Contest has always been one of my favourites and in 2014 event, I will try to set another record in one of the Island categories.



Some help for completing my Triple Play WAS ???

I am currently trying to complete my Triple Play WAS award, that is, to work all 50 states on SSB/CW/RTTY.

At the moment, my LotW credits are like this:

Entity	CW	Phone	Digital
Alabama	K4AB	AG4W	AA4U
Alaska	NL7Z	KL7RA	WL7E
Arizona	N7AT	W7PP	NR6M
Arkansas	K5GO	K5GO	AE5AA
California	KJ6P	N6BV	N6ML
Colorado	K0RF	W0MU	W0OVM
Connecticut	W1RM	K1RM	WA1EHK
Delaware	AA1K	AA1K	WA2VQV
Florida	N4WW	W4QN	N4BP
Georgia	NQ4I	K4WZ	NS1S
Hawaii	KH6MB	KH6MB	AH6RR
Idaho	KM7R	KM7R
Illinois	KG9N	KG9N	K9NR
Indiana	K9NW	W9SN	AB9V
Iowa	W0AWL	NC0O	KV1E
Kansas	K0THN	N0UU	AC0C
Kentucky	W5MX	AJ4A	KO4XJ
Louisiana	WC5N	W5RU	W5ADD
Maine	K1WHS	K8PO	W1SLF
Maryland	W3LPL	W3KL	NF8I
Massachusetts	AA1V	K5ZD	K1SFA
Michigan	KG8P	W8MJ	W8ERN
Minnesota	K0KX	K0KX	K0XB
Mississippi	K5WK	K5WBM	NA5DX
Missouri	KQ0B	KD0FW	K0BX
Montana	K7BG	N7IP
Nebraska	K0HA	NE0DX
Nevada	K0MZN	KS7AA	W7RN
New Hampshire	K0TV	KC1XX	AE1T
New Jersey	K2CJ	N2MM	N2MM
New Mexico	N2IC	WA5ZUP	K7IA
New York	K2MFY	WU2X	N2WK
North Carolina	N2TU	K5EK	N4LV
North Dakota	N0GC	NT0V	KD4POJ
Ohio	WB8TLI	W8UV	K8EUR
Oklahoma	W5LE	W5LE	W5GFI
Oregon	W7YAQ	K7ZV	WK7E
Pennsylvania	KF3B	AA3B	AA3B
Rhode Island	KO1E	W1XX	KS1J
South Carolina	WS4C	AA4V	AA4V
South Dakota	AE0P	N0MHL	W0SD
Tennessee	K4LTA	K4BP	W4GKM
Texas	K0GEO	W5TO	N5MOA
Utah	N5LZ	W7CT	N7RU
Vermont	KE1FO	N1MZE
Virginia	K4FJ	K4BDR	K4GMH
Washington	AC2K	KW7XX	AB6L
West Virginia	K3JT	KE3G	KE8UN
Wisconsin	W9XT	N0IJ	K9OM
Wyoming	KO7X		WY7FD

so, I am still in need of WY in Phone and ID, MT, NE and VT (!!!) in RTTY.

Of course, I have to work stations that are LotW users, in order to be liable to apply for Triple Play WAS award.

So, if you happen to live in one of the aforementioned States and are a LotW user, I would be grateful if we could make a sked.

Please e-mail me for our sked at either: sv5dkl@hotmail.com

                                                 or: sv5dkl@rho.forthnet.gr

73 es HNY

Stathis, SV5DKL

OQRS (On-Line QSL Request System) now available for all my callsigns

Effective from today, I have setup OQRS (On-Line QSL Request System) for all of my registered callsigns:

1. SV5DKL
2. SV1DKL
3. J41DKL
4. J41Y
5. SX5R
6. SV5/SV1DKL

Having evaluated OQRS's usefulness, especially when one wants to easily confirm a new one, and after many, many, many e-mails requesting me to start using such a service, I decided that this was the optimum solution for each one of you that has contacted me on-air over my Amateur Radio career and hasn`t confirmed our QSO with a QSL card.

So, very easily, just search my respective log in ClubLog (e.g.: https://secure.clublog.org/logsearch/SV5DKL), like depicted below:

 

and then, just click on "Request QSL card" option to move on to the next screen, where you have to insert our QSO data in the empty boxes, to confirm QSO data details with ClubLog, like shown below:

After inserting QSO data, click "Confirm QSO details" and 2 options will show up in "QSL options" respective box, like below:

 

You now have the option to request the QSL card either via bureau, or via Direct mail to your address. Bureau is free of charge, Direct costs 2.43 EUR per 4 QSOs (as many as fit in my QSL card, hi!). Choosing Direct, will lead you to a checkout form which will be finalized via PayPal payment.

Kudos to ClubLog owners for implementation of OQRS service.

Not only QSLing is made easy, one may also confirm he is "in the log", before requesting one`s QSL card. To my humble opinion, the best advantage of the system is that it saves you time and money, while at the same time pertaining a high level of availability and freely offering a full set of OQRS management tools.

