After a long break, I will restart to share some updated info from my hamradio activities. Currently the Olympic Games 2024 are running in Paris. I managed to work one of the RadioOlympic awards, by contacting various special stations from France, who are active during the Olympic Games only.

Tromelin Island QRV - Incredible Pile-up for FT4TA

The last hamradio activation from Tromelin island was in 2000- more than 14 years ago. Many DXers, almost everyone of the younger generation, are looking for one QSO with this absolutely rare DX entity. In November 2014 a team of french operators is QRV for 10 days, bringing this DX country on the air as FT4TA. Right from the beginning of their operation, the pile-up of calling people for FT4TA was incredible. I have never heard a simliar pile-up in the last years. The split range for QSX was more than 25kHz up of their CQ frequency. Incredible.... Thousands of callers where looking for at least one QSO.

I am one of those lucky guys: QSO on 12m SSB and 10m CW - already confirmed at Logbook-of-the-world ! Thank you guys! What a DX ... and an All-Time-New-One for me!

Contest Activity DP6T in CQWW and WAG 2014

It is late summer 2014 and we are starting with the preparations at DP6T for the contest months to come. Our most important contest activity will be in October during the WAG (Worked-All-Germany) and the CQWW-SSB contest.

• WAG contest 18./19.Oct 15:00 UTC/24hrs
• CQWW-SSB 24./25.Oct 00:00UTC/48hrs

Last year we finished 3rd place in Multi-Multi category for Germany in the CQWW and #8 in WAG (Multioperator).

Have you already seen our short film from the last year´s activity at DP6T ? Don´t miss it!

"We are always looking for new hires ! If you are intersted in hamradio contesting - and your are living somewhere near JO40PG - and you wanna join our contesting team - please send us your email to DP6T(at)arcor.de !"

DP6T wins 4th place CQ-WPX-SSB Contest (Multi-Two)

The result of the CQ-WPX-SBB contest 2014 is now final. The crew at DP6T wins 4th place in Germany in the categrory Multioperator-Two Tranmsitter. The crew just missed the podium by a small number of points. The Top teams of Germyn in the category:

1. DQ8N  30.879184 pts (7202 Qs, 1652 WPX)
2. DR5N  20.550.400 pts (5202 Qs, 1520 WPX)
3. DP7D  10.785.768 pts (3571 Qs, 1308 WPX)
4. DP6T  10.481.302 pts  (3555 Qs, 1346 WPX)

Although we had a lot of trouble with our equipment during the contest, we a happy with the current outcome. However: next time - we will be better  :-)

DR50RRDXA - 50. anniversary of Rhein-Ruhr-DX-Association

In 2014 the Rhein-Ruhr-DX-Association is celebrating the 50. anniversary of the club. A special award is available by contacting the event station DR50RRDXA and other members of the RRDXA. You can find your current point standings on www.rrdxa.eu.

Gunnar DM6KG and myself, DL3FCG have activated DR50RRDXA on 21./22.August for several hours from the conteststation DP6T. In the afternoon and evening hours we logged 600 QSOs. Many more activations from ths site of DP6T will follow in the next weeks. Stay tuned !

ARRL Centennial QSO Party

The ARRL CQP is a nice challenge! Throughout the year the special event station W1AW is activating each of the 50 US states, plus territories KG4, DC, KH2 and KP4. By working each of the 50 states with a station signing W1AW/1, W1AW/2 ... you can work towards the special award "W1AW WAS". For that, a special award and a plagues wiill be available. All QSOs and award applications need to be done with the ARRL Logbook-Of-The-World LOTW database.

As per beginning of August, I have already confirmations from 47 states with 230+  QSO band/mode slots with W1AW/x on LOTW. Contacts with stations from Delaware, Maine and West Virginia are missing for the time being. It will take until November to get the last QSOs done: DE will be active starting November 26th, ME will start on August 27th and WV on October 22nd.
You can find more information about the Centennial QSO Party here: ARRL website. Good luck hunting for W1AW.

