Great conditions on 10 metres for the CQWW CW contest 2025

I had no intention of making a serious effort in this year's CQWW CW contest, held this past weekend. I had some other commitments, so was not going to be able to sit at a radio all weekend. 

However, on Saturday morning, seeing that band conditions were good on 10 metres (28Mhz), I decided to "dip my toe" in the contest and perhaps give out a few points.

A map of the DXCC worked during CQWW CW 2025 on 10 metres.

However, having chosen a "run" frequency, I was quickly inundated, and in the first hour of what I thought might be "casual" operating, I had 124 QSOs in the log!

I was using my Yaesu FTdx10 transceiver, which demonstrates excellent selectivity and sensitivity and seems a great contesting rig. The antenna was my trusty Antron-99 vertical, which has been in use at this QTH since 2009.

Having logged 300 QSOs after a few hours of part-time operation, I decided to do some "search and pounce". I nabbed some nice DX, including VK6T in Western Australia, and later VR2CO (Hong Kong), BG0DLA and BA8AG in China, VU2TMP in India, 7A0F in Indonesia, AH2R in Guam, JS6TSE in Japan and 9M6NA in East Malaysia.

By Sunday, I could see that my DXCC total was over 80 countries, so I made it my mission to work 100 DXCC by the end of the contest, through a combination of running and S&P. A great surprise when running on Sunday morning was to be called by TZ4AM, giving me a new country and zone. There was some nice African DX to be worked too, including TL8GD, 9J2FI and TY5FR. Also logged were 3B8M, 3B9KW, XW4KV and 5J0EA.

At 16:44 UTC on Sunday, I logged XE1CT for my 100th country, and a new zone. I was thrilled. By the time the 10m band closed at around 6pm Sunday, I had logged two more "new ones", VP9I in Bermuda and CE0Y in Easter Island.

Total QSO count: 585

CQ Zones: 31

DXCC: 102

Claimed score: 145,901.

I finally got my DV-Mega Genesis hotspot working with Yaesu Fusion after two days

Well, it's a success story. Of sorts. When my new DV-Mega Genesis hotspot arrived, I was very excited about connecting my Yaesu FTM-400D to it and having some QSOs on C4FM/Yaesu Fusion.

The excitement soon gave way to frustration. The hotspot came with no instructions (no fault of the maker - he just builds them, and they look fantastic), so a period of two full days was spent mostly watching YouTube videos to determine how to get everything set up.

Success! I'm finally able to access reflectors using the DV-Mega Genesis hotspot!

An important step in getting everything working is to connect your DV-Mega to your PC using an ethernet cable, and to access the settings in a web browser by either typing in the device's IP address or entering "pi-star" (which prompts you for a username and password, which are "pi-star" and "raspberry").

I knew I was making progress when the radio burst into life receiving signals. I had connected to the GB-CQ-WORLD reflector, and was not only hearing QSOs, but seeing the callsigns of the various hams operating on the system.

However, when I pressed the DX button on my radio, no connection was being made to the hotspot, and I was unable to transmit on any reflector.

I watched numerous YouTube videos, including those my Andreas M0FXB, who has a wonderful channel and LOTS of content which has helped many hams to get their equipment working properly.

But still no joy. I couldn't get the Yaesu radio to transmit through the DV-Mega Genesis hotspot.

And then I heard/saw Seamus GI4SZW chatting on the reflector. I have known Seamus for years. I reached out to him for help. We chatted on WhatsApp. In one comment, he mentioned "expert settings" and "tx offset". Apparently some radios do not transmit exactly on frequency, and a compensation has to be made on the Pi-Star expert dashboard. He told me how to do it.

I tried to adjust the tx offset on the Pi-Star window, but still nothing was happening. More frustration.

And then a flash of inspiration!

I have several handheld transceivers, including a few inexpensive Chinese-made models which have a "scan" feature, enabling you to determine the exact frequency of a nearby transmitter. So I put my Baofeng UV-32 into scan mode and keyed up the FTM-400D.

Imagine my surprise to find that the radio was -1,500Hz off frequency. I made the concomitant adjustment in the Pi-Star browser window and rebooted the DV-Mega hotspot.

Shortly afterwards, I long-held the DX button on the FTM-400D and VOILA! I was connected to the system, and for the first time I saw my own callsign - EI2KC - on the screen of the Genesis.

My first QSO, through the GB-CQ-WORLD reflector, was with JA2SYJ, Mac, about 250km north of Toyko. I was delighted!

Since then, I have been slowly figuring out how to disconnect from a reflector and connect to another one using ONLY the radio (i.e. without the hotspot being connected to the computer via ethernet). Now I am getting the hang of it.

I look forward to making a contact with some of you on the YSF/C4FM reflectors. It took a while to figure it all out.

PS: I should note that the DV-Mega won't work with my home Wi-Fi. I think this is because my shack is too far from my Wi-Fi router. So I enabled my phone's hotspot and configured the DV-Mega to look for it/connect to it also. It works perfectly well through the phone's hotspot. I might have to figure out a way to boost my router's signal to the shack. But that's for another day!

Trying out C4FM with a DV-Mega hotspot

 Although licenced for almost 16 years, and despite having been active on VHF (2 metres) since my very first day as a licenced ham, I have only just - in the past week or so - finally had a digital QSO on 145Mhz.

This was on C4FM on Yaesu with another local Yaesu-owning ham on 2 metres.

I decided recently to try to connect to the world of digital communications, taking advantage of my shack's Yaesu FTM-400D. This would require a hotspot, for which I took the advice of Andreas M0FXB and opted for one of those really cool-looking DV-Mega Genesis hotspots.

The DV-Mega Genesis Nextion 3.5" is a beautifully attractive bit of kit.

