HF Antics...

After a number of evenings struggling with propagation, lids, jammers and band police, I finally managed to bag 2 new ones from AF last that I have been chasing. First I managed to work TN2MS in the Congo, these are a bunch of Dutch doctors working on a mercy ship as part of the DAGOE programme. They have been inundated with calls whenever they have made it into New Zealand. Mostly for me thats been in the evenings around 2000-2100 UTC - sometimes via long path and occasionally on the short. This has been a big benefit of having the Hexbeam up - although not as easy as a simple button push like the Steppir, I can look both paths for peaks on their signals as it does change as the evening moves on. 

Things are difficult from NZ to get into Africa at the best of times but the additional difficulty of poor operators, jamming and the all pervasive, self appointed,  "band police" does not help not does the stations that seem to want to "assist" every QSO that struggles a bit. Anyway rant over, I did manage to get them in the log and then topped that by working C82DX an hour later. C82DX are an expedition to Mozambique. Again I have been chasing this one since they landed and finally managed to get an evening where the JA wall, propagation, CME's and the host of bad operators let me finally make the contact. So .... 2 new ones in the log and already in their online logs and checked! Phew! 

I heard a few more ZL's make it too so thats good. What does amaze me though is how good the TS590 is at digging weak signals out of pileups. That radio is very impressive and as much as I liked the K3, the performance of the K3 wasn't anywhere near the low noise, software defined, receiver in the TS590. Am so impressed I want one for VHF-SHF transverter driving now! Great ergonomics on the radio too - definitely a good contest radio. Combined with the K4KIO Hexbeam and the SPE1K amplifier this is a superb set up for SO2R competitions. Just setting up N1MM now and the Microkeyer II so I can run as automated as much as possible.