King-of-Spain Contest SSB - Concurso Espana

Last weekend of June. King-of-Spain contest SSB. I just did a spontaneous entry in the single-op/single band 20m class. It went well and I had a lot of fun. Many stations from EA called. Did also work the famous station EA0JC - former King of Spain, Juan Carlos - station operated by URE and the special event station EF6 - celebrating the new King of Spain Felipe VI.

Operating time  : 7h59
Band: 20m...QSOs: 320 ...DXC: 34 ...Provinces: 43 .... Total points 49.434

Final results: 1st place Germany , 5th place DX

DL0YLF zu Gast bei der Contestgruppe Wittgenborn DP6T

Die YL-Clubstation des Distrikt Hessen wird am Sonntag 18. Mai 2014 als Gast bei der Contestgruppe Wittgenborn DP6T am diesjährigen Hessenkontest teilnehmen. In der Zeit zwischen 6:00-10:00 UTC besteht die Möglichkeit, Punkte für das DL-YL-33-Award oder für die Hessentag-Plakette-2014 des Distrikt F zu sammeln. Die Clubstation DL0YLF zählt für den Hessenkontest gleichzeitig auch als Multiplier in der Ergebniswertung. Die Contestcrew von DP6T stellt dem Damenteam eine voll ausgestattete Konteststation für die Bänder 40m und 80m zur Verfügung und kümmert sich im Vorfeld um die Vorbereitung der Antennen und der Transceiver. Das Team freut sich auf viele Anrufe aus Hessen. Wer den Kontestern gerne mal über die Schulter schauen möchte, ist am Sonntag auch gerne als Besucher in Wittgenborn gesehen. Weitere Informationen über die YL-Aktivitäten in Hessen findet man auf der Webseite des Distrikt Hessen www.darc.de/f und über die Contestgruppe Wittgenborn bei www.dp6t.de

ATNO 2014

ATNO = All Time New One. First time QSO with a rare DX country! In 2013 I was lucky to add T2 Tuvalu, CE0Y Easter Island, 5W Samoa, KH9 Wake and KH8 American Samoa to my list of the ATNO.

The year 2014 already began very promising: In January I worked FT5ZM from Amsterdam Island on a couple of bands in CW and SSB for an all time new one. Looking forward, I can´t wait to work Mellish Reef VK9M, VK9L Lord Howe Island and FR/T Tromelin this year. For all these rare DX countries, an activation is announced for 2014.

See you in the pile-up !

IARU Championship 2013 - winning on Canary Islands

Yippie. ARRL has published the results of the IARU Championship 2013.

I am the winner in the category SINGLE OP/LOW POWER CW on Canary Island as EA8/DL3FCG.

SOLP CW EA8/DL3FCG (1st EA8, 3rd AFRICA, 24.World)

I am happy! After the winning of JARTS RTTY contest from EA8 in 2012, another success in the respective entry class.

Log uploaded to Clublog.org

I am working DX ! Here are my latest QSOs...

RAEM - Activity Days in Honor of the 110th Anniversary of the Birth of E.T. Krenkel

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ernst Krenkel, the legendary polar radio operator RAEM, the first President of the Federation of Radio Sport of the USSR and a Hero of the Soviet Union, the Amateur Radio Union of Russia (SRR) is organizing the RAEM Activity Days. 21 special event-stations will be on the air from various regions of the Russian Federation, plus a number of event stations from Bulgaria, Hungary a.o. Example of event callsigns will be RA110RAEM, RB110RAEM to RZ110RAEM.

If you like, you can work as many special event stations as possible. For each contact you can count points towards achieving the RAEM award program. The awards will be available free or charge in mixed or single mode. After 3 weeks of  operation, the russian team already issued more than 5.000 awards digitally.

Claimed score submission CQWW-DX-CW 2013

Operator(s): DL3FCG
Mode: CW
Category: SOSB15, assisted, HP
Active hours: 16
Club:Rhein Ruhr DX Association
Summary: Band 15m - 629 QSOs -126 DX multis - 39 zones = Claimed Score:  255.750

Working some 16 hrs from Wittgenborn in the CQWW CW contest. This time a single operator, single band entry on 15m. With the YAESU FTdx5000 and a Mosley TA54 it was fun to work the worldwide contacts. As the 15m band is only open during daytime, the stress was limited to work that contest.

