HF Contacts 10m

Well done Mike. I heard S Korea yesterday, but didn't progress further than hearing.

First CW contacts of my life yesterday, if you ignore the wired together toy HTs my sister and I had in our bedrooms when we were kids. To enrage the purists.. there wasn't a key or paddle in sight, yes I used a keyboard! To hopefully soften criticism, most of the decode was done with my ears / brain as fldigi was displaying 90%+ random characters.. it's always far from perfect, but with one of the largest CW contests of the year on with signals overlapping each other, the decoder was having a mare even with me narrowing the receive filters.

10W, CW:
CN3A - Morocco (my first)
LZ9W - Bulgaria

Only very short contest QSOs, but I am very happy.

Well done Neal, liking your tenacity.  

With a typical "5NN" signal report being the mainstay of a CW competition contact (let alone many a CW keyboard operator) who's to argue.

My own Morse aspirations have been dashed (despite my recent key renovation) due to neuropathy and keyboard operations look a promising option.

Well done again, bet it was thrilling to add a couple of CW contacts in your logs!

SangueG wrote:

First CW contacts of my life yesterday, if you ignore the wired together toy HTs my sister and I had in our bedrooms when we were kids. To enrage the purists.. there wasn't a key or paddle in sight, yes I used a keyboard! To hopefully soften criticism, most of the decode was done with my ears / brain as fldigi was displaying 90%+ random characters.. it's always far from perfect, but with one of the largest CW contests of the year on with signals overlapping each other, the decoder was having a mare even with me narrowing the receive filters.

10W, CW:
CN3A - Morocco (my first)
LZ9W - Bulgaria

Only very short contest QSOs, but I am very happy.

Well done.

I missed the contest something else came up.

Does not matter how the CW is generated, I did mine with N1MM log last year.
Getting the grey matter to decode is another kettle of fish, lots of practice needed.

Thanks both. Even though I had the use of the keyboard I was soo nervous on my first attempt, took me a good while listening to the Moroccan station before I went for it.

wooohoooo !!!!!! (punching the air lots of times)
fired the old rig up today and thought what the hell try 10m, if you dont try you never know....

VY2OM,,K1LZ,,N0XR, K5TA, N5DX, W1TJL, VE3AT, ED8X
for a 35 year old rig and a G5rv and a new foundation ham im chuffed to bits......

wow to say im happy would be an understatment but got a rum on the go now as a reward, thank you to everyone that called me back and long may it last, next step, next level i think

So happy for you Jimmy. As I said on Station Master.. some cracking DX you made there!

I am guessing that a lot of them were via the contest as I recognise some of the callsigns, in which case I was going to say don't worry about them not confirming soon on QRZ as many big contesters don't for a long time. But, after stalking your QRZ page, I see a couple of US ones have already, and from some further distance central states not ones on the east coast edge.

Your station is working well, I am sure you will continue to have a lot more fun on this band.

I bet your still grinning there Jimmy.
Well done.

Country 183 today

13:41 CP1FF FH53 FT8

Confirmed in QRZ and eQSL

Well done there Mike.  


I'm still struggling to make my DX100 never at first realising that it gets harder as you go along!
(Plans for a new antenna setup should hopefully help.)

I'm always in awe of those that manage to add impressive contacts to their logs.

Thank you Victor.
It certainly does get harder but every so often some thing new turns up.

For me ten was very iffy yesterday, I called the CP when he was -24 never thinking
I would be heard.

DX is fine but I still potter around and work anything that comes along.
Early yesterday spent a while working a few Europeans on 80m.

Hope your new antenna will get some more dx.

Nice one Mike. Not one I've managed yet. Other than the just a listening SDR station on PSK Reporter, I rarely see any other stations from that country on the map.

10m FT4 was singing to the states as it got dark yesterday.
Worked following states.
VT
MA
OH
MO
WI
NC
NY
PA
GA
KY
Also caught
CB32T
VE3YOUTH
CS8ABF
HR1R
HI3QMT

Ivy Mike wrote:

10m FT4 was singing to the states as it got dark yesterday.
Worked following states.
VT
MA
OH
MO
WI
NC
NY
PA
GA
KY
Also caught
CB32T
VE3YOUTH
CS8ABF
HR1R
HI3QMT

I was definitely on air at the wrong time yesterday as I missed all that. Well done Mike.

