Today I received 4 CQ WPX CW awards. In fact only two but I got 'm twice. A backup copy I guess. I completely forgot what I had done but these certificates refreshed my memory. Last year in May the WX (here we go again but the facts are what they are) spoiled my WPX CW effort with wind and T-storms so I limited my activities to fooling around. I did an all band effort as OQ5M and submitted SB40. Hence award #1 for "1st place Belgium 7 MHz". On Sunday 28MHz opened up so I opened a new log as ON5ZO. Voilà: "1st place Belgium 28 MHz" with about 170 QSO's in the log. 28 MHz, a band that surprised me later that year in IARU and EUHFC but that really is dead right now. Too bad as I have very sweet memories. Good 'ole Ten will be back in a few years time.

This weekend was CQ WPX SSB. I continued my low level activity streak and only made about 150 contacts, mostly on 20m. Conditions seemed poor so I guess I didn't miss that much. On 15m all (only) signals from Kazakhstan were very loud. The rest of the world was absent. That's partly because the tower was down and the yagi too low. But I mainly blame the sun.

What struck me was an increasing number of stations only giving the serial number for the exchange omitting the mandatory "59" RST part. That has been going on for a while now but this time it seemed worse. I wasn't the only one to notice as Steve N2IC posted the following on CQ-Contest:

Is anyone else bothered by serious WPX competitors not giving out a signal report ?
"V. Exchange: RS(T) report plus a progressive contact three-digit serial number starting with 001 for the first contact."
A short list of those giving out only a serial number, from just a few hours of listening: 4O3A, ZW2D, N7DD
73,Steve, N2IC

Of course that triggered an avalanche of replies. Should we drop the mandatory RST that is '59' or '5NN' for each contest QSO? It's weird to hear 'OQ5M 123' and not 'OQ5M 59 123'. It has no real value but in CW I use the '5NN' part to get in synch to copy the real exchange. Granted: copying an exchange like a zone is no fun either as every JA is zone 25 etc. But it might help to copy real exchanges like serial numbers. I guess the debate will now split up in two parts with each item its own protagonists:

• Should the RST-omitters be disqualified because the rules clearly state an RST is part of the valid exchange?
• Should we continue to incorporate this in the exchange or alter the rules? And if so: what contest sponsor will be the first to do so?

Let's sit back and see what the reflector will spit out over the next few days. Change is good but change needs to have an added value. Change for change's sake is useless. I've become so Pavlovian about my "fanawafoo" SSB exchange in CQ WW SSB by now I always tend to yell that when working an SSB DX pile up.

To round this up a link to Belgium's one and only M/M: OT5A @ ON7LR. Good stuff there but too bad the station is only around twice a year in WW SSB and WPX SSB. Yes they mention the WX too  ;o)

Imagine that: snow on Easter. Yes: there is snow as we speak here in Belgium. Three months late for a white Christmas. The last snowy Easter goes back to 1975, as was told on the TV news. A good year that was  ;o)   Last year Easter was very good: calm WX, dry, blue sky and warm. Granted: it was 2 weeks later than this year but still a big contrast...

Regular readers will notice I often mention the weather. That is because it is very important for everything I like to do. Go out for a walk with the dog? You need nice WX. Crank up the tower all the way for a contest? Better no storm then. Clean up the garden, mow the lawn and trim some trees? Not while it's snowing... But the last couple of weeks have been horrible up to the point where it is REALLY getting on my nerves and my mood. We've had some stormy days and lots of rain in December. After a calm period January brought more of the same: rain and wind. We had two very nice weeks then, too good for winter. Then a couple of storms in a row and lots of rain and now snow. Even now while I am typing this very sentence! I'm having two weeks of Easter holidays and with last year in mind I laid out some plans: be outside during the day and crank up the tower to work some 30m DX at night. Forecast tells me I'll be inside a lot with the tower down.