Fast-forward to today, and the DV-Mega is here, and EI2KC (yours truly) is completely clueless as to how to actually get the radio working with the hotspot. Yes, I programmed the correct frequency into the radio for the hotspot - 434.5125Mhz (on the 70cm band). Yes, I made sure no repeater splits or CTCSS tones were programmed. Could I get the radio and the hotspot "talking" to each other? Not on your nelly.

Fast-forward again - this time by many hours - and while watching one of the many great instructional videos by M0FXB on his YouTube channel, I finally stumble upon the reason the two pieces of technology won't interface. It turns out to be one single setting in the Pi-Star configuration (auto AP should be set to "off), and once I changed that, I finally started getting a list of "last heard" stations appearing on the screen of the DV-Mega Genesis 3.5.

Now, to get a QSO! I'll keep you posted!

EI2KC

DXCC standings on Logbook of the World - August 2025

DXCC standings for EI2KC on LoTW - August 2025

Here are my current DXCC standings for 11th August 2025. A recent QSO with Z81D in South Sudan on 7 Mhz FT8 gave me a new one for both 40 metres and for digital. I am SOOO close to 300 entities on 17 metres. Still looking for that elusive 300th confirmation!

A nice QSL card in the post this morning: PR0T Trindade & Martim Vaz Islands

 I received this nice QSL card in the post this morning from M0OXO. It's from the PR0T dxpedition back in November 2023, confirming my three QSOs with them on 12m FT8, 10m CW and 30m FT8. Delighted to get card confirmation of this rare DXCC. 

I had only ONE other QSO with Trindade & Martim Vaz Islands, with PQ0T on 20m CW back in April 2015.

In QSO with John ON8EI on 20 metres - and he made a video for YouTube!

Many of you will recognise the familiar tones of the voice of John ON8EI in Belgium. John, who hails from Ireland ('home' call EI4GO), always has a tremendous signal from his excellent station. He records many of his QSOs and publishes them on his YouTube channel.

This morning, I spent a short time on 20 metres SSB, and put out a CQ. I worked a couple of European stations before I heard the familiar voice of ON8EI calling me. I heard John earlier, on a different QRG, and was going to call him but he said he had to leave the shack, so I was delighted when he answered my CQ on 14.165Mhz USB.

Among other things, we discussed the quality of the transmit audio from my new Yaesu FTdx10 transceiver. As you can hear, I think it is quite nice. John's comment was that my audio sounded stronger than my signal, which is always a good situation, especially for busting pile-ups on rare DX!

John runs a Hermes Lite 2 SDR transceiver witht he (free and excellent) Thetis software. As you can see from the video about, it is not only very attractive in appearance, but in audio quality too.

A blast from the past - video of a QSO (EI2KC and WA3SCM) from almost 13 years ago!

It's not often you get sent a video you've never seen of a QSO that you had almost 13 years ago! But that's what happened the other day when one of my ham friends, Don EI6IL, sent me a video he recorded in his shack of a QSO that I made with Dave WA3SCM in Pennsylvania in September of 2012. 

It's a short video, and looking back in my computerised log (I use Logger32 for logging), I see that Dave was the last QSO of the day, in what were challenging band conditions. At the time, I was using a two-element hexbeam, an antenna that was later destroyed by a storm.

Don was listening to our QSO on his Yaesu FT2000 at the time. If I remember correctly, my own radio at that time back in 2012 was the Yaesu FT1000MP.

A new way to listen to ham radio - and other frequencies

I have heard a lot about SDR dongles in recent years, so when an RTL-SDR V4 genuine (not a clone) dongle came up for sale here in Ireland, I snapped at the chance to get one relatively cheaply to see what all the fuss is about.

My RTL-SDR V4 dongle is the latest addition to the EI2KC ham shack.

Now I'll be honest in telling you that I (a) didn't know what to expect and (b) didn't have a clue how to use it, since I've never owned one. It has taken me about a week to get it working properly, and receiving clear signals on the amateur bands and on other frequencies.

Some of my ham friends say that to RTFM (Read The F*ckin Manual) is cheating! They say you're supposed to get some radio equipment working properly without consulting the manual. It's a joke, of course, but it probably refers to the fact that many radio amateurs and shortwave listeners do not, in fact, read the manual when installing a new piece of radio equipment.

The dongle came with an SO239 to SMA adapter, which was convenient, since all my antennas have PL259s on the end of their feeders. I was able to get the SDRPP (SDR Plus Plus or SDR++) software working, but initially it did not seem to be receiving anything from the dongle.

Some Googling and watching YouTube videos soon educated me about certain settings. I had it running, receiving some lower side band signals on the 40 metre (7Mhz) band, but those signals sounded distorted and I was not exactly thrilled.

A screenshot of the RTL-SDR V4 decoding FT8 and FT4 signals on 20 metres.

However, after a little bit of experimenting with some settings, I was eventually able to receive some quite clear signals on various amateur bands, mainly 80 metres, 40 metres and 20 metres. The SDR++ software has an excellent FT8 and FT4 decoding feature, and because the dongle can receive 2.4Mhz of bandwidth, the FT8 decoder works even when you are tuned away from the FT8 portion of the band.

I was able to receive some very nice, clear and clean signals on 40 metres in particular yesterday, and sat for a while listening to Denis EI6IF during a POTA activation. I could also hear most of his callers. I am able to use the Butternut HF6V as the receive antenna, alternating that with my random wire.

So far, so good. Tonight, I spent a short time listening to some lovely Chinese music on the AM broadcast band on 7.265Mhz. 

This dongle will allow me to keep an eye/ear on one band while the Yaesu FTdx10 is tuned to another. It's basically a cheap way to listen to two bands simultaneously, and saves on the space required to put another HF transceiver/receiver on the desk.

I will keep you posted about further SWL activities using this little piece of kit. By the way, it cost me €45. Not bad considering all that it offers.

