Enjoying some European contacts using JT65 on 80 metres

I had a little bit of fun on 80 metres tonight using the low power JT65 mode. Having chased some of the special event IARU and YOTA call signs during the day, I found the bands a bit dead this evening and decided to see if anyone was on JT65. To my surprise, 3.576 was quite busy with signals. So I gave it a go.

The above video was made while making a QSO into England during a good run of contacts. I had eight QSOs tonight - which might not sound like much - but every QSO on JT65 takes at least four minutes, so it's not bad. I had contacts into England, The Netherlands, Germany and Austria. All QSOs were made with 14 watts from my transceiver, transmitted into my home brew 80 metre inverted v dipole.

All of the stations that heard my signal on JT65, reported on pskreporter.info.

My small signal was heard all over Europe and even in the United States, as you can see from the above map. One of the great joys of using JT65 is because it's a slow-paced, relaxing mode, you can do something else while making contacts. In this case, I was making a YouTube video! The "live" recording caught me unawares towards the end!

A portion of my log today, showing a lot of IARU and YOTA SES contacts.

Video: chasing Tuvalu on 20 metres CW. Will I be able to make it through the European QRM?

This is what I do most of the time on amateur radio - I chase rare DX. In this case, it's T2GC on Tuvalu island, which is an island in the southern Pacific Ocean. As you can see, it's hard work finding where he is listening, and in this case his RX QRG is moving all the time. So I have to spend a lot of time spinning the VFO looking for his split frequency. I lose the split though, and have to go searching for it. Having not found it, I decide to call above the pile-up (at 2:40 in the video), but hear a K2 beneath me going back to him, so I spin down to 14.013.5 and call him there. Soon I am back on target. At 3:56, you finally hear him asking for EI2. I call a couple of times, but he still comes back with EI2, the best indication possible that other stations are just calling over the top of me, ignoring the fact that he is looking for EI2. But with a bit of persistence I am soon in the log. This one took just over four minutes, but I have been known to spend an hour (and more) chasing the rare ones.

Another good opening on 6 metres

There has been another good opening on 6 metres this evening, just two days after the first big opening of the 2012 E season. Stations worked here included those from Germany, Austria, Croatia, Italy and Slovenia, mostly in SSB with some CW contacts. The three-element beam seems to be working absolutely fine, with no trouble being heard by any station, even with QSB. The opening lasted for about an hour.