K1N Navassa Isl. ... Ready ... Set ... Go !!!

Everything is ready here for the K1N Navassa Island DXpedition starting in a few hours, by the KP1-5 Project DXPedition team.

It will be an ATNO for me, as for many others. Pileups are expected to be huge and constant. DX Battle on the roll ...

Upgraded my Inverted-L counterpoise system with the aid of a aluminum plate, where all my 58 radials connect solidly, have greased radial plate contacts and used an aluminum flat bar to connect all this to my antenna coupler.

The antenna coupler has been upgraded, in order to be able to handle double the power on the low bands (160 & 80).

K6TU supported with propagation predictions for Navassa, ranging from a very basic station setup up to the experienced DXer level setup.

Here is mine (Tribander & wires selection):

 May the Force be with us ...

73 de

Stathis, SV5DKL

20 years in Amateur Radio (1994-2014)

If you read this, then we most possibly share in common one of the best hobbies in this world ... Amateur Radio.



It was 20th October 1994 when I was first licensed as SV1DKL in Athens, Greece. Since then, I have lived great thrills through avocation with our great hobby, involving joy, anxiety, cooperation, tireness, education, adrenaline flowing, friendship ... and so many more.

I even travelled to places, normally I wouldn't visit; made close friends around the globe, met with many of them.

On 20th October 2014 I marked my 20 years in Amateur Radio. That was a good time to check some of my favourite statistics, concerning QSOs i have personally made (not from contest stations, special event stations, etc.).

From the table below, it is clear that 20m has been my favourite band, leaving 15m and 10m behind at 2nd and 3rd place, respectively, with marginal difference between the two:

Note that Non-HF QSOs comprise of 6m and up QSOs.

And from the next table, referring to QSOs per mode, I would swear beforehand that CW would win by far ... SURPRISEEE !!! SSB overlapped CW by more than 2K QSOs !!!



20 years equals 7300 days ... let's see how many of those I have been active for ...

 

 

Well, 1998 has obviously been my most fruitful and productive year, followed closely by 2012, 2013 & 2011, while 2005 was my least active year (worked a lot during 2003-2005, had just moved to Rhodes and did not have a decent shack or aerials ...).

 

It is funny, if we take a look at the graph of my activity days and the graph of sunspots numbers during solar cycles 23 & 24:

 

... quite similar, huh ???

I am curious to check this again against the next 2 decades ...

 

Anyway,

as years go by, I am enjoying Amateur Radio more and more.

And as technology advances rapidly in Telecommunications, we get the chance to be among the first ones to assess new hardware, new software, new theories, new materials, new modes, etc.

 

We are lucky to be Amateur Radio operators.

 

73 de

SV5DKL

(est. 1994)

 

 

I am into RTTY, too, sometimes ...

Whilst I prefer working mostly SSB/CW, RTTY can be quite fan occasionally ...

 

500 German DOKs in the box! DLD-500 Diploma awarded through DARC's DCL!

I've been trying for quite some time now to reach the 500 confirmed DOKs level in DARC's DCL system.

I've mentioned about DCL a lot in the past, due to its ease of use and flexibility in applying for various awards.

A couple of days ago, I finally reached 524 confirmed DOKs on 15m and 506 confirmed DOKs on 20m, in DCL, so decided to apply for the 15m DLD award endorsement.

Being in contact with Eddy, DM5JBN (DLD award manager), in the past weeks, made it even easier to go through the process.

The DLD-500 award endorsement comes with a fine lapel badge, which I will receive shortly with the paper diploma. For the time being, here is the digital form of my DLD-500:

 

Next DLD target is far away ... the DLD-1000 level is not easy to reach, but it's worth trying. And it comes with an extra fine lapel badge, plus it allow one to apply for the DLD trophy, too (and that is one astonishing trophy !!)

12th IARU High Speed Telegraphy World Championship / 9-13 September 2015 / Ohrid, F.Y.R.O.M. - Bulletin Nr. 1

IARU High Speed Telegraphy World Championship, the 12th in series, will be held in Ohrid, F.Y.R.O.M., between 9-13 September 2015.

The 1st official bulletin was received today from my good friend, Oliver Tabakovski, Z32TO, a very active HST enthusiast and organizer.