I finally replaced the broken light bulb in my Yaesu G-450C rotator controller

It has been bugging me for a long time, so yesterday I finally decided to do something about it. Several years ago, the illumination lamp in my Yaesu G-450C rotator controller failed. I read some articles online about how to replace the bulb, but was daunted because it seemed a complex job to access the bulb.

The new-look Yaesu G-450C with blue LED fitted. I think it looks great!

17 screws had to be removed to access the 
G-450C bulb.

Yesterday, I plucked up the courage to open the unit and to attempt to at least see what might be involved in replacing the failed bulb.

This required the removal of SEVENTEEN screws. When 13 of the screws had been removed, there was a delicate operation involved in removing the last four, which kept the display plate mounted to the front of the control unit.

Because there were lots of wires connected to this front part, I had to be careful not to pull it away from the unit very much in case I snapped any of the wires.

A short time later, I finally had access to the display plate, and could see the tiny (failed) bulb. I'll be honest and say that at this point, I was feeling quite daunted about my ability to complete this job. However, I decided to go to some local electronic/motor supply stores to see what kind of bulbs they had that could operate on 12V and provided a low wattage (preferably 2w or less). I was able to find a pair of blue LED lights which run on 12V and give out 0.35w.

However, those bulbs were too big to fit in the "holder" where the burnt-out bulb was located. I would have to come up with a solution whereby the new LED bulb would sit in a different location than the old bulb.

The old bulb.

The azimuth indicator display plate.

By carefully snipping some cable ties that kept the small wires bundled together, I was able to get some extra length on the two wires that feed 12V to the bulb. Having done this, it was time to get the soldering iron out for some delicate soldering of the wires to the two copper pins on the LED bulb. I stretched these out, and made a sort-of "hook" on each of them to better support the power wires.

With all that done, I taped up the wires, and began thinking about where I would position the bulb so that it would illuminate the rotator's azimuth indicator. The only place that suited was to the right of the indicator (the original bulb was in the upper-left corner), and with a bit of careful manipulation and some red electrical tape, I was able to fasten the bulb into its new position.

Now I know this might sound silly, but getting the unit back together with 17 screws was by itself a tedious and delicate job. The four screws that hold the azimuth indicator display plate to the front of the controller unit were, in particular, difficult to access - again because I had to be careful not to stretch wires.

The entire job - to replace one small bulb - took me about two hours.

Anyway, eventually I got everything back together and it was time for a quick test. Would it work? I made a short video, which you can watch below.

There's a bit of stray light showing through the 'left' and 'right' switches, but I can live with that. What do you think?

A great thrill to work Ian VK3MO in Melbourne again after almost 13 years

A recent spell of poor conditions on the higher HF bands (20m and above) seemed to come to an end yesterday. Last night, after a busy day at work, I was tuning around on the phone portion of the 20 metre (14Mhz) band. I saw some strong signals, which was interesting as it was after 11pm. 

CE3QY in Chile was booming in on 14.190Mhz, and his signal was 59+ even though I only have an inverted V dipole on that band. I gave him a couple of calls and was soon in his log. I also worked CE4UFC Jorge on 14.210Mhz, but his signal was a 5 by 5.

From there, I tuned downwards, and could see a big signal on the waterfall below. As I tuned in that signal – on 14.165Mhz – a familiar voice could be heard! It was the unmistakeable voice of Ian, VK3MO, near Melbourne, Australia. Ian needs no introduction to radio amateurs. He is quite famous in the ham world. Over the years, many European hams have worked Ian on 20 metres SSB and had the joy of a conversation with him. Ian does not do "59 thanks" reports, but rather engages in dialogue and sometimes spends 10 minutes or even more ragchewing.

As far as I know, Ian only operates in and around 14.160Mhz, and that's because he runs a stack of monoband beams which are obviously resonant on that frequency. The stack consists of four five-element 20m beams on a rotating tower. It's a hugely impressive setup, which yields hugely impressive results.

I listened for about 10 minutes while Ian chatted with M0JWK in England. He mentioned that he would soon have to go to work. As he signed with the mike zero, I decided to give him a quick call. I said something like "Ian, you are 59 plus on my dipole in Ireland, from echo india two kilo charlie".

To my delight, he came back to me. I made a video of our short QSO.

Ian and I made our first QSO in May of 2010, and had further QSOs in August 2011 and September 2012, but we had not spoken since then – a period of almost 13 years!

I was thrilled that he took the time for a very quick chat before heading to work, for which he said he was running late.

I'm not sure how up-to-date his QRZ.com page is, but you can see a photo of his tower/stack on there. It's a world-beating setup, and explains why his signal has often been heard at 59 and 59+ in Europe at nighttime (his morning).

Working Australia is always a pleasure for me, but VK3MO stands out because of his fantastic signal, and his very friendly and chatty nature. Thanks Ian for the quick QSO. You put a smile on this ham's face!

My trusty old Butternut vertical gets a new lease of life

It's been sitting at the end of the garden for years, stored behind the shed. My trusty (and admittedly dirty) old Butternut HF6V vertical antenna is back in the air. I re-erected it last week, but found signals on the bands quite attenuated compared with my nested inverted vees.

What followed was a patient game of "adjust, test, adjust, test, adjust more, test more..." as I tried to bring the antenna into resonance on the six bands where it is designed to operate.

Given that the SWR was high (at least 5:1 on most bands), a quick read of the 28-page manual for the antenna (yes, I RTFM'd!) revealed that when SWR is reading high across the bands, this is likely to be because of a problem with the feeder.

The Butternut is fed with a quarter-wave section of 75 ohm coax which is used as a "geometric mean transformer" to match the approximate 100 ohms of feedpoint impedance on the 20 metre band to a 50 ohm main transmission line.

I suspected that there was an issue with the 75 ohm coax, and particularly where it connects with the Butternut. Yesterday, I disconnected the coax from the Butternut and fed it into the shack, where I was able to cut a couple of centimetres off and begin to reveal the core and braid so that I could re-attach the coax to the antenna.