New on 10m FT4 working multistream not F& H
15:10 ZD7Z IH74

10metre FT4 going well this afternoon.

16:12 KE7NLT DN55 Montana
16:14 VE5SF DO70 Saskatchewan
16:57 KF7SEY CN84 Oregon

Had my first few RTTY QSOs yesterday. Like my first ever CW ones, these were on 10m via another big contest on this weekend, CQ WPX RTTY. No new entities for me, but was happy to work V31MA Belize on a new (to me) mode, and especially pleased to get another from Aruba ITL, P49X. The few others worked were in Europe except for the just into Africa ones of Madeira and Canary Islands.

Not joining in today so my massive log of just 9 contacts has been submitted already. Any persons new to contesting, it might seem pointless sending in such a small log, but all logs help organisers validate those of big players. Plus, if you do submit there's always a chance you might win something, I have done with less contacts than his before.

Contest is on for the rest of Sunday. Anyone thinking of trying and not used RTTY before, wondering if low power will work, my power and antenna was my usual 10W into my indoor fan dipole, so answer is yes. If you have the hardware setup for FT4/8 then there's no more outlay required for RTTY. Why not give it a go today....

Finally got Taiwan for country 188

08:04 BW2/JP1RIW PL05 FT8

Very good going Mike. I do not have a Taiwan contact on 10m yet. You're storming ahead in the overall country count too, just checked and am at 167.

No new entities for me yesterday, but I did manage to fill a couple as confirmed on 10m. 10W, FT4

YL2PP & YL3PK - Latvia
V26CV - Antigua and Barbuda

My first 10m Latvian QSO was in June '22 a year after passing my exam. It has taken all the way till now and a number of further QSOs with others to finally have one (actually two yesterday) that confirmed on QRZ. It was very nice to tick that box finally.

Care of the CQ WW WPX contest yesterday I was pleased to work Japan for the first time on 10m SSB. I have worked there on 10m FT4/8 previously, but this was the first time for SSB. JA8COE and JA8RUZ.

Another first for me yesterday was a 10m Feld Hell QSO. This was with VA3PC. It has taken a bit of working at to achieve this as it is not a mode highly used and narrowing myself further by trying to get my first contact on the 10m band. Finally, a combination of joining the Feld Hell Club, getting a few pointers from the welcome letter, posting a message in Ham Spots saying I was CQing on 10m, and calling CQ during a Feld Hell Sprint got me a reply from Paul and we had a nice relaxed QSO despite him taking part in the sprint / contest... a very different feel to the gatling gun repetitive overs of the SSB contest.

For anyone new to Hell and wants to have a go, yes you can do it on 10 Watts. The mode is not 100% duty cycle like some digital modes and because of that your transmitter's power meter will probably chatter at a very low level, mine does at around the 3 Watt mark, but it is enough for DX.. I've now proved it to myself.

For much of yesterday I was out at a dog show and today have some other non-radio activities to attend also, so am sure I missed out on some good DX and will again. If you managed some radio time yesterday or do today, do let us know about your QSOs, be it your first Italian contact or some ultra rare DX, do post it up I (and I am sure others do too) love to read it about it. Hope everyone enjoys their Easter whatever you get up to.

New one for me yesterday.
EL2BG Liberia on ft-8 but still a contact.

Alan Pilot wrote:

New one for me yesterday.
EL2BG Liberia on ft-8 but still a contact.

Nice one Alan. Not go that one in my log yet.

I was pleased to finally get across the pond on 10 Metres SSB yesterday to K3MD, in Winfield, PA, yesterday afternoon with just the 2 watts from my Albrecht 2990 handheld and a T2LT vertical.
 
The distance between us was 3418 miles. 

Next challenge for the 2990 is to do the same but with just the telescopic whip attached, as the best distance I’ve managed so far is Italy.
G0DNV, Barnstaple.

wooohooo of the mark on the 10m challange he was booming in here 5b4vl

well done Craig 2E0VRX !

i heard everyone of them and tried lol... and boy did i try lol.....only got cyprus today but ill keep trying and keep going !