2016 highlights, 2017 goals

Slowly this year comes to an end. Traditionally the blog yearly last post is about the highlights of this year and goals for next one. 2016 has been a rough year as 2 of my radio friends died unfortenately. It has been a interesting year as well, is hamradio ever not interesting? Even if you have pleasure only making contacts via 2 meter repeaters it can be interesting. This hobby has so many topics socially and technically. And you can learn from it as well. This can be very beneficial and a advantage if you look for a job for instance. Companies like to have a experienced experimental radio research employee as they are creative and inventive.

So, what have been the highlights? Lets start at January till March, I decided to take up the challenge of working 100 DXCC within 100 days QRP. And never thought I would make it, but I worked those 100 DXCC in 79 days. I think I was just in time as propagation is not as good anymore as it was at the start of the year. As always we are sliding down from the 11 year maximum and in the next years radio propagation will get worse. I see it as just another challenge because even when propagation is at it's minimum there is still communication possible even on DX. The always important PACC contest was difficult again, 2 birthdays and no time, participated once again QRP. But I won the DKC contest again in the section low power SSB. Another highlight was working VK0EK Heard Island, received VK0EK with very very low signals but knew they had excellent ears and looking for weak signals. Trying and trying for many evenings and finally they logged me a GE4BAS on 40m CW. But it was corrected and I got VK0EK confirmed. I'm curious if I will ever talk to Heard Island again? 6 new DXCC were worked this year and that is a lot less compared with last year. I suspect next year will be even more difficult to get new ones in the log. I was active from another country being OZ/PE4BAS for a week in April, I had fun but not that much time to make QSOs. I was not that much active on 6m this year it seems propagation on that band is not as good as years ago, besides that 6m opens in summertime and that is no radio time for me. I doubt if I will ever be more active on that band although magic can happen. 60m is more my DX band lately although the real DX can only be worked deep in the night or very very early in the morning. It's kind of a challenge just like the decreasing propagation.

Winter 2007, previous QTH

The goals for 2017? Did I meet those for 2016, well part of it. I managed to get a few new WSPR DXCC but was not as much on WSPR as I would have liked. I managed to rebuilt the ACER laptop for use with WSPR and it worked out the way it should. I've participated in the 100 DXCC QRP in 100 days challenge and I started to make a plan to install the versatower antennamast. The gardenwork has been finished and the goal for 2017 is just that antennamast. It definitely has to get up again. I want to install everything that has been waiting for 8 years now. I'll keep you informed on this weblog.

To all my blog readers wishing you a very healthy and good 2017.