As a coincidence National Geographic showed a documentary yesterday about the sun and one of the topics was the Maunder Minimum and wether the 11 year solar cycle can influence the earth's weather. Propagation has hit rock bottom and I really can't remember the weather being so bad for such a long period. So if you ask me: yes there is a link. But of course I am biased and my gut isn't a scientific proof. There was this tribe in New Mexico that migrated in a proven period of low solar activity but unfortunately something got in the way and I missed the rest of the story including the answer to the question.

I have been chasing 9X0R and 5T5DC today to save some contacts. Worked them both 3 times up to now. But it doesn't please me. I have been thinking I need something new to get away from what I always do. That way I'll see that what I always do is what I always have to do because I like it. I think the arrival of the K3 early June (fingers crossed) and assembling it will boost my eagerness. The scholar year will end then and so does preparing the classes so that burden will fall off my shoulders. And the K3 offers 6m - new playground for ON5ZO not considering those 10 QSOs I once made with an attic dipole and 10W. I'm sure I'll be having fun again soon. It's not that I have lost interest in the hobby. It's just that I need some sun on my skin, get away from 'job' work and get some 'fun' work done. Some propagation might help too. And I just worked a loud 9M6/N1UR and 5T5DC for QSO #5 on 20m CW. Twenty always works.

First off: Shalom from the Holyland! Yesterday I received a nice contest award for the Holyland DX Contest 2007. It is a full color glossy award. And guess what? It says I'm #2 for Belgium. I'm not used to that - I always get "1st Belgium" awards   ;o)   So I was anxious to know who else was working 4X. It turns out to be Joe ON4JZ / OP4K. Great, he made over 50 QSO thus doubling my QSO count of 21. I forgot I was in that contest. But it was fun and if circumstances permit I'll try to work some again this year. Thanks to the contest sponsors for the award and the booklet!

Now why the subject of today's entry? I'm a subscriber to the CQ Contest Email Reflector. I seldom post there but the last two weeks I hit shift+delete most of the time without reading. What bothers me is the endless whining about:

• Supposed packet cheating and how to deal with it.
• SO2R: to be considered assisted or not?
• CW Skimmer: to be considered assisted or not?
• CW Skimmer: will it ruin CW contesting? Will CW skills become obsolete?
• What is the most popular contest and why someone chooses NOT to participate in a given contest.
• A recently drilled well of new discussion: reduce WPX from 36 to 30 hours?
• Overall unhappiness with contest rules and what should be changed to suit some individual or group's needs. See all of the above...

I don't feel the need to ventilate my personal opinion but since this is my own private soapbox I'll just do so anyway. Like the movie quote: "opinions are like assholes, everybody has one". Reader beware!

I use packet when allowed and submit assisted. No packet allowed = not used here. I play by the rules. Honor and ham spirit are worth more than scores. Packet can improve the fun factor though sometimes you don't really gain by using it. Since the majority of contest QSO's are made with casual DX operators who tune the bands (or click the bandmaps for that matter) we should welcome packet. But please follow the rules even if you don't like the rules. Check the logs, catch the cheaters, expose them if the evidence is undeniable. But don't bash them too hard nor humiliate them.

I like SO2R. It gives me something to work on, a new skill to learn. It's fun and improves score. It gets me through the slow hours where I went to bed before when the low rate gently rocked me asleep. I see it as single op and unassisted. It is my who does all the work, who messes up when a QSY takes too long, who invests in equipment to use SO2R. Don't like SO2R? Then don't do it. But please stop whining about it!

CW Skimmer? A nice gadget, but I have no plans to try it and certainly not use it. I spent years to become good at copying CW. For almost 2 years now I'm trying to get rid of my SO2R dummy status and gain some skills. Why should I use a goofy piece of software that turns CW contesting into RTTY contesting? No way! If someone wants to use it, that's fine. It's not even 'assisted' as a CW decoder is not assisted either. Technological progress is good. But I see CW as an old craft one has to master. Copying by ear especially with two different bands in each ear gives me a thrill. Staring at a screen doesn't. You could go to the supermarket and buy a loaf of bread. It's edible, it fills your stomach but it's light and spongy. We bake our own bread here (the XYL's dept.). It's not cheaper than a mass consumption bread off the shelf but it sure is a real hefty bread that smells like one and fills with half the slices of the supermarket sponge. Satisfaction is the key word: you put your time, effort and knowledge into baking a bread. The bread tastes better. Copying by ear and finding and decoding your own QSO's tastes better. I don't see what all the fuss on CQ Contest is about. The real advantage of CW Skimmer in a contest remains to be seen. I have my doubts that it will turn the best op into a better op or turn an average op into a good operator.

