Monday, January 3, 2011

Some super DX on 80m - Japan, Chagos Island and East Malaysia



I had a brilliant night down in Clogherhead last night (Sunday) at the excellent station of EI2JD where I had the pleasure of working 80 metres and top band (160m) CW on his nest of inverted Vs.

While the bands were not busy, there was some good DX to be had. I put out a CQ on 80 metres and at one stage had a bit of a pile-up going so I split QSX up 2. Out of the pile I heard 9M. Thinking this was only the middle part of a callsign, I called 9M? and he came back with 9M6YBG, which is a station in East Malaysia and a big deal for me because it's a new country for me on that band.

I had a bit of a QSO with him. His name is Go and he is over 11,500km away from Ireland. A nice contact indeed. Other highlights of the night included JA6LCJ in Japan which was another new country for me on 80 metres and also VQ9LA, Larry on Chagos Island, again a new country. Chagos is in the Indian Ocean. He went QRT after working me because there was no activity on the band. The fourth new country of the night on 80 was KP4, Puerto Rico.

I had some activity on 160 metres, but the pickings were slim. I did work a couple of North American QSOs on top band, including K8FC and W0FLS, who I can be seen working in the above video. The night's activities were broadcast live both here on the blog page (see bottom of page) and also on my QRZ.com page.

5 comments:

  1. Good evening Anthony, very nice video and very proficient code I must say. Seems I have lots of practicing to do after listening to your contacts.
    Cheers

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  2. Hi Anthony, how long did it take you to learn morse and to get up to that speed? I am still learning, stuff at work etc dictates how long I can spend practising! Mike M0SAZ

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  3. Mike, Thanks. I really enjoy the CW. This time last year I was just learning it! It's a great mode, especially for working rare DX. By the way I've had a look at your blog - it's nicely designed. I must start leaving a comment or two! HNY.

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  4. Mike (M0SAZ) I spent about six weeks learning morse for about ten minutes a day using a free computer program called 'Just Learn Morse Code'. Highly recommend that you download it and give it a try. Really easy to use. No more than ten minutes a day is fine because you won't tire yourself with it. About my speed - well I do a little bit of CW almost every day so that helps. It's much easier to send than to receive HI HI !!!

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  5. Hi Anthony, very very nice contacts on bands I would never even consider as DX bands, the inverted v antenna's, I take it are trapped, and also have you ever used Livestream, a couple of us locally use this to stream over the internet.

    73 Paul.

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