The coax is difficult to work with because it's very stiff, and the core is solid. I soldered a short length (approx 10cm) of insulated electrical earth wire to the braid and taped it up using insulating tape. I also cleaned the connecting screws on the antenna and replaced the washers with new ones.

When I re-attached the coax, the antenna was sounding "louder" (less attenuated than before), but quick tests at the radio and with an analyser revealed the SWR was still high across the board.

What followed today was an exercise in patience and meticulous adjustments. The Butternut HF6V has three L/C assemblies - one for 80 metres, one for 40m and one for 30m. Upon making adjustments to the 80m coil, I was able to get resonance on that band. In fact, I was really thrilled to get the SWR all the way down to 1.0:1 at the bottom end of 80 - just above 3.5Mhz, where I love trying to work DX on CW.

By old Butternut HF6V is back in the air.

A great start, but some time and patience was needed for 40m, where lots of adjustments of the coil were needed to eventually get the SWR to a respectable 1.2:1 at the top of the band and 1.9:1 on the CW portion. I can certainly live with that! The Butternut will give me an advantage on the low bands because it offers a lower angle of radiation than the inverted vees, which in truth are not high enough at the apex, being just 10 metres at the feed point.

The 30 metre band proved extremely finicky. Very small adjustments of the 30m coil on the Butternut HF6V can shift the lowest SWR frequency by 100Khz! After making something like a dozen or fifteen changes, I eventually settled for an SWR of about 2.2:1 on 10Mhz - realising that that was much better than the 5:1 I had been seeing after just very minor movements of the coil.

For now, the SWR on 20 metres is high. It is reading a 5:1 or slightly higher across the entire band. Not ideal obviously. I did try to change the position of the coil support tube 30 meter L bracket where it attaches to the 40 metre coil, as instructed by the manual, but was unable to see a lower SWR. I will have to think about my strategy for 20m resonance. Should I replace the 75 ohm transformer coax? Or tinker with the 30m L bracket some more? I am afraid to do too much because I have a good SWR on 80m and 40m, where I really want it.

On 15 metres, with no further adjustments the antenna presented an SWR of 2:1 at 21.005Mhz and 1.5:1 at 21.345Mhz, which is nice. The Butternut HF6V does not resonate on 17 metres. On 12 metres, it has an SWR of 1.4:1 across the band, while on 10 metres it had "acceptable" SWR values varying only very slightly from 28.000Mhz to 28.500Mhz from 2.2:1 to 2.3:1.

In all honesty though, if you quickly glanced at my Butternut, you would wonder how the thing radiates at all. It came into my possession just after I got licenced in the winter of 2009. My very good friend and mentor, Tony EI4DIB (now sadly silent key), had acquired it - I think from a ham in GI/Northern Ireland - and had it stored in his back garden. I reckon it had spent a number of years in what might be termed "outdoor storage". It was filthy, covered with grime and dirt, and had long ago lost its sheen.

However, when Tony and I installed it at my QTH back in 2009, it did work. It radiated. I'm not sure how effectively, but I was able to make QSOs. In January 2010, using just 100 watts, I made my first ever QSO with Australia using the Butternut, although admittedly I had to wait until the pile-up dissipated and there was nobody else calling before I could be heard. That station was VI2AJ2010, a special event station for the 22nd Australian Scouts 2010 Jamboree in Appin, New South Wales.

The Butternut was my main HF antenna for a while, before I acquired an MA5B minibeam, and later a hexbeam. I cannot remember when I took it down, but it might be as long as 10 years ago or more. I wondered if it would ever see use again. Thankfully, it is radiating RF as I write this, on 15 metres FT8, and is actually showing an SWR of 1.4:1 on 21.074Mhz.

Last week, when I re-erected it, I noticed that an aluminium strip which was part of the 40 metre L/C circuit was missing. Thankfully, I have some Butternut HF6V "spare parts" (which again I have Tony to thank for, because he spotted them in a box at a radio rally and I got them for next to nothing), and was able to solder a new nut on to the 40m capacitor, drill a hole into a spare aluminium strip and bolt it on.

That was certainly a bit of what might be termed "homebrewing" or improvisation, but it works.

I look forward to testing the Butternut as soon as possible on 80 metres. That band has been very fruitful this summer, giving me four or five new DXCC in recent weeks, mostly on FT8. When I was studying for my ham licence, and even for several years after getting licenced, it was commonly held that 80 metres should be avoided during the summer because it's a nighttime band and the DX was only there in the winter. However, at this latitude (53 degrees north), in midsummer we have an extended grey line, which offers lots of opportunity for DX contacts. 

Some of those new DXCCs on 80 were Angola, Paraguay and Singapore, and on one evening in the past week I worked THREE stations in Western Australia on 3.573Mhz using FT8. It will be interesting to see, using a combination of CW and FT8, and watching the Reverse Beacon Network and PSK Reporter, how the Butternut performs compared with the dipoles.

Some new arrivals to the EI2KC shack!

There have been a few new arrivals to the EI2KC amateur station. I have not written a blog post in ages, but I have been active on the bands, chasing DX, ragchewing, occasionally contesting and improving the antennas and station setup.

A couple of weeks ago, I secured something of a bargain when I bought a "secondhand" Yaesu FTdx10, which turned out to have been completely unused by its only owner. Not only were the screen protectors still on it, but it hadn't been used and all the settings were at defaults. There wasn't a fingerprint or a speck of dust anywhere on the radio.

The brand new Yaesu FTdx10 is my new main HF/50Mhz rig.

First impressions were quite fantastic, and I have found the digital noise reduction on this radio to be simply outstanding. The noise levels on the low bands in particular are reduced by engaging the DNR button and lowering the RF gain knob. Since its arrival, I have found the FTdx10 to be much superior to the Icom IC-7300 which it replaces - with one caveat. The Yaesu is more complex in terms of setup and menus, but once you get used to it it becomes clear that it deserves its second place rating on the Sherwood Engineering test page. It's the second-best receiver money can buy, after its big brother, the FTdx101D/MP.

