PA0O ham radio

**“ The ARRL contests have been my favourites for a very long time. Back in 1980 we operated in the Multi category as PA0GN logging was done by hand. No computers, hand logging. I used the memory keyer , built from WB4VVF 's article in QST. Still have that keyer on the shelf.. The ARRL CW and SSB contests then took two full weekends — 48 hours each. Paper logs and dupe sheets had to be send by air mail in a big envelope and many months later we could read the result in QST..…”** Nowadays, with the help of cluster spots that highlight workable new calls on the bandmap, I can work more stations on my own than we ever managed in the 1980s with multiple operators. This weekend Saturday morning brought exceptionally good 40m propagation strong signals from W6, W7, VE7, and VE6. ( map below) But the next day the K‑index rose to 5, and the higher bands closed early. **“I ended place 4 on the realtime contest scoreboard. section SO LOW ALL Europe I had been in 3rd place, but by th...

Running LOW power SO CW  with K3 and  Flex6500   Steppir 3 ele  beam was frozen al week with freezing N-E wind was just intime operational again and I could place  a shorted Dipole for 40-10m  to have a spare if anything would happen to the Steppir .. In January, the northern part of the Netherlands faced arctic winds from the northeast and subzero temperatures, while the south felt more like spring. Finally, the temperature rose above zero and the Steppir tuned again, but now we’re surrounded by fog. EU zones offer plenty of multipliers that make this contest exciting, and I’m in NL05. The scoring clearly favors the EU, giving EU contacts 10 points while those outside get only 3. G, HB9, LA, YU, and E7 are all worth just 3 points. It feels a bit odd to have the FOC activity on the same weekend as a completely separate event. Nigel TK/G3TXF, a well-known DX-peditioner, was running EU-DX instead of FOC—remarkable that he was on our side! FB, Nigel. ` I ...