Upgrading my 80m "DXCC worked" status
Today I finished entering all my log entries for the 2,5 hours that I joined the PACC contest more than a week ago (see previous post). I found out an efficient way using Fast Log Entry to do this. I blogged about FLE before. Now it turns out that entering a contest log is a bit more cumbersome than I expected. In FLE you can create a simple text file with only the bare minimum of data (check this post). In the case of a contest log there are exchanged codes to process. It turns out you can only add these if you also add the 59 and @59 in your text file for each log line (otherwise the FLE program does not understand what the codes mean).
That is why this time I entered the data in Excel. You can easily copy the 59, @59 and GD (exchange from my end in the PACC contest) to all fields. If you then save the file as CSV and in notepad replace the comma by a space, you can load it in FLE and save it as a full-blown ADIF. Bob's yer uncle.
Okay, back to the results. As I wrote before I was just going to check whether my 80m inverted V worked okay. I started out with 24 DXCCs worked on 80m since I started on HF (80m license since June 2011), of which 3 only just worked in the week before the contest - so my 80m activity had been rather modest to say the least.
Counting the results of the PACC activity I logged - to my surprise - 31 DXCCs in the 2,5 hours I was out in the snow. One contact (NP4) was outside the contest. This has brought my DXCCs worked on 80m up to 32. So that's 8 new band ones. Not bad for 2,5 hours. And what's even better is that there was one new DXCC (all band) hidden in there: HB0. I hadn't even noticed it when I wrote down the call.
There were four dupes in my list (I suspected two but when you are logging on paper it is hard to check) so my score turns out to be 166x30 = 4980.
I should get out more with contests to work the low bands in the late and early hours. There is a lot more DXCC fishing to do on these bands.
Now there is just the station manager to convince..
Zeker niet slecht Lars, toch even 8 DXCC erbij op 80m. Dat was ook je streven toch! Inderdaad 80/40m kan 's ochtends mooie resultaten opleveren. Vorig jaar werkte ik 's ochtends een keer op 80m JT65A USA met 5W! Ook 40m kan 's ochtends open zijn, zelfs na zonsopkomst. Als mijn nieuwe shack klaar is in het achtergedeelte van het huis kan ik eindelijk ook in de morgen zonder iedereen wakker te maken naar mijn radio. Dan ga ik zeker 's morgens ook de banden afstruinen naar DX. 73, Bas
ReplyDeleteHa Bas, ik had niet echt een target in gedachten maar wel het doel om op 80m meer DXCCs te scoren dan ik had. Dat is iig gelukt. Shack buiten gehoorafstand lijkt me mooi om te hebben. Ik heb niet echt een mogelijkheid voor 80m zonder veel herrie te maken (dipool door het dakraam). Ik zou mssn ook eens laat of vroeg JT65a kunnen proberen met een eindgevoede draad voor 40m maar die is met 12m wat kort (zeker voor 80m) dus ik verwacht er niet veel van. 73, Lars.
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