Lots happening - where do I start? !

There's been lots happening since I blogged the other day. The IRTS 2 metres contest was held on Sunday. I made a terrific 36 QSOs, more than double my score in the same contest earlier in the year. Of course,  this time I had certain advantages - a W300 antenna, a multimode rig and 160 watts of power! But overall I was thrilled with the reception.

Yesterday I worked a station in Wales on simplex. Nice.

This evening I overheard some English stations, including a gentleman mobile on the M6 motorway near Birmingham, coming in at between 57 and 59 on the same frequency as the Dundalk Repeater (EI2CCR), 145.675. This evening I will do a test with a couple of hams in Newry to see how well I can pick them up.

Digimodes have been working out well. I have made 56 QSOs on both PSK and RTTY so far. My best yet was Sudan on 15m RTTY. The station was ST2AR who I have worked on other modes and bands. I also got some nice stations in the Caribbean including Puerto Rico and PJ2 (Bonaire, Curacao), TI (Costa Rica, who gave me a new AG eQSL country!!) and some USA and Canada stations. Really enjoying it. Looking forward to getting more DX there. And I have been running no more than 50 watts, and in some cases less.

There has been a limited amount of CW and SSB. My most notable contacts there were YC1BJX on 20m CW on the 28th of August,  and 5H3ME in Tanzania on 15m CW. That's a new country for me, so I will QSL direct with the card some time in the coming weeks. I worked JH6CDI in Japan the previous day on 17m SSB. And last week I managed to get Argentina into the log on just 50 watts through my longwire on 40 metres. On the same day I picked up West Malaysia - 9M2TO - on 30m CW.

Right now I am off to do some testing with the boys in Newry on 2 metres. I will let you know how that goes. In the meantime, I will see/hear you on the bands!!

73!