RDRC JT9 activity days - false start

Event: RDRC JT9 Activity Days
Date: 25,26, 27 Aug. 2017
Logger: HRD V5
Station: Icom IC-706MK2G at 10W
Antenna: Coppertape vertical (7,1m)  @9m agl
Total km: 191036

At first IV3FPX Boris mentioned I noted the wrong dates for this weekend. Sorry for that it has been corrected immidiatly. Friday was day one of the JT9 activity days this weekend. And indeed there was a lot of activity but I didn't see it when I hastely switched on the station equipment this morning. At lunchbreak I logged in via remote from my job and noticed almost no stations at all been received on JT9, only a few russians with very low reports. Strange, I switched over from JTDX to WSJT-X to see if it was a software problem. Nothing.... Switched over to FT8....signals enough but the software did no single decode!!! Then it occured to me it might be a radio problem, and it was. The radio was on LSB? Why? I don't know? It has been weeks ago I turned on the radio so I guess I left it on LSB, the strange thing was that it was on LSB on all bands. I had to switch back to USB. The problem was solved then but I lost valuable time I rather spend on making QSOs. Anyway I tested with 2 QSOs and saw a lot of activity so I just had to wait to get home from the job to continue.

Sunday evening spots after I stopped

Of course, like always, time was not on my side and being on the air was limited to nighttime and a few QSO via remote at daylight. However I managed to make some DX, actually best propagation was Saturday night on 20m compared to Sunday evening were 20m closed quite early. But 40m seems to be better at Sunday evening when I made my best DX to the RSA. JT9 was alive at least on 80, 40, 30, 20 and 17m. I've been trying on 160m but although I was spotted I was unable to see any signal there. In the end I made 71 QSOs to 27 DXCC this weekend. Best DX was with ZS1BHJ 9591km on 40m. Although I was spotted in Australia on 40m I didn't see anyone from VK.

Map of my QSOs

With a total of 191036km I guess I will get the certificate now although I don't really care. I had a lot of fun using JT9 and I think it is still the best mode to use for low power and QRP. Besides that it is a great mode for activity as looking for a empty part on the waterfall never is a problem even with 20-30 stations calling at the same time. I certainly take a look at this activity next year....