WAE-TOP Plaque has arrived !! Trilogy is now complete!!

The last part of my DARC's Trophy plaques trilogy has arrived just yesterday in the mail.

WAE-TOP Plaque Nr. 143 in Mixed Modes is now in its well-belonged home and will be added soon with its sister plaques of EU-DX-D 1000 Trophy and DARC's Europa 300 Trophy at my Trophies wall decoration. The Trilogy has been completed !!

Application, check and completion was done solely through DARC's DCL online system (again !!), with no paperwork involved at all !!

Wolf, DF8AA, thank you for your fine service. Really looking forward to obtaining the WAE-Trophy plaque, as well.

21000 LotW confirmations !!

Especially after uploading the log of my CQ WW SSB 2012 participation, my LotW confirmations reached today the 21000 mark out of 80492 total uploaded QSOs. Almost 1 out pf 3,83 QSOs uploaded is already confirmed for me.

Of course, this also had a good impact on my DXCC & DXCC Challenge totals:

Also, Logger32 shows SV5DKL has reached 1969 worked DXCC Challenge points, so there is lot of work to be done in order to confirm the missing ones.

I have also updated my current DXCC scores, which you may view by clicking at "My DXCC Scores" link under "My Pages" section at the right part of this blog.

73s from Rhodes Island.

Stathis, SV5DKL

My Awards

It was about time I uploaded and shared my several awards acquired over all these years since 1994, when I first entered the world of Amateur Radio.

Sorted basically by contest and non-contest awards, you may view some of them by clicking either the following link:

My Awards

 

or by clicking the respective link under "My Pages" section at the right-hand side of this blog.

 

I hope you will like my collection and find it interesting.

Though it is not complete yet, I will try to update it to date, as soon as possible and as my free time permits.

 

73s from Rhodes Island

Stathis, SV5DKL

No more $$$ Green Stamps, PSE !!!

Well, if things were different I should be blowing my hats off !!

But, it's been just over a fortnight since CQ WW SSB 2012 Contest, and I have already received over 200 direct QSL requests !!

OK, I know propagation was good, I know that for lots of you guys I have been a new one on 10m, I know that many of you have never received your preciously awaited QSL from some other SV5 station in the past, even after sending your valued Green Stamps and your SASE, but ...

!! I LIKE TO KEEP THINGS SIMPLE AND EFFICIENT !!

 

I must have got almost 350 Green Stamps (USD) and about 40-50 IRCs from those direct requests. Now, I have to reply to all (200) and if you deduct the ones that will be exchanged with a mailing stamp, I have to pay for the other (about) 150. And I have to pay in EUR. To be honest, Green Stamps are useless to me. After all, I don't belong to the group of G.S. collectors nor am I making a second by-income out of our beautiful hobby.

 

So, here is my preposition which is in line with my long ago stated QSL policy through this blog (http://sv5dkl.blogspot.gr/2012/06/welcome-everyone-to-my-brand-new-blog.html) :

 

If you only need a confirmation of our QSO for your ARRL DXCC awards, you just have to be a member of ARRL's LotW (Logbook of the World), which is an innovative, free and very efficient solution for your online QSO confirmations. I am uploading my logs every week, so if you've worked me, you'll have the QSO confirmed for sure !!

 

On the other hand, if you belong to the old-school and want to have my paper QSL in your collection, just send me your card with your SASE and an IRC, no USD, no GBP, no coins, no gold/silver, etc. An IRC is the best solution for me; it even makes the whole procedure faster when at the Post Office. As stated in my QSL policy, all incoming direct requests are being answered within a week's time, provided the above are met.

 

For your convenience, here is a sample of a valid IRC, currently being accepted:

 

Of course, I also reply to bureau cards, but I scarcely receive cards from that direction, about 1-2 times per year. So the turnaround for your bureau QSL request could take up at least 1-1,5 years. However, every QSL card received is being answered exactly the same way it reached me, so even through QSL bureau, eventually you are going to get my card.

Again, please have in mind that I am NOT interested in Green Stamps and I don't make on-air traffic for extra income. I am enjoying radio as every one of us and I am always happy to give a "new one" LotW confirmation (and not only !!). Many have emailed me about this QSLing "attitude", congratulating, etc. , but I have always replied that I am just doing what is common sense.

So,

NO MORE $$$ GREEN STAMPS, PSE !!!

 

73s

Stathis, SV5DKL

 

 

 

CQ WW SSB 2012 - Contest Audio extracts

As promised in my November 1st. post, and after a few days of continuous audio editing, plus some of my favourite statistics analysis, here are a few extracts of what went on in SV5DKL's radio station, during the CQ WW SSB 2012 contest:

First of all, CBSW was used to create a few interesting statistics concerning our rate. These are:

The best 60 minute rate was 263/hour from 1047 to 1146
The best 30 minute rate was 304/hour from 1036 to 1105
The best 10 minute rate was 324/hour from 1036 to 1045

The best 1 minute rates were:

 9 QSOs/minute    1 times.
 8 QSOs/minute    0 times.
 7 QSOs/minute    7 times.
 6 QSOs/minute   30 times.
 5 QSOs/minute   73 times.
 4 QSOs/minute  110 times.
 3 QSOs/minute  146 times.
 2 QSOs/minute  227 times.
 1 QSOs/minute  391 times.