Note that if you already are a registered ClubLog user and have uploaded your QSO data, when searching my logs, you won`t need filling in the QSO data in the white boxes, they are automatically filled by your log data. And that`s it!

Enjoy ClubLog`s services and should you require any assistance, don`t hesitate to drop me a line at: sv5dkl@rho.forthnet.gr 

CQ WW SSB 2013 - Aftermath

Well ...

it is exactly like I described in the Comments field of my submitted log file ...
"Mom !! Can we please keep this propagation ??"

This time I enjoyed the most out of the best contest of the year.
It turned out that good propagation is the key to high scoring. Also, not going to sleep ;-)

Was actually awake for 44 out of 48 hours of the contest period, slept only 1 hour first morning Sunday hours, and had small intermediate breaks when not too busy.

Made in total 3.659 QSOs with 595 DXCC and 162 CQZ multipliers, ending up to a total claimed score of 4.649.494 points. Included are 15 dupe QSOs.

Here is my summary sheet:

Band / QSOs / Points / Multipliers / Total

-------------------------------------------------

160m / 104 / 127 / 50 / 6350

80m / 267 / 338 / 83 / 28054

40m / 479 / 676 / 120 / 81120

20m / 1022 / 1805 / 168 / 303240

15m / 723 / 1199 / 156 / 187044

10m / 1064 / 2026 / 175 / 354550

I worked in total 2635 unique callsigns, of which the following 16 were worked on all 6 contest HF bands:

II9P        D4C         ES9C        IG9Y        P3N         UP2L       
OM8A        A73A        3V7A        SP8R        9K2HN       UA4M       
LY7A        OK5W        DL0CS       SV9FBG

I`ve had some seriously fast pileups into this one. Here are my best rates:

The best 60 minute rate was 300/hour from 0950 to 1049
The best 30 minute rate was 318/hour from 0952 to 1021
The best 10 minute rate was 348/hour from 0957 to 1006

An audio file link of my best 10 minute rate can be found below:

                       In WAV format   -   In MP3 format

Moreover, the best 1 minute rates were as follows:

 7 QSOs/minute   15 times.
 6 QSOs/minute   52 times.
 5 QSOs/minute  118 times.
 4 QSOs/minute  179 times.
 3 QSOs/minute  227 times.
 2 QSOs/minute  329 times.
 1 QSOs/minute  582 times.

Another interesting statistic is the one counting the number of letters in callsigns:

Letters  # worked
-----------------
   3        40
   4      1298
   5      1251
   6      1020
   7         5
   8        21
   9         4
  10         5

And here is my continental QSO dispersion for CQ WW SSB 2013:

----------------- C o n t i n e n t   S u m m a r y -----------------
                 160     80     40     20     15     10  Total    Pct
---------------------------------------------------------------------
North America      0      6     29    244     95    215    589   16.2
South America      0      0      6     21     15     23     65    1.8
Europe            89    229    380    632    489    585   2404   66.0
Asia               8     24     46     81     91    196    446   12.2
Africa             4      6     12     21     21     25     89    2.4
Oceania            0      0      4     22     10     15     51    1.4
--------------------------------------------------------------
Total            101    265    477   1021    721   1059   3644

Finally, single band QSO dispersion was like this:

Band    160     80     40     20     15     10
----------------------------------------------
QSOs     28     89    177    562    426    755

Now, for some graphics. There are 4 nice graphs in line depicting:

i) Worked CQZ per Time

ii) Worked DXCC per Time

iii) Worked Points per Time

iv) Worked QSOs per Time

And a nice mixed graph showing the Rates according to QSOs per band index:

Here`s a trendline of QSOs logged each hour:

And below comes a QSOs by band bar chart:

Major contest statistical analysis here: http://www.sv5dkl.eu/Contest_Log_Statistics_Analysis/statistics/2013%20CQ-WW-SSB%20SV5DKL/index.htm



My initial objective was reached and overpassed. That was to set a, relatively difficult to break, record in SOAB(A)HP category for SV5 (Dodecanese).

In the CW part, I was thrilled to join the M/S team of SZ1A in Agrinio, Western Greece, where we set another record in M/S category for SV (Greece).

Further details on the official web site of SZ1A:  http://www.sz1a.org/index.php/11-news/132-cqwwcw2013symmetoxh

and a few pictures from our participation in this Picasa link: https://picasaweb.google.com/114195421952141682894/ContestCQWWCW2013?authuser=0&feat=directlink

One of my next plans in the agenda is to join another team of some of the best SSB contesters in Greece, in order to break the M/S record of CQ WPX SSB for SV (Greece) in coming March.

I WILL ONLY GIVE AWAY ONE HINT ... MY AIRPLANE TICKETS ARE ALREADY ISSUED !!!

BE PREPARED ... WE`RE COMING !!!