Mongolia on topband

I was wandering over the bands this evening looking for DX. Looking for a contact with D68CCC (Comoros) actually but couldn't hear or see him on any band. So I was checking propagation on 30/40/60/80/160. I just arrived on 160m when I saw JT1CO from Mongolia calling....and some miracle happened, I made the QSO! I don't know why the vertical is doing so well on 160m? It is actually a 30m vertical dipole on top of my tower. May be I should consider abandoning 60m for a while and take 160m as my new DX band?

Rotor troubles

Unfortunately the rotor for the 15m beam in the CQWW contest broke. So I had to turn with my bare hands. That involved climbing the scaffold and turn the antenna which is very difficult in large winds.

Below a video I made just after I turned the beam...not for those that are afraid of heights ;-)

#cqww reminder & request and working VP6R

Just to remind you all that the CQWW DX SSB contest is this full 48 hours weekend! Please give us a call! Our callsign will be PA6AA. Find all info and latest spots HERE.

If possible I would like to request video and audio recordings from our signal were ever you are. This will be for research and publicity after the contest. All QSOs will be confirmed via QSL bureau. If you got something to share my e-mail adres and/or from PA6AA can be found via QRZ.com.

So far the team has all antennas in place. However they expect large winds tomorrow and this could damage the antennas as we experienced in previous years. Last night we already had some damage but team members have repaired everything. We hope all repairs will hold.




Via the HamAlert app I saw VP6R (Pitcairn Island) spotted again on 60m FT8 this morning. I had to
try on remote but I had problems reaching my desktop. However, I managed to solve the problems and had a chance to try. VP6R was weak at first but far after sunrise the signal suddenly came up. In F/H mode I even saw 5 traces at the same time. Best report I saw was -3dB which is pretty strong for a station from the other side of the world. After a first unsuccessful try the second report was confirmed by a RR73. See the 7 messages in 1 timeslot from VP6R! Several sources on the internet told that you need WSJT-X V2.1 to make contact but you can do it with JTDX as well...
Well, I'm very happy with this ATNO and new one on 60m, you can imagine. The amazing thing is that last signal from VP6R I received was a CQ with -18dB at 9:25 UTC. That is 11:25 local time and 3 hours after local sunrise!