You shall read the bulletin in .doc format by clicking here.

A dedicated web site (www.hst2015.org) will be online after 1st of coming February, for more detailed information on the venue.

A Letter of Intent must be returned to the organizers (RSM), not later than 1st of April 2015.

In this bulletin there are price tables, according to the needs and likings of participants. What I have to notice, is that the prices still remain high, considering the overall costs involved, including traveling. For instance, a participant in a double room, shall pay 250 EUR (if paid beforehand) for the competition and accommodation, plus about the same amount for traveling, because some participants will have to travel via 2 means of transport to get to Skopje. From there, possibly RSM will have another solution for getting to Ohrid. 

We will have to wait for the 2nd Official Bulletin to see further into these (and other, mostly technical) details.

700 Jahre Stadt Eckernförde award - FREE through DARC`s DCL System

Browsing through DARC`s DCL system today, I noticed a new award in the list. That was 700 Jahre Stadt Eckernförde award, that is 700 years of the city of Eckernförde in DOK M01 in Germany.

Rules were simple (see also http://www.darc.de/uploads/media/Diplom-Ausschreibung_01.pdf), and there were 3 different classes awarded. 

Checking my points against the rules, DCL showed I could apply online for the top class (Klasse 1.) for this award. What is more, the PDF version of the award is free (there is a paid for paper version available, if you wish!) and the whole procedure (check points, apply in specific class, approval, printout of the award) was completed in less than 30 minutes (including e-mail message concerning application approval from the award manager) !!

So, here is a nice and relatively easy award to obtain, with just a few clicks in DARC`s DCL:

 

WAG 2014 Final Results published

Just received today a notification from Worked All Germany contest manager Chris, DL8MBS, that the final results of WAG 2014 Contest, including photos, contest audio extracts and breakdowns, have been published.

Results can be found here. If you participated, you may even download your certificate in .pdf format from here. Check mine below:

And WAG 2014 stories and other interesting facts on WAG contest will be found here.

I am now looking towards WAG 2015, to work some more rare DOKs for my DLD award hunting.

73 es HNY!

Stathis, SV5DKL

4th GTC CW Cup - Final Ranking - Detailed Scores

Just today have come out the final results of the 4th GTC CW Cup, after log-checking, in the official site of GTC.

Trophy winner of Cat. A` (SOAB) is Mike, SV8GKE and trophy winner of Cat. B`(SOAB/QRP) is Dimitris, SV1JGW. Congratulations to both for their achievements.

You will find the official final rankings of the 4th GTC CW Cup in the following URLs:

1) In Greek:   http://www.raag.org/displayITM1.asp?ITMID=790&LANG=GR

&

2) In English:   http://www.raag.org/displayITM1.asp?ITMID=790&LANG=EN

Looking forward to the 5th GTC CW Cup now, to take place 1st weekend of coming October 2015. See you all there!

YP10NATO Award

Returning home, after my participation in CQ WW CW DX Contest 2014, as M/S from SV1ENG's 2nd QTH in Kalamos, Attica Region, this is what I found in the mail:

 

 

It arrived automatically, without any applications in the first place. Nice going !!



 

 

 

Well performed DXpeditions provided 2 new DXCCs on 6m !!

!!! FINAL UPDATE - LOG COMPLETE !!!

Just TopBand CW and 30m RTTY not worked ...

SV5DKL has worked FT4TA on 22 out of 24 band slots

Propagation suggestions for FT4TA from DODECANESE or from CQ zone 20 or show on Geo Propagation Map

	6m	10m	12m	15m	17m	20m	30m	40m	80m	160m
PH
CW
RTTY

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

It was about time we heard some serious DX on air !!

A couple of well organised DXpeditions that took place lately, have once again, kept me alert and on the radios for quite a few hours.

5R8M, from Nosy Be Island (AF-057), organised and performed by Mediterraneo DX Club (www.mdxc.org) has already ceased operations with approximately 70000 QSOs in their logs. I managed to get in their logs 18 times, 2 of which were on 6m (SSB/CW) giving me my 6m DXCC #104. The rest of my QSOs included 40m-10m and all modes worked.

