QSL cards and several new DXCC's

 

I received a couple QSL cards from the Zero Bureau recently and noticed its time to send more money for supplies. I also have a stack of outgoing cards to send to the ARRL outgoing bureau. I don' receive as many as I used to which is fine--many Hams are using electronic QSL cards for exchange like LOTW and EQSL.

 I also notice I have a new DXCC in my LOTW -HD8R- Galapagos Island which I had a contact with during the CQ WW SSB contest in 2021 that was just recently verified. I also have two contacts with V55Y from Namibia but He doesn't seem to be a LOTW user yet-maybe someday. I now have 129 confirmed DXCC's. I haven't actively been chasing Dx , just adding a few thru contesting.

73--Tim

 

ARRL RTTY RU 2024

 This contest started Saturday January 6th at 18:00 UTC and finished at 23:59 January 7th. I was hoping to have most of my contest time on Saturday, but I had antenna/tuner issues several hours after the start. The weather was wet and humid outside and eventually turned cold enough to freeze towards sunset and I suspect it affected my vertical antenna. I decided to wait until Sunday morning to investigate, which I did and cleaned the doorknob capacitors and connections on the antenna. It helped some but I still backed the power down to less than 50w just to be safe.

 I was able both days to make contacts on 40m through 10m and at the end of the contest was surprised to see 20m had the most contacts. The conditions were good for domestic QSO's but the DX was not as available. I still managed almost 200 contacts for a score 0f 11,136 so I was pleased with the results. I was suffering with a chest cold so this was the perfect contest for me--point and click and no voice needed!!

73---Tim

Christmas vacation cruise 2023

 

We decided to spend Christmas on a short Caribbean cruise this year instead of a white Christmas in the north country. The weather up north actually didn't cooperate for the usual snowy holiday and instead was a rainy, foggy, no snow Christmas but we enjoyed warm weather and palm trees with nice Caribbean breezes. 

  A plane ride to Tampa Florida, an overnight stay, then a short Uber ride and we were embarking on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship on a five-night holiday. We did have a few days at sea but enjoyed all aspects of the ship with stops at Coco Cay and Nassau, Bahama before cruising back to Florida. Travel days can be rather long and the return trip was no exception, but it was a memorable vacation. 

  Happy New Year---Tim