I don't care what the most popular contest is. I have my own list of favorites. I don't do a contest because it's popular but because I'm a contester. That's what we should do, NOT posting (hell) yes - (hell) no messages. Sometimes a given rule doesn't please me. So what? Dura lex, sed lex. The sponsor is boss and he sets out the guidelines for a contest. Wanna play? Follow the rules. Why keep whining about all this? Try to make up your own contest with your own set of rules and see what gives. I've been there: trying to manage a contest and serve the public's interest but be flooded with e-mails to see a rule changed because it'll suit them better. What does a passionate ham do? Throw the towel and get back to making contacts in stead of dealing with malcontents.

I think people have enough of this whining on the CQ Contest reflector. Myself, but I recently read someone else has too. I still receive the reflector's mails. If the subject of a new topic pleases me I'll read it. Boring or ever ongoing pro-con threads (see list above) will get a shift+delete from me. When I joined I thought the CQ Contest reflector was a contesters-helping-contesters thing. Maybe I could have learned something, or asked help or advice regarding a contesting issue. But lately there is a negative vibe there that makes contesting look like it's rotten. Which it isn't. But you need to actually call "CQ Contest" on the air and not send a mail there to find out.

Quite a while ago there was a post on the Acom amplifier reflector that its tube, a GU74b became hard to get, not to say almost impossible to find a replacement tube. All online sources were exhausted. I had planned to buy a spare tube "just in case" as it isn't really expensive. I remember seeing it priced around 90 Euro (140 US$) on a German web site. However, as happens with more of my plans, I was too late. Indeed it seems hard to get a GU74b these days. Then there was a Dutch ham who offered a few NOS (New Old Stock) GU74b for sale. I jumped on the case and ordered me a spare. Price was 120 Euro or about 180 US$. The only problem was the box didn't come through. It was sent on Friday but by the next weekend (8 days later): still no tube in sight. I began to think I was being ripped off. There was no indication to doubt the seller except the box's tardiness.

As I told you in my previous post, I was skipping RDXC. A painful decision: I love contesting and RDXC really is a great contests. A couple of things got in the way and my motivation was below zero. But staying at home would drive me nuts thinking there was this contest going on. On Saturday there was a major ham fair in Holland and a couple of locals had a seat left in the car. I invited myself and went along. Thanks for having me guys! At 7 AM the radio's WX forecast predicted heavy showers and T-storms so I was glad I didn't put up the antennas and went to the ham fair in stead.

There was a huge crowd as it really is a big fair so the first hour I didn't see anything but familiar faces. I spent the time shaking hands and talking to some friends I hadn't seen in a long time. You should go abroad to meet Belgian hams. The same situation occurs in Friedrichshafen. You travel more than 600 km across 2 or 3 countries to meet ON hams. Then I started a tour but I really suck at digging for gold among all the rubbish on display. And I wasn't looking for anything in particular. But an alert local friend ON4BHQ spotted a GU74b priced only 85 Euro. What to do? There was this tube I ordered that was supposed to be anywhere between PA and ON. But what if that tube didn't come through? Given the high demand and no offer situation I decided to buy the tube. Always a gamble, it might as well be a bad one. While losing 85 Euro would be a crying shame, I don't need to eat a slice of bread less in the end. But when I got home in the late afternoon, there was this box on the table containing the first tube I ordered. It was delivered on Saturday. So now I have TWO spare GU74b tubes.