To help with noise levels (I have a small garden in the middle of a housing estate), I also invested in a CMC-130-3K common mode filter from myantennas.com, which has been placed beneath the antenna switch in the shack. Furthermore, I have adjusted my nested inverted vees so that the lower ends of the 40m and 80m dipoles in particular are higher from the ground. All these things have improved my station's ability to hear weak DX stations. For instance, in the past few weeks - in the middle of summer - I have worked about five new countries on 80 metres alone. These included 9V1YC (James in Singapore) on FT8.

The new CMC-130-3K common mode filter from myantennas.com.

The Icom IC-7300 will be staying, because I like it so much, and will become my main portable and static mobile radio. I have it fully set up with my laptop and Watson Multiranger antenna for CW, SSB and FT8 operation from my van. I bought side handles for the IC-7300 from WiMo to help protect the radio when lifting it in and out of the van.

My Icom IC-7300 with side handles sitting in the van, operating on 20m FT8.

Just today, another new addition arrived all the way from China, in the form of a mini Putikeeg straight CW key, which cost a mere €38 including postage from China. I made a couple of QSOs with it and am very happy with how it operates. I have stuck it to the metal base alongside my other "cheap" morse key, the TUMD paddle which also came from China. See pictures below.

The new Putikeeg straight key is small but capable. And it looks great!

The TUMD paddle and Putikeeg straight key mounted side by side. I now have the
best of both worlds, and only need to swap out the cable from one to the other!

Ignore the anti-FT8 brigade - some of them don't know how to use it!

This is my first ham radio blog post in quite a while. I have been very active, particularly on HF, continuing to work DX every day, including many of the dxpeditions.

This post, however, is about one subject that seems to raise the ire of many ham radio operators. It is that ubiquitous digital mode that we know as FT8.

Every day, and several times a day, there are spots on the DX clusters (mostly from fake callsigns and cowards who aren't willing to put their name/callsign with their opinion) deriding FT8. It's become a really boring and repetitive routine actually. The anti-FT8 brigade claim that FT8 is a mode that does not require a brain, and that the computer is doing all the work.

V73WE gave me a new DXCC on 40 metres when I worked him on FT8.

They are wrong, of course, to suggest that FT8 ops don't possess intellect or ability. For instance, I use FT8 pretty much every day, but I also like working DX on phone and CW. To successfully use FT8 to make QSOs on HF and VHF does take skill and knowledge. Getting your software (whether it's JTDX or WSJT-X) to communicate with your radio is not always easy, and adjusting your settings to ensure the optimal transmit and receive levels also involves some skill and knowledge.

I suspect, and have done for a long time now, that those who give out about FT8 being "too easy" are, in fact, fearful and ignorant of it. Yes, the fact that so many ham radio ops are on FT8 means that the SSB and CW portions of the bands are quieter than they used to be (except during SSB and CW contests, of course). But why waste time creating cluster spots using fake identities? Who's going to listen to someone who moans about FT8 being too easy? Those regular cluster spots are an annoyance, but you get used to ignoring them.

The fact of the matter is that FT8 levels the playing field to an extent for those of us with modest antennas. As a weak-signal mode, FT8 allows the opportunity to work DX that might not be audible on phone or on CW. If you consider that a form of cheating, well that is your opinion and you are entitled to it. What you are not entitled to is to spead anti-FT8 bile on the clusters, especially when you are not even willing to put your own callsign to those repetitive anti-FT8 messages.

Could it be remotely possible that at least some of those who castigate FT8 users do not, in fact, possess the technical knowledge to get their computer working with JTDX/WSJT-X, and are unable to make QSOs using the popular mode? I suspect this to be the case in many instances.

The hobby of amateur radio offers a wide variety of specialisation. You could, for instance, dedicate yourself to QSOs using moon-bounce (EME - Earth-Moon-Earth). You might be interested in building your own HF transceiver. You may be the sort of ham who experiments with various homebrew antennas. You might, like I do, enjoy making QSOs through the crossband VHF/UHF repeater on the International Space Station.

Whatever aspect of amateur radio you enjoy, it will involve a certain level of technical competence and knowledge. Is FT8 a step too far in terms of computer automation? Perhaps for some hams it is, but for all of us who actually use it every day (rather than deriding it on the clusters), it offers a new opportunity and mode with which to contact other hams around the globe.

Australia worked on 80 metres FT8.

You think it's too easy, and that the computer does all the work? I don't care what you think. I am not interested in your opinion.

FT8-bashers would make better use of their time and effort concentrating on those aspects of the hobby that they enjoy, as an alternative to attempting to make the rest of us feel somehow ashamed about enjoying FT8 as another aspect of the hobby.

Quit your whinging. Nobody likes a moaner. If you don't like FT8, that's your choice. But don't try to ram your opinion down our throats. 

Where were all the protests when PSK was a popular digital mode? And do the FT8 haters not have an opinion about RTTY?

In any case, as an FT8 user, I can tell you that working Western Australia on 6 metres (using FT8) was one of the most exciting QSOs I've had in 15 years as a licenced ham. Maybe some day I'll make a similar long-distance QSO on 50Mhz using phone or CW. Maybe. But without FT8, I wouldn't have that DXCC in my 6m log.

And I ain't going to feel bad about it.

PS: On a side-note, surely it is time that all hams wishing to create spots on the DX clusters should have to log in and use their real callsigns? Clusters that allow anonymous or fake spots are a big part of the problem. If everyone had to log in and use their real identity, I suspect that most of the anti-FT8 spots would disappear.

My 50,000th QSO - an extraordinary coincidence

I made my 50,000th QSO as a licenced radio amateur today. Recently, I had noticed that my QSO count was steadily increasing from 45,000, and then 46,000, and so on. As of Thursday, I had reached 49,990. Yesterday, I made another nine QSOs to bring the total to 49,999. I wanted to wait until something special came along for the 50,000th contact.

