I shall be active from the Larnaca District of the Republic of Cyprus next week, using:
5B / G0OOO and
5B / G4SSH.
Although not on a SOTA, I shall be especially listening out for newcomers to CW and will be happy to reply at their speed and give them a first DX contact on CW.
Anyone on a summit will be especially welcome. Last year I was contacted by John GX0OOO/p on LD-011. (Thanks for the loan of the club call now that Winter Bonus is over John).
The best times for EU contacts will be as follows:-
Thursday 22nd March 14.055 MHz CW 0900-1100 UTC
Friday 23rd March 14.055 MHz CW 0900-1100 UTC
An alternate freq will be 21.055 MHz
A special QSL card will be available via the Buro, or direct to the home calls.
What a great offer Roy. Unfortunately, I will be locked away at work during those times, so I will have to miss out this time.
I made my first CW contact into Italy two evenings ago; an IZ2 station. Not exactly DX, but certainly the furthest I have worked on HF from home so far. My antenna is a rather poorly configured arrangement that was originally put up for SWLing, so should be much better once I’ve done something about it. Thanks to Richard G3CWI, it does have a decent earth and the loan of a good ATU, hence the contacts I am currently able to make. I will be putting something better up soon, so should be a much better signal.
I had a go on CW with QRO, using GX4MWS at the Macc club night on Monday. Dead easy, every CQ call answered immediately. Seemed almost like cheating!
I know of at least three other SOTA ops that are currently learning the CW, like myself. Wonder how you are getting on, and wonder if we should get a thread going on here to compare progress, given that we are all learning it for the same reason - SOTA!
I hadn’t realised that other countries were now on 5MHz.
That’s great Tom, sounds as though you are gaining confidence and increasing the distance on CW. Yes, an unusual callsign is always worth a couple of S-points by attracting the prefix hunters. (Including M1 and M3)
I do not hold a NOV for 5 MHz, will be guest op from a friend’s shack in Cyprus, and am unsure of the legal position for 5 MHz out there, so do not want to go down that route, or cause problems.
In reply to G4SSH:
Hi Roy
I will certainly listen out for you. I’ve had a few non sota cw contacts but not everyone is happy to qrs. Hope to work you next week.
Cheers
Q GW3BV
Glad to hear that you’re progressing well on the cw front.
Some weeks ago you mentioned that there were nightly slow cw scheds on 80m,
is this still the case ? Think i’m getting to the stage where some live de-coding practice is needed at 12wpm. Most of the traffic I try listening to appears to be at 20wpm which is too quick.
I have had quite a few slow speed skeds with G3CWI, and you are welcome to join them if you hear us. Most evenings, I am in the shack and calling between 2130 and 2230, somewhere in the 3.520 to 3.570MHz range. It would be great to work you or any of the other “SOTA CW learners”.
Rxing wise, it seems I am stuck at the notorious 10wpm barrier at present, but will just stick at it until I go through!
Thanks for the info regarding the cw scheds, will listen out to start off with, see how I get along. Think I’ve got a quite a way to go to master the accepted cw abbreviations and messaging structure, that’ll be best done by listening.
I also appear to be stuck in the 10 to 12wpm barrier, I remember doing all this nearly 20yrs ago for the exam, but never used it on the air. So have to do it all again.
Will try and rig up a loaded dipole for 80mts in the garden this weekend, normally my hf/vhf gear is dedicated portable equipment that lives in my rucksak.