Willis Island VK9WA in the log - ATNO - DXCC #316

I wasn't able to update the blog yesterday because I was busy but I managed to work the VK9WA Willis Island dxpedition. This was an All-Time New One (ATNO) and my 316th current DXCC worked (318 total).

I was listening at 8am on 17 metres CW and there was no signal from them at all. However, they were being spotted by lots of European stations, so I felt they would come up in signal strength as the morning went on. After 8.30am I began to hear them, and by 9am they were lifting my needle and sounded quite clear. I worked them at 9:05am local time (also UT), with a split of more than 6.5 kHz. I had decided not to move around, but to try to find a trough in the pile-up. This paid off because it took me less than ten minutes to work them. Here is a video I made a couple of minutes later:




Last night, I checked the online log and although it had been updated, my call sign was not there. I checked for variations, and did find an ES2KC in the log, on 17m CW. This is not the first time I have been wrongly logged as ES2KC. I'm 95% certain this is my QSO.

I would like to get a few more QSOs with them, but work means that I am unable to be at the radio in the middle of the morning when their signal might be strongest.

I was encouraged on Sunday morning to hear them strong on both 15 CW and 17 SSB, but I didn't manage a QSO and had to go to music. On Sunday afternoon they had a nice signal on 30 CW. So we live in hope.

PQ0T Trindade & Martim Vaz worked in a jiffy - new country - #313!!

This is my QSO with PQ0T, Trindade & Martim Vaz, an All-Time New One for me (ATNO), on 20 metres CW. This is the easiest new rare DXCC that I ever worked! I started calling him when I put the video camera on. As you can see, I got into his log very quickly. Initially he had me as EI3KC but I had no difficulty getting it corrected. Trindade becomes the 313th current entity in my log, coming hot on the heals of yesterday's news that I had reached 300 DXCC confirmed on LoTW.

Update: I was trying on and off for several hours this afternoon on 10 metres CW, where the pile-up was almost 30Khz wide, without success!!