QRX x

No idea how long X will be. I need want to take a short break from the hobby. The break started last week. Family matters. It’s for a good cause and a happy occasion. It hurt to let ARRL DX CW slide away last weekend. For years we’ve been complaining about short and weak 20m openings and the absence of 15m. Now that the sun rectified that situation, ON5ZO wasn’t even at home. The same holds true for this weekend’s UBA DX CW. I am at home now, but I am not in a contesting mood. Too occupied. But like the Terminator said: “I’ll be back”. Soon.

After a hectic week, I was cleaning out my mailbox. I was glad to see my callsign dropped in last week’s ARRL Propagation Bulletin. N8II was applauding de recent 12m openings: “So, after a breakfast break at 1358 UTC, I check 12 meters to find the band just opening to EU. PY0FF was logged, then I called CQ. The first QSOs were with HA and OK, followed shortly by weak LA5YJ at 1416 UTC. OQ5M was S9+, then at 1435 UTC, 4Z4DX was logged S9 followed by a very loud OZ8ABE; 9X0CW was S7 next.”. Ego boost! HIHI. Read it here if you want to check the full bulletin. I think all amateurs world wide are happy with 15m and 12m showing some life. At some point, 12m was jam-packed with DX stations. And I missed all the ARRL CW fun on 15m! Darn.

The only problem is all the contacts generate so much paper QSL. A few weeks ago the XYL and me did some serious moving and relocating inside the house. I wanted to gain some storage inside drawers so I took all my QSL cards and threw them into a large plastic bin. Unsorted. I bought only one of these at first but I had to get a second one, which is already 2/3 full too. These were put in a separate storage room. If you ever sent me a QSL card, it’s in these two plastic bins. So why would you even send me a card again? Long live LotW. I uploaded 700 QSO I made on 17m and mostly on 12m this month and I immediately got tons of LotW confirmations. My logging soft told me I worked 13 new countries on 12m. Thirteen! I’m sure more juicy DX will follow. Once I’m back…