Open Sesame!!

Hey there peeps,

Well, I had finally decided to hog the rig officially (sorry Tony) over the past weekend, and as luck would have it the bands decided they were going to open for me lol.

I decided to operate over Friday night and during today (I had to take a break on Saturday lol) and made about 100 contacts over the few hours.  A few new DXCC were up for grabs for me to include St. Pierre & Manquelin, Uruguay and Malaysia on 10m and Market Reef.  I have never even heard of the first and last one.  I had to consult Google Maps to locate them. 

I have yet to upload them to HRD so im anxious to see how many DXCC's I have worked (not to get this confused with confirmed).  I am now coming up to my first anniversary of being a licensed ham (30th Oct) and to date I have worked about 1,197 contacts and approx 110 DXCC's ( on the last count).  It will be interesting to see how many Ill have in the log by the time the year is up.

In saying that, there are a few DXCC's I missed out on, despite trying and trying.  4W6A is one I had been trying to get, a DXepedition to Timor Leste which a few of the lads I know have managed to contact.  It seems that any time I spot them on the cluster, they are too light for me to hear, yet I have tried to see if, by complete act of god, they might hear me. 

African stations also seem to be elusive to me, I have heard a number of them on this weekend, Central Africa, Madagascar, Congo, but I have yet to manage to work them.  As with the VK's and the ZL stations, maybe there is a certain time of day when activity is plentiful, and its probably when Im at work HI.

So back I go to see if I can manage to scrape another few into the log.

Ciao for now,
Lisa, EI9GSB