I was unable to spend long in the shack this morning as I was heading out to play music. In the ten minutes I was at the radio, I watched the DX clusters to see if there was anything interesting to work. Seeing nothing special, I decided to "spin the VFO" on my Icom IC-7300.

On the 12 metre band, I listened on the SSB portion and spun the dial to find out if I could hear anything that might make a good 50,000th QSO. I looked at the spectrum scope and could see some activity around 24.940Mhz. I tuned in to the station and could quickly hear that someone was calling CQ. But who?

"CQ CQ, CQ 12 metres, this is Echo Alpha Five Bravo Romeo Echo, Echo Alpha Five Bravo Romeo Echo, CQ, Q ..."

I recognised the callsign immediately. Luis, EA5BRE, gave me my very first QSO on HF the day I got my ham licence, way back in October 2009. On that day, I received my new callsign af around 4.45pm on what was a Friday evening. I had just left work and was heading home. I worked my good friend, the late EI4DIB (Tony) on the Dundalk 2m repeater (on 145.675) on the way home. My callsign back then was EI8GHB. When I got home, I found the higher bands all dead and there was very little activity on the phone sections of 40 metres and 80 metres. Back then, I did not know CW (something I learned in the winter of 2009-2010 and, having passed my morse test in February 2010, I got my new callsign EI2KC in early March 2010).

Luis EA5BRE

There are only two callsigns in my log for the evening of 30th October 2009, the day I got my licence. They are EI4DIB and EA5BRE. I worked Luis on 7.121 Mhz LSB, my first HF contact as a licenced ham! It was 23:17 UTC, so quite late in the evening.

Luis and I have had only one other QSO in the intervening years - a 17m SSB QSO in June 2017. Luis lives in Alicante and is an active DXer with 10-band DXCC. 

Today's QSO was very special, because of the way I unintentionally stumbled upon his CQ. I felt it was immensely coincidental and just HAD to work him as QSO #50,000, given that he had been my very first HF contact when I began my ham radio activity from this shack 13 years ago.

Here is a short video of some of my QSO with Luis today:

My first QSO with Japan on 6 metres

Well it finally happened. After weeks of waiting, I managed to log two JA stations on 6 metres this morning. I got a message from Doug EI2CN saying he was decoding and working Japan. Now Doug has a much more substantial station than me, at a much higher elevation, just a few miles from here. He regularly sees and works stations that I cannot see/hear.

However, after waiting a little while I started to see decodes from Japan on FT8. I put out a CQ JA, and after a few minutes I was called by JG2BRI. He was at -15 and gave me a -18, but with heavy QSB on the band other EIs were reporting that they were having difficulty completing QSOs. 

I grabbed my smartphone and made a quick video. I hope you can forgive my excitement, but this was the moment of my first ever Japan QSO on 6m - one I have waited 11 years for. I think the "yeeehaa" was justified!

A few moments later, I was also called by JH4UYB and managed to complete with him too, with signal reports of -16 each way. After that the band closed up pretty quickly here, but I did not mind as I had finally achieved a QSO that I have been anticipating for years.

Needless to say I also worked two new squares with these JA QSOs - PM84 and PM86. Also, Japan becomes my 110th DXCC worked on 50 Mhz.

A screenshot of my first QSO with Japan on 6 metres.

A screenshot from PSKreporter.info showing some of my decodes in Japan.

A major milestone: DXCC confirmed on 6 metres

At the beginning of June, I had 95 DXCC worked on 50Mhz (6 metres), of which 89 were confirmed. I am delighted to now report that I have reached 100 confirmations on the band and therefore have achieved the much-sought-after 100 DX entites confirmed via Logbook of the World.

On 1st June, I took down my storm-damaged hexbeam and erected in its place my old three-element 6m yagi. I was able to work a rake of new ones (exclusively on FT8) using this beam, but a couple of weeks ago I upgraded to a five-element LFA with folded driven element which I was very kindly offered on loan by Declan EI9HQ.

Last night, I logged HK3PJ, my first contact into Colombia on 6 metres, and my 109th DX entity logged.

Here's a quick list of all the new ones I have worked since 1st June:

7X2RF Algeria, worked on 1st June. DXCC #96 on 6m. 

A61DD United Arab Emirates. Worked 3rd June. DXCC #97. Confirmed on LoTW.

HZ1SK Saudi Arabia. Worked 3rd June. DXCC #98. Confirmed on LoTW.

HC1BI Ecuador. Worked 3rd June. DXCC #99.

P43A Aruba. Worked 5th June. DXCC #100 worked - a landmark day!

A71AE Qatar. Worked 8th June. DXCC #101. Confirmed on LoTW.

OD5KU Lebanon. Worked 8th June. DXCC #102. Confirmed on LoTW.

5T5PA Mauritania. Worked 11th June. DXCC #103. Confirmed on LoTW.

J69DS St Lucia. Worked 14th June. DXCC #104. Confirmed on LoTW.

5el LFA yagi erected 16th June 2021.

XE1KK Mexico. Worked 18th June. DXCC #105. Confirmed via LoTW.

5Z4VJ Kenya. Worked 20th June. DXCC #106. Confirmed via LoTW.

TZ4AM Mali. Worked 20th June. DXCC #107. 

OX3LX Greenland. Worked 24th June. DXCC #108. Confirmed via LoTW.

HK3PJ Colombia. Worked 26th June. DXCC #109. Confirmed via LoTW.

HK3PJ from Colombia, my 109th DXCC worked and 100th confirmed on 6m.

I am extremely grateful to my fellow EI dxers who prompted some of these QSOs by alerting me to their presence on the band. There is a wonderful community of hams here and most are extremely helpful to other hams.