The highlight contact was a QSO on 20m on Sunday morning with N8S from American Samoa. An all time new one for me !

IARU HF Championship EA8/DL3FCG

The small shack of EA8/DL3FCG

It was Fun ! After 18 hours of operation, I closed the log for the entry into the IARU HF Championship with 883 QSOs. A claimed score of 514.000 points, with 53 DX countries, 58 ITU zones and 66 QSOs with Headquarter stations, will be submitted to the contest commitee in the LOW POWER CW category.

On Saturday the QSO rate went up to 111 QSO/hr, This was a blast! On Sunday it was hard to find a clear spot on the frequency and I didn´t had a single run though. Nevertheless, it was really funny and it was amazing to create such a run with only 100W and a G5RV antenna (covering only 40m-10m ...).

QSO from Tenerife

We have a great time on Tenerife. Fantastic weather with temp over 30°C. I am working most QSO in the evening until midnight. I am running a Yaesu FT857 with max. 100W into a G5RV wire antenna. N1MM logger is my program of choice for logging. Good signal strength are being reported from QSO with US eastcoast. Looking forward to the contest this weekend!

EA8/DL3FCG QRV !

The first 400 QSOs are in the log of EA8/DL3FCG in 2013. Many JA stations with loud signals came into the log today. I had a really good run to JA on 17m around 21UTC. Hope to work many more from far East during the next weeks. Currently I am mainly QRV in CW. Please check the spots in any DX cluster. Hpe 2 cu !

EA8/DL3FCG is calling CQ ...

I will be QRV again this year from Tenerife AF-004 on the Canary Islands. Starting at July 7th I

will be there on a holliday style operation for 3 weeks (July 27th). In the morning hours (8:00 UTC +/-) I will be looking for openings specially to JA and Asia on the higher bands 10m/12m. During last years operations from La Orotava (northern part of Tenerife) I managed to work even weak and QRP stations from JA on 10m/CW.
Although I am using only a modest station setup (FT857/100Watts) with G5RV antenna, it will be easy to work into EU an NA with good signals.

An entry into the IARU HF Championsship contest is planned as single operator/Low Power CW.
QSL is available via eQSL, LOTW and buro to my homecall.

Hope to work you as EA8/DL3FCG this year !

Easter Island - XR0YG

Between 20-27 March 2013, a team of English hams was active as XR0YG from Easter Island on all bands 160m to 10m (CW only). I was looking for them for 4 days with almost no sigs to be heard for me.

Than I started to look for them in the morning and surpise: there they are. I was simply looking for them too late during the days before and so on the wrong bands too.

Today, between 6:00-7:00 UTC, I was ready to jump into the pile-up crowd on 40m CW. And guess what? After 1/2 hours of following the pile-up, I worked them just a little 1kc up. Super Op on the island! A very big pile-up was calling, however the guy on the other side left the QSX area just around 1-3 up! Perfect operation!

And by the way: It was an All-Time-New-One for me: never worked a station from Easter Island before. The QSO is already confirmed as DXCC country #287 on LotW.

Challenge #1000

It was XT2TT from Burkina Faso ! The QSO dated March 5th 2013 on 12m CW set the magic counter for my DXCC Challenge award to #1000.
 
Since my first DX QSO in 1990 I uploaded 13.000 QSOs to the LotW database and I got approximately 4.500 QSL-matches in the database to reach this fantastic award.

9M4SLL - Spratley Island ... new bandpoint

Yesterday I had a short contact on 12m CW with the team on Spratley Island 9M4SLL. Within 24hrs after the QSO, the confirmation in LotW was already in ! Great job from the team. Thank you!

It wasn´t only a very quick confirmation, but it was also a Big Point: it was my bandpoint #999 for the DXCC Challenge in LotW. I am waiting for only one more confirmation to reach the magic threshold of 1000 challenge points. Who will it be?