Three new countries on 80 metres in 24 hours

I'm delighted to see that winter propagation is good on 80 metres. I've worked three new countries on that band in the space of 24 hours.

Yesterday morning I worked VP2EIM Anguilla on 80 cw.
Last night, to my great delight and with not much effort, I worked VU4KV Nicobar, also on 80 cw, battling against an EU pile.
And just now, this morning, I worked HC2AO/8 on 80 metres cw. You can see his signal strength in the video below. He was struggling to hear EU because of QRN and as soon as I stopped making this video he disappeared from the QRG. Lucky me!!

Latest eQSL arrival - Galapagos Islands!

Delighted to get my latest country confirmed on eQSL - Galapagos Islands. Although not a new DXCC for me, this is a new eQSL confirmation and brings my total number of countries confirmed to 177. I worked him on 17m SSB and also on 15m SSB. Geoffrey is usually QRV at night, between 2100 and 0500 GMT.

Galapagos Islands (HD8A) is a brand new DXCC

The Galapagos Islands, from where HD8A are currently
operating. I've worked them as DXCC #291.

Last night, having returned from my sojourn with EJ7NET on Inis Mór, I was sitting looking through photographs from the dxpedition when my friend Ark, EI9KC, sent me a text message to say HD8A was on 15 metres CW. He knew I needed it as a new one.

Sure enough, I switched on the radio and turned the beam and I could hear HD8A on 21.013.5 Mhz, working split. I was soon calling him about 3 Khz up and, within a very short time, I was in the log! What's more, Ark made a recording of the moment HD8A worked me, which can be heard below:



This morning, HD8A were on 17 metres CW, so I put on a split of 6 Khz, and worked them within a very shot time. I'm delighted to get this new country into my log. I've had three new ones in the space of about a week - Turkmenistan, Norfolk Island and Galapagos. Yet again the SP7IDX broadband hexbeam proves its worth!!