I began operating on 6 metres in the summer of 2010 using just a fixed dipole with no rotation. I was active for several summers until around 2015, with a 3el yagi, by which time I had worked around 90 DXCC. I was inactive for a while before grabbing some more new ones in 2018 with my six-band hexbeam which had two elements for 6m. After that antenna was badly damaged by a storm, I eventually removed it and re-erected the 3el beam on 1st June this year, and that's when the new ones started to roll in. 

Some of the DX stations worked above appeared only for a few minutes, while others such as 5T5PA have been seen regularly. That's the magic band!

Today, I am proud to be able to say I have worked and confirmed DXCC on NINE bands (80m through 6m), all via LoTW as I do not send out QSL cards except in reply to those sent to me.

Now for the next challenge! Is it possible to get DXCC on 160m from a postage-stamp garden, or should I aim for 100 countries on 2m using EME? :D

A century worked on 50 Mhz (6 metres)

I don't blog about ham radio nearly as often as I would like to, but that's because I'm exceptionally busy with work and other writing projects. I have published two books so far in 2021 and am currently 90% through writing a third, which will hopefully be published in the next month or so.

I haven't been neglecting radio though, and have been QRV regularly. This being the summer season (with its attendant sporadic E propagation!), I recently decided to remove the wrecked hexbeam from the pole and put my three-element 50Mhz yagi up in its place. The hexbeam was wrecked in a storm a couple of years ago and due to radio inactivity and being busy with many other projects, I did not do anything about it.

However, when some of my local DXing friends were reporting good DX openings on 6 metres, I could not resist putting the yagi up to try to capture some action.

My total reach on 6 metres on Thursday 3rd June 2021, a memorable day on the band.

At the beginning of the 2021 6m season, I had 96 DXCC worked on 50Mhz and 89 confirmed.

I am glad to report that, thanks to a couple of really great openings during the past week, I now have 100 DXCC worked and 90 confirmed.

Thursday was a big day. After a slow start in the morning time, with few signals being decoded on FT8, the band opened up to the Middle East. At 11.23am local time (10.23UTC), I logged 9K2OW. I didn't immediately realise it, but I had 9K (Kuwait) worked and confirmed on 6 metres. But this was only the beginning of what turned out to be one of the most enjoyable radio days I've had since being licenced in October 2009.

Soon, I had A61DD from the United Arab Emirates in the log for a brand new DXCC on 6m, number #97. That was followed with another A6 QSO with A65BR, both later confirming via Logbook of the World.

I logged 9K2NO, the second Kuwaiti contact on the band. At that point, around 2pm or so in the afternoon, the band closed to the Middle East but there was still lots of propagation to Europe, before eventually some trans-Atlantic propagation began to appear.

I worked PV8DX in Brazil at 5.34pm local and at that stage had only the slightest hope of some action into the Caribbean. Soon I had HI8RD (Dominican Republic) in the log, and what followed was a fantastic evening of DX on the "Magic Band".

My three-element yagi on 6m has helped me get 100 DXCC on the band.

I logged no fewer than EIGHT Dominican Republic stations - HI8RD, HI3T, HI8T, HI8DL, HI3AA, HI8S, HI8PAP and HI8GSP. I also logged CU2AP in the Azores, who later confirmed the QSO on LoTW and although I had CU worked on 6m before, I had no confirmation, so it was a new one confirmed. I also worked CU3AC on 50.152Mhz using SSB – a rare mode for me these days!

Unbelievably, there were still reports from EI and UK of openings to the Middle East, so I swung the beam back and forth between west and east, and on the latter I soon bagged HZ1SK in Saudi Arabia, another new DXCC on 6m, no. #98!

Back looking/listening west, I logged WP4G in Puerto Rico (not a new one) and soon W4AS gave me my first North American QSO on 6m in 2021.

ZF1EJ in the Cayman Islands was worked, which was a nice one to get, although I had previously logged him in 2018 and the QSO was confirmed on LoTW. Several EI friends were decoding HC Ecuador and even HK Colombia. Could it be possible, I wondered?

Soon HC1BI was in the log, my first Ecuador and DXCC no. #99 on 6 metres. I was thrilled. Shortly thereafter I logged PJ4KY in Bonaire, and while not a new one it was a nice QSO anyway.

K0BZ was working from KP2 (US Virgin Islands) and I was getting occasional decodes of him on and off all evening, but eventually, with patience and perseverance, I logged him at 11.02pm local time. It was not a new DXCC but still a nice contact.

HC1HC gave me my second Ecuadorian DX of the day at 11.23pm and, after a few more contacts into both EU and NA, the band eventually faded.

Friday was another busy day on the band, but no Middle East this time, only EU. Later in the day the band opened to the USA and Canada and I bagged a heap of DX calls from eastern USA and Canada and some new squares.

Although Saturday (yesterday) was a quiet one on the band, there was a small opening in the evening time towards the Caribbean, and that's when history was made!

A screenshot of my historic QSO with my 100th DXCC entity on 6m with P43A.

I worked WP3R in Puerto Rico on FT8 and knew that I might have a chance with P43A in Aruba, who was active on the band and worked by some fellow EI ops. At 9.03pm local, I eventually got a QSO with P43A, giving me my 100th DXCC entity worked on 6 metres!

It has taken a long time to get to 100 entities worked. But there are many reasons for this. I first began 6m activity in summer 2010. For several years I used just a fixed aluminium dipole. Eventually I got the 3el yagi on a rotator but after just one season a storm broke the rotator and stub pole, so I was back to the dipole until a few years ago I got a six-band two-element hexbeam. That was also wrecked after just a couple of seasons in use, so I am now back to the 3el yagi again. 

All things considered, it's not bad. In order to take VHF seriously, I think one needs to focus on good antennas. It would have helped a lot if I had a 5el or 7el yagi on the band, but space, time and money are all considerations.

