Some of the recent contests saw nice new stations on the air from different continents, which I have been unsuccessful in having a QSO with to date. DXcc's like Zambia, Togo and Honduras have now entered my logs and given me a few new entities to my credit. I know there are more exotic ones on the air, which I have heard, but the stampede of European stations have prevented me from working them ... yet. Islands like Mariana and Malpelo have made an appearance in the cluster and have been heard by me about an S2-3 but again, operators 40db+ have totally drowned them out and no doubt similar responses have occurred on the other side on the receive.
I recently answered a PSK call from an operator in Korea (would have been a new DXcc) however 3 European stations from Russia, Ukraine and Germany called him over his response to me and drowned him out, I tried to go back to him to ensure he answered me (and that I had read correctly) but there was no signal from him after this, which made me extremely annoyed.
Despite this, Ive spent a lot of time listening, and also working PSK. I have managed to work more DXcc's on new band slots than previously, and have also been looking at new modes for each entity when it arises. This has resulted in my single band slots increasing with the new stations worked. I was quite surprised to notice that some of the easier countries to work had not been done to date eg Spain on 17m, so it was nice to see those WARC bands getting a lot of action over the past few weeks.
My HRD map showing my QSO spots is looking a lot like a little childs drawing, lots of colour with very little to be seen underneath lol Europe is now invisible, so need to get working on those blank areas!
Ciao for now
Lisa, EI9GSB
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