CQ DX thursday

Due to circumstances I had some hours to spend in the morning for some good old SSB DXing I so much like in this hobby. Looking for DX on various bands costs time. I decided only to go for 20-10m SSB and spend only 30 minutes on digimode. Propagation was very reasonable today and I first worked JW9JKA from Bear Isl. EU-027 Svalbard on 15m, he was real 5/9. I decided to call CQ on 12m as the band was open but not many active there. I have experienced I could be successful on that band. There was RA9OFE Alex coming back from Asiatic Russia. I continued calling CQ but it seems no one was listening.

V51WH Gunter

So up to 10m I listened to V51WH Gunter from Namibia for a while, it seems propagation was coming up. Gunter was going to work split but what he did not hear was 3B8HC Paul from Mauritius on his split frequency, I did hear him though and made a QSO. A while after that I met Gunter again lonely on the 10m band and made a QSO with him too. I decided to go back to 12m again, don't know but that band attracts me it's quiet and very suitable for DX. Surprisingly I met JW9JKA there and again I managed a QSO. After that I moved up a few kc and started calling DX again, now there were more stations listening and I was called by several east-europeans with most memorable contact RA3QVS/QRP who was working with a dipole and 8W. I worked him with 8W as well and we were both 5/9 at our signal meters. I then saw a spot on the cluster from VK1MA Matt in Melbourne on 20m and just tried to reach him as well, Australia on 20m is often not easy but I managed to work him.

VK6KXW Peter

At the last 30 minutes of the morning I decided to listen some music and do some JT mode and worked VK6KXW on 10m JT9 with the FT-817 5W on the HB9CV.

SSB has the disadvantage that you need to be concentrated all the time. Digimode has the advantage you can do several things at the same time, like blogging and listening music. I chose digimode in the evening and listened some music again. I worked only one station on 30m JT65. I moved down to 40m but it seems the real DX starts a lot later in the evening or at night. Did some CQ on JT9 but it seems no one was listening. I was only spotted by a few on hamspots. However, it was a nice DX day....

Screenshot WSJT-X/JT-Alert