 

----------------- 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       0       0      0       0     487  487   20.9
South America   0       0       0      0       0       84    84    3.6
Europe              0       0       0      0       0   1232 1232   53.0
Asia                 0       0       0      0       0     459   459   19.7
Africa               0       0       0      0       0       30    30     1.3
Oceania            0       0       0      0       0       32    32     1.4
???                  0       0       0      0       0         2      2     0.1
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total               0        0       0      0       0    2326  2326   100

(Unknown contacts were TO9R and TO2A not known by CBSW)

Number of letters in callsigns
Letters  # worked
-----------------
   3        20
   4       624
   5       822
   6       840
   7         6
   8         6
   9         5
  10         2

And then, here are the best 10 minute and best 30 minute rate contest audio clips (Best viewed with Google Chrome):

Best 10 minute rate (324Qs/hr.): https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B2pGUI_hdLXGY2pIZWNwMlRBelE

Best 30 minute rate (304Qs/hr): https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B2pGUI_hdLXGeWp6UFBOQlpvT1U

I really hope you will enjoy my contest operation style !!

Also, you may freely visit the following URL:

http://www.sv5dkl.eu/Audio/

and enter your callsign in the respective field to listen to our contest QSO !!

Feel free to drop any comments on the above.

73s fm Rhodes Isl. (EU-001)

Stathis, SV5DKL

CQ WW SSB 2012 - SOSB(A)/10 HP

I would be really happy to participate in this year's CQ WW SSB contest with the "dream-team" of J42T @ SV2BFN as M/2 with good friends, but their open invitation came too late (19/Oct/2012) and although I tried to organize all local obligations (family, QRL, tickets, etc.) it was very hard to put everything in order, so sadly I had to call SV2GWY on the 20th October and cancel my participation. Count me in for next year, guys !!

After that, plans and preparations were made to take part as SOSB(A)/10 HP from my home QTH for as many hours as I could, due to several other obligations.

CQ WW SSB 2012 was a very interesting experience for me, as I limited my participation to 25,5 hours in total, with many interruptions in between for home shopping, playing with my baby daughter, going out for a coffee, and others ...
Still, I managed to make 2332 QSOs (including 6 dupes) with 37 zones and 151 DXCCs, resulting in 850,000 points total score, with some of the best and huge pileups I have ever experienced !!

I will soon post audio clips from my pileups, with 10-12 QSOs per minute rates. Again, JAs and Ks proved to be the most disciplined operators worldwide.

Setup used was: Yaesu FT-2K, SPE Expert 1K-FA, Cushcraft A3S, Writelog for Windows and a box of Red Bull cans ...

First QSO was with BD7IS on Saturday at 0406z and last was with I0UZF on Sunday at 2030z, beaming to North Pole (!!) with peculiar propagation to EU.

Time for my favourite part ... the statistics (!!!):

Here is my continental QSO dispersion:

 

Continent	10M QSOs	%
AS	463	19,90%
OC	32	1,40%
EU	1228	52,70%
SA	85	3,70%
AF	30	1,30%
NA	488	21,00%
Total:	2326	100,00%

Following is the Contest Log analysis made with a great online tool by DL0CW:

 And a few interesting statistics for DXCC/Points/Zones per hour:

 Finally, some statistics produced by a good friend of mine in the US:

QSOs per hour - Cumulative:

QSOs per hour - Line graph:

QSOs per hour - Trend graph:

QSOs per zone:

QSOs per zone - Bar graph:

I have to express my sincere congratulations to EU stations that outscored me and made it over the 1Mio points mark.

 

Also, I have thank my good friend Bill, SV5AZP, who wasn't aware I was running on 10m and when I called him, he offered to change band. What I told him was that there was no need to act as such and that he should stay and call as long as he wished, because CONTESTING IS AN OPEN GAME and FREE TO EVERY PARTICIPANT, as long as the official rules as followed.

 

10m has been absolutely open according to what HamCap propagation tool had suggested a couple of days before the contest. It was the first time I have ever worked so many (and loud!) XEs, Zone 3s and KH6s. Sadly, I never heard KL7RadioAlaska for zone 1, I missed ZL1BYZ LP for double mult of Zone 32 (just heard a whisper of "BYZ" for just a second !!) and I heard (or saw in the DXcluster) nobody from Zone 37.

 

Last, but not least, I am preparing an online searchable database for my contest audio recordings. It is 95% ready and it will be complete very soon. A link to it will be posted on the present blog, as soon as it is up and running. So, everyone will have the chance to listen to our contest QSOs and even download them as an audio clip for their file.

 

Finally, despite this has been a part-time participation for me, I hope that in the CW leg I will be able to run full-time. That is, if I take part from my QTH, because there also is an invitation from the boyz at SZ1A to join them !!

 

73s to all and GL with the results.

 

Stathis, SV5DKL