QSO total for March 2005

Total QSO's for March 2005: 1972

Overall Total as of 13 APR 05: 4864

ProIII is here!

My new Icom IC-756ProIII arrived today! I saved for 7 months but still never thought I'd save enough.

The next goal is to save for a PW-1.

CQWW WPX SSB 2005 Contest

I can't believe I did so well using just my homebrew vertical antenna, Icom 706Mk2G, and 100 watts.

Station: YI9VCQ

Class: SOAB LP
QTH: IRAQ
Operating Time (hrs): 20

Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160: 0
80: 1
40: 21
20: 145
15: 618
10: 328
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Total: 1113 Prefixes = 406 Total Score = 1,294,734

Fire!

A room in one of our buildings caught fire last night due to an overloaded outlet. One of our soldiers, SPC Hernandez, happened to be awake and smelled smoke. He saw heavy smoke coming from under the door of a room, kicked the door in, and woke everybody up. He saved the lives of many soldiers asleep in that building.

Nobody was hurt. PFC Jackson's laundry is toast and was the only casualty.

I Did It!

My goal of reaching the eDX award on EQSL.cc website happened last night. I've got the basic certificate for confirmed contacts with 25 countries. So far, I've worked 78 countries.

My new Rigblaster Pro interface is fun to operate. Using it on PSK31 helped fill in some of the missing countries for my award. It seems that the digital modes operators tend to use EQSL more than others.

My next goal is to reach 100 countries or more for the eDX-100 award.

Elections in Iraq and Ham radio

I watched in amazement as the elections unfolded in Iraq. The Iraqi people stood up to the insurgents and sent a clear message. Being a part of history is pretty nice, too.

The CQ Worldwide 160-meter CW Contest ran this weekend (29-30 JAN) and I participated. I had 62 contacts and ended up with a little over 15000 points. My goal was 5000!

Calculated QSO totals for the past 2 months are:

DEC 2004--224
JAN 2005--645

CW TOTAL 587
SSB TOTAL 282

TOTAL QSO'S 869

I've been posting all my contacts to EQSL. So far I've confirmed 17 countries out of 76 submitted. My goal is to reach the EDX-100 award.

As soon as my new computer-radio interface arrives I'll start on digital modes such as RTTY and PSK. More digital mode operators seem to use the EQSL system.

BTW.....I want to personally thank YI9KT (Dick) from Al Hillah, Iraq for working me in the contest. It was a pleasant suprise! Iraq was well represented this year!

We have a winner....

The new Windom antenna I put together yesterday is awesome. Last night I tried it out and found out it really improves my signal--both outgoing and incoming.

I checked in with some friends on 80 meters last night. One of them, Murtada (9K2MU), suggested we try 160-meters and try out my new antenna. I met him on CW and he became my very first QSO on 160 (both for here and the states). It sure is nice to have the space to put up an extremely long wire!

The rest of the night was spent just cruising around the bands. I happened to stop and talk to a Swedish ham who suggested I try to pick up a "few" Europeans who might be on the frequency. That turn out to be about the biggest SSB pileup I've heard so far. I worked about 47 stations before heading off for bed.

Well, now that HF is up and running I think I'll concentrate on trying to get a signal into Baghdad on 2 meters. There's an Echolink RF link located there and it would be great to be able to contact the 440 machine back in Fayetteville. Let's see how big of a beam I can construct.

Hammin' it up!

Korey