Now that I have 100 DXCC worked on 6m, the hope is to (a) work more DXCC and (b) get from 90 confirmed to 100 confirmed. To that end, I am making inquiries about acquiring a five-element yagi. I will keep you posted!

JX2US Jan Mayen Island logged for my 200th country on 80 metres!

I just worked my 200th country on the 80 metre band. JX2US Erik is on Jan Mayen Island in the Arctic Circle, almost 2,000 kilometres north of Ireland. He is there until March 2021 and will be operating on the HF bands, primarily the low bands, during his spare time.

He was on 3.501 Mhz (CW/morse code) at 9.46pm local time and working a hefty (mostly EU) pile-up that was spread out between 1 and 4.5 Khz up from his transmit QRG.

Declan EI6FR and Don EI6IL had both logged him a short time before. Declan told me his operating pattern was to slowly move up in frequency from QSO to QSO, and then at a certain point he would sweep gradually back down. 

I got lucky.

I found the QRG of the previous QSO quickly, and turned the VFO to decrement or lower the frequency very slightly and called him with 400 watts through my homebrew inverted V dipole.

He came back quickly (through QRM on his TX QRG) with "EI2KC 5NN" and I replied with "RR DE EI2KC UR 5NN 5NN TU". He came back with the familiar "TU" (thank you) and that was the job done! I was in the log!

Jan Mayen Island is 1,919 kilometres (1,193 miles) north of Ireland.

I didn't know it until after I had logged him and used the 'recalculate statistics' feature of my logging software, Logger32, but he was my 200th country worked on 80 metres.

That is a very pleasurable number for me, because I have a small garden with extremely limited space for antennas. In fact, the 80m dipole is dog-legged and only 9m (about 30ft) at the apex. 

But it works, and is resonant. It might not radiate ideally, but it has done a sterling job here.

Casual contesting is actually great fun

This weekend I decided to keep my CW contesting skills up to date by participating in the Romanian DX contest (YO DX). Although this is a mixed mode contest, I operated CW only. Since the Covid-19 lockdown, there has been no activity at the EI0R contest station where I regularly participate. So I felt it would be good to keep my contesting skills up to scratch, so to speak.

I used only my inverted V dipoles and my Antron 99 for this contest. The hexbeam is still down, pending repair, at the moment. Despite the limitation, I had great fun and worked 378 QSOs on the bands. My best band was 40 metres, where I managed 167 contacts. 20m was next with 89, then 80m with 60 QSOs, 15m with 37 and I was thrilled to be able to manage 23 contacts on 10 metres using the Antron vertical.

My claimed score is 142,754 but there were perhaps as many as ten or 12 QSOs where I had great difficulty copying the progressive number, especially on 15m and 10m where some of the signals were weak.

Notwithstanding the slight difficulties, overall the contest was very enjoyable. There were good run rates at times, and only a few lean periods. Most of the time it was possible to log QSOs without having to wait too long. I operated maybe 12 hours out of the 24-hour contesting period. I did not want to get too tired or stressed and only participated to have fun.

I certainly achieved that objective. I'm looking forward to further contesting coming into the winter.

The humble dipole is really a great antenna

Because my hexbeam is still down and awaiting repair, I have been using wire dipoles and my Antron 99 to make QSOs. But I had no resonant antenna on 20 metres and was badly missing the action on that "bread and butter" band.

The apex of my inverted vees. The short one is the new 20m dipole, with homebrew insulators made from PVC chopping board!

So I recently added a 20m dipole to my nest of inverted vees. Previously, I had three vees, one for 80m, one for 40m and one for 30m. When I added the 20m dipole, I was surprised and perhaps a little annoyed to find that it was not resonant. Its inclusion in the nest did not seem to upset the VSWR on the other bands too much, thankfully, but with an SWR of 7:1 on 14Mhz, it simply was not effective and not radiating efficiently at all.

Astonishingly, I did not have an antenna analyzer. It's a piece of equipment that every shack should have but it's something I had never invested in. During a conversation with some fellow DXers on a WhatsApp group, I got chatting with John EI3ISB, who kindly offered not only to give me a MINI60S analyzer which was surplus to his requirements, but also to come to my home and help me analyze the 20m dipole and either extend it or trim it to resonance.

A wider view of the inverted vee dipoles. 

Yesterday morning, Saturday, John arrived and within a short time we found that my 20m inverted vee dipole was resonant on 15.67Mhz – way above where it needed to be. I still do not know how this happened, except that I must have been using the wrong online dipole calculator or else I made a mistake in trimming the two legs. Either way, the antenna needed to be LENGTHENED. And not just by a few centimetres, but actually by about 50cm.

I lowered the dipoles down using the pulley rope and we quickly got to work on adding a piece to each leg before hoisting the whole lot back into the air again.

A quick check with the analyzer revealed that resonance was achieved towards the top of the 20 metre band, at around 14.300Mhz. I lowered the pulley rope again and added another 5cm or so (a couple of inches) on each leg and raised the dipoles again.

This time, resonance was around 14.100Mhz, which is pretty good. I do a lot of digital modes, and prefer CW to SSB, so this was a more than acceptable point of resonance.

John left and I was grateful for all his help. I was finally operating properly on 20 metres! I had a very rewarding day on the band, working DX on FT8 in most parts of the world.

A screenshot from PSKreporter.info showing where my 20m signal has been heard during the past 24 hours.

I hope you can see from the above screenshot that the dipole has been very effective in carrying my signal to various parts of the world. I see that I was heard in the Falkland Islands, in Alaska and in Kenya. In fact, I worked 5Z4VJ in Kenya using FT4 yesterday evening. Other DX stations worked included several JA ops, YB0MWM in Indonesia, BG0BBB and BD7BS in China, ZP9MCE in Paraguay, A45XR in Oman, LU8EKC in Argentina, 9Y4DG in Trinidad and Tobago, YV5JLO in Venezuela, along with several stations in the United States and Canada.