CQ WPX SSB 2013 Contest in coming weekend

In the coming weekend CQ WPX SSB 2013 will, once again, attract hundreds of worldwide contesters in one of Ham Radio`s greatest celebrations.

I couldn't be absent, as I haven`t been since 1994, when I was first licensed as SV1DKL.

This year, I have decided to take on 80m as SOSB(A)80/LP and set a new record for SV5-land.



I will use my FT-2K@100w and my base-coupled Inverted-L antenna. I hope conditions will favor my LP signal.

Of course, all of my contest operation will be recorded and be available at a later stage through my searchable contest audio database, which can be found here: http://www.sv5dkl.eu/Audio

CU on air during next weekend

100 DXCC entities on 160m ... at last !!

Looks like the new low band antenna system is working great.
In the last 45 days 10 new ones have been worked on 160m, where until now, I couldn't get on-air decently.

Living in a block of apartments within the boundaries of a city doesn't make for enough space or low man-made noise for 160m operations. Still, I managed to erect a 27,5m Inverted-L with 56 random length radials on the rooftop, which made the difference !!

Finally, I can hear DX on 160m and they can copy my signal, too !!

Last DXCC worked this morning on 160m SSB was Pedro NP4A, summing my TopBand`s worked entities to 100 !! Tnx, Pedro.

Pedro is also using LotW, so now I am waiting for his confirmation.
With NP4A in the log, 9BDXCC has been achieved and in the following summer, I intend to devote some time on 6m, where I also didn't have a decent antenna system until recently, in order to also reach at least 100 DXCC entities in the "Magic Band" and get achieve the most-wanted target of 10BDXCC.

If you need SV5 (Dodecanese) on 6m, send me an e-mail in order to arrange a sked, especially if you live in a rare DXCC entity !!

Unbelievable use of English on-air !!

I can't stop thinkink & laughing about this, so I just had to share it with my readers.
In order not to personally insult anyone, no names, callsigns, or Greek call areas will be mentioned.

Browsing late one night on the SSB part of 75m, I stopped by a frequency where Greek amateur radio stations were working DX (SVxxxx & company !!).
One of the guys, who apparently got the strongest signal, at least, here in Rhodes, was misusing English language in a really funny way.

So, when you give the signal report to the correspondent, it is not always "five-nine" even at cases where he is barely a Q5, and in NO case should you give a "Fight Knight" or better, a "Fight Night" ... !!!

Either of the two latter could lead to peculiar hallucinations or personal injury, so it's better to stick to the initial "Five-Nine", to my opinion ...

And before I stopped holding my belly from laughters, here we go again: Mixing "Over!" with "Roger Roger ??" is still something that had never crossed my mind in the past !! I wouldn't want to be named Roger and be the correspondent of this fellow ham ... it would cause some kind of mix-up for sure ...

Nevertheless, still it is very good that even people with little knowledge of foreign languages, enjoy their stations by getting on the air and doing their best to work DX stations. Actually, this specific guy received the best signal reports amongst all others in the company !!

Keep up the good work, guys !!

I will be happy to monitor your transmissions.
 

EU-27-A Award

DARC's DCL Contest Logbook is constantly upgrading and updating. After moving the system to a newer and faster server, they are also integrating new awards, that can be applied, checked, confirmed and paid solely through DCL site.

For a small period of time, they have available a nice award, the EU-27-A, which is applicable to all DCL users that have worked all 27 members of the European Union. They even have several classes of the award, depending on how many bands one has worked all 27 EU member countries.
For 5-bands and higher classes, this award presents outstanding achievement and is greatly appraised by DCL.

I was, possibly, one of the first to check my points against this award, and I was lucky enough to be awarded the Nr.1 award for 5-Bands Mixed Mode.

Below is the pdf version of the award, while waiting for the paper award to arrive.

Thank you, DL6MHW for the nice and fast service !!

Meanwhile, I also applied for a couple more awards that are integrated with LotW, one of them is for a Trophy-style Gladius wooden sword, so keep in touch while I will be posting more info and photos, as the awards arrive !!

73s from Rhodes Island,

Stathis, SV5DKL

Rate is King !!

I have just recently come across a very interesting web site with loads of contest statistics.
It is evidently known I am a statistics fan, so I dug into this site and was happy to see they have a QSO RATES statistics section. You know, WW, per continent, per power category, per DXCC entity and so on. They even have the whole hour-logs, too, for anyone's review !!

Here is the link to the best rates in Europe/Single Operator category:

http://rate.pileup.ru/?op=SINGLE-OP&tx=ONE&c=EU

 

 

,which is my usual category entry.

 

Browsing the results, I was happy to see my callsign come up at relatively high rankings in SSB/HP and CW/HP sections and also sharing 1st place with MD2C at Low Power CW section !!

 

Several other Greek Amateur Radio Stations are amongst these listings and at high rankings, too.

 

It seems that making the logs public has led to this (and other) outcome.

 

Kudos to Valery, R5GA, who has done a tremendous job at pileup.ru and I am anxious to see his next steps. 



Paid off ...

My efforts in last year's CQ WPX SSB & CW contests paid off nicely.
Nice paper awards arrived yesterday in the mail, which are depicted below.

Now setting off to my plans for 2013's CQ WPX contests. To be announced soon !!

 

73s from Rhodes Island

Stathis, SV5DKL