Yes, it's AI. Yes, I still laughed!

Couldn't sleep, woke up, turned on WSJT-X, snagged my 181st country :-)

43 years ago today! My life-long love of radio kickstarted by my first ever QSL card

@kb9v I think it's working - I think I just couldn't hear anyone because there was no one putting out heartbeats etc. FT8 and even JT9 have been no problem, but would like to use JS8CALL and have some proper QSOs.

After 35 years amateur radio continues to surprise and delight me. I didn't think my doublet antenna was working that well, especially on 10m - but I had two SSB contacts into Chile tonight. Checked my logs and they're the furthest two voice contacts I've EVER had. Not bad for 50 watts.

Thanks @MW1CFN for reminding me that JT9 was a thing, I'm definitely hooked now. Only 12 stations heard me, but I had 5 QSOs in 30 mins - considering each one was 4-6 mins, that's pretty good going

@MW1CFN I'm going for it! I have a doublet which works best on 17m, so I use the band quite a lot. Typically I put out 4 calls with nothing, and then 2 stations answered back ...

@MW1CFN Ah OK! I am decoding a few stations on 18104 now. I have neve rhad a JT9 contact, wonder if I should bite the bullet ...

@MW1CFN I'm listening on 14078 now. I can't hear a thing :-(

Still having no luck with JS8. Some stations can hear me - I can't decode anyone though

@VE2UWY I was surprised to see the data still out there after 34 years! (my 10m set up was great back then - now, not so good)

I managed to restore them - by finding which contest it was (it was the 1991 ARRL 10m contest) and then looking at the results here, which are helpfully sorted by country and state.

The 1991 results are still here, thanks ARRL!

https://contests.arrl.org/ContestResults/1991/10M-1991-FinalQSTResults.pdf

#hamradio (2/2)

What have I been doing today? Reconstructing my old paper logbook so I can put it on a spreadsheet. The logbook has entries between 1989 and 1992 (my first amateur radio session before I returned briefly in 2006) and is mostly legible. But some of the callsigns had faded too much, including one from Guatemala. I have all the QTHs but I can't read the calls. (1/2)

Managed to work OJ0JR on 30m FT8 just now. I've never worked Market Reef before, I had to look it up! Check it out on Google Maps - there's a very weird boundary going on ....

@Geojoek Nice one! I was awake later than I should have been!

37 new cards from the QSL bureau today. I think this is the nicest one - despite the Comic Sans font on it!

How I managed to get someone a recording of their birthday greetings from Radio Berlin International 42 years late ...

https://www.redpenguin.net/amateur-radio/happy-birthday-from-the-stasi/

@MW1CFN I grew up in Romford, Essex and moved to mid Wales 18 months ago. Big improvement in the night sky for me. I think I last saw a sky full of stars in the 1970s, so I'm grateful to actually be able to see a ton of stars when it's not cloudy here.

I did see the signs about the Dark Sky at Bwlch y Groes and while I found it interesting, I would NOT want to drive down that single track road back to Dinas Mawddwy in the dark!

Was at Devil's Pass (Bwlch y Groes - IO82et) yesterday for the 145 Alive event. Only 1 QSO but it was 65 miles to Dudley so I was quite happy with that, considering I was on my 5W Quansheng with no extra antenna

Been active on 40m SSB this weekend - good fun. Spent so much time on FT8 I had forgotten how good it is to make contact on voice!