 

Even before 5R8M ended, another large scale DXpedition began ...

 

FT4TA from Tromelin Island (AF-031), led by F6KOP & 6 very experienced French DXers & DXpeditioners (deriving from Lyon DX Gang), is currently activating Tromelin on all bands (160m-6m) and modes (SSB/CW/RTTY) and is scheduled to end on November 10th.

Further detailed information on Tromelin Island DXpedition can be found here:

 

http://www.tromelin2014.com/en/   &   http://www.qrz.com/db/FT4TA

 

Recalling the pileups of FT5ZM (Amsterdam Island) from last January, I have to admit that Tromelin's pileups are more amazing, more strict, a bit more disciplined, but at times they set a very wide split and it gets tough to find who the ops reply to, especially at the higher HF bands. Of course, what matters most is that they have HUGE signals in EU.

 

Once again, EU ops behaviour at the pileups justifies why US and JA ops are considered easier and more disciplined to work.

 

Tromelin was an ATNO for my SV5DKL callsign, since I had worked FR/F6KDF/T on 4 HF bands back in August 2000 from my Athenian QTH as SV1DKL !!

 

I set off to an early lead to finish off Tromelin at the higher HF bands, which was relatively easy (on all 3 modes, SSB,CW & RTTY). They were also extremely strong on 6m, too, with huge signal peaks even at +30db (in CW) and I had the joy to ask the op to work me in both modes, which he did !!

 



 

Tromelin was my 6m DXCC #105. Still missing many easy DXCCs on 6m, such as CU, GD, GU, HB0, 4U1 and many others, but I am not in a hurry right now !!

 

Until the end of the DXpedition, I will be focusing on the 3 lower bands, where I still miss Tromelin, although they are strong here in Rhodes (yes, on 160, too!).

 

Good luck to anyone chasing FT4TA, especially if it is a ATNO for you !!



TY1AA new one on 6m !!

The IDT (Italian DXpedition Team) have done it again, activating yet another rare DXCC from Africa.

This time it was Benin's turn, and the I2YSB company have already made almost 35k QSOs, under the callsign TY1AA, still going strong from their well appointed shack.

I was hunting them just for bands/modes I've been missing TY, but on 6m it was a totally new bandslot for my DXCC & DXCC Challenge totals.

On Sep. 14th afternoon, they were really strong on 6m CW and they had a big EU pileup, but a couple of calls under HP was all that was required to make it through ;-)

 

After Benin, I am happily numbering 103 DXCC on 6m, still waiting for less than 9 confirmations to be liable to apply for my 6m DXCC, too!
 

WPX Award of Excellence Plaque ... Done !!

A most prestigious plaque I've been chasing for several years is finally hanging on my trophy wall. It is actually the 2nd WPX AoE plaque awarded amongst the 4 Greek Amateur Radio DXCC entities (SV, SV5, SV9 & SV/A).

The WPX Award of Excellence plaque is the highest recognition of the CQ WPX Awards program, for having worked & confirmed amateur radio prefixes, under specific prerequisites.



To sum it up, one has to have accomplished ALL of the following:

1) At least 1000 prefixes confirmed in Mixed mode
2) At least 600 prefixes confirmed in SSB mode
3) At least 600 prefixes confirmed in CW mode
4) At least 160 prefixes from North America confirmed
5) At least 95 prefixes from South America confirmed
6) At least 160 prefixes from Europe confirmed
7) At least 90 prefixes from Africa confirmed
8) At least 75 prefixes from Asia confirmed
9) At least 90 prefixes from Oceania confirmed
10) At least 175 prefixes confirmed on 80m band
11) At least 250 prefixes confirmed on 40m band
12) At least 300 prefixes confirmed on 20m band
13) At least 300 prefixes confirmed on 15m band
14) At least 300 prefixes confirmed on 10m band

with Extra endorsements available for Digital modes, 160, 60, 30, 17, 12 & 6m bands, for those WHO have qualified.

Next plaques to be applied for soon will be the 5B DXCC (with endorsements for another 5 bands, so that it will be 10B DXCC), and the DXCC Challenge (as soon as I reach the 2000 level, currently numbering 1910 confirmed).

73

SV5DKL