I promised the XYL to cook dinner but I negotiated and went upstairs to check 20m. I wanted to make a handful of contacts anyway. With the tower down and the yagi only 9m high I didn't expect to work many DX. Some US guys were S7-S9 but many only S5 or less. So after about 50 QSO I called it a day and started my culinary tour of duty. There were some showers that night with heavy gusts so I was glad all my stuff was safely down. Sunday morning I had 2.5 hours left to the end of the contest and made 250 QSO in that time, averaging +100/h. My best rate all time was an 160 hr in RDXC 2006. It is possible in this contest if propagation cooperates which it clearly didn't in 2008. I never listened on 15m but I saw some hopeful spots about 10m yet I heard NOTHING. So WX and propagation, two of the main reasons for me to sit this one out, were indeed spoiling the fun. I really hope to be back in 2009.

This weekend is RDXC - one of my favorite contests. Yet I'm considering of taking a raincheck. Here's why:

• I've got so much on my mind for my job and I'm quite stressed out because of that. So I'm not in a ham radio mood. Haven't been for over 2 months for that matter.
• WX has been horrible lately and I'm really not looking forward to putting up tower and antennas in the pouring rain.
• We've had a major storm yesterday and have another minor one coming tomorrow. I count 5 storms (100km/h) already in less than 4 months. I really don't want to risk a repeat of the 2007 scenario where I needed to lower the antennas Sunday morning because of sudden gales. Forecast for the coming weekend is rain and wind...
• Conditions and propagation on HF, or the lack thereof. I've done both UBA contests and ARRL DX CW and worked little or no DX on 15m. I'm not even counting 10m. But 20m let us down too. I've read the comments about propagation in ARRL SSB. I don't want to end up on a weak 20m AGAIN after CQing in vain on 15m.

Each of these four reasons would not be a show stopper. However the sum of all this makes for a total lack of motivation to enter a great contest. My biggest problem is that it's the first time I have this feeling. I'm really a contest addict and I enter most major as well as minor contests. I'm trying to convince myself that I'm not a wuss or a slob because I skip one contest and that I'm not letting anyone down. My ever-so-lovely XYL put it pragmatically: it's a hobby and therefor it should be fun. If it's no fun, just don't do it. I hate it when she's right...

Quiet radio-wise. It hasn't been quiet at all on the WX side. We had a "modest storm" passing overnight from Friday to Saturday. Modest but still a storm. I couldn't sleep because of the noise the wind makes and the stress that implies. Will my tower and antennas survive? I'm pretty confident about the tower but the antennas? I spent the night processing that shoe box of incoming QSL and hit the couch at 3 AM with the TV on so that the audio would mask the wind. I awoke at 5 AM by a rain shower hitting the west side of the house. The wind was incredible. At about 6 AM I went upstairs to the shack to look through the window. Man, what was that? The yagi's elements were almost folded back. A snapshot would have shown a sort of Moxon rectangle! The wind settled by noon but was still strong enough. Everything has survived except the WARC dipole isn't exactly parallel to the yagi's boom anymore. It's not that bad - I can't even tell which one moved and which didn't. But if you look closely... I like to have everything perfectly aligned to perfection so one of these weeks I'll tilt over the tower and take a closer look to see what's up and how to fix it. A quick test with a 100W carrier shows no noticeable change in SWR so everything seems to be working. Each time there has been a storm, which is quite a few times in the last year and a half, I tell myself it's the worst I've ever seen. But this weekend truly was the worst...

My DXCC endorsement sticker arrived. There have been 200 DXCC officially confirmed in CW. Thanks to LotW. I think I've got another few dozens of confirmed entities to get credit for in the QSL card boxes but to look for those in the pile?

I received a mail from a US ham asking about my experiences with the HyPower loading coils for my 160m shorty dipole. My answer bounced because my ISP's mailserver is on his ISP's (ComCast) spam blacklist. The procedure to unlock the IP address is pretty obnoxious. I don't even know if I succeeded. I had the same with a LightBand (WorldBand) address but to unlock that was pretty simple and had immediate effect. Measures against spam are fine but there are practical limits. I also received an offer from another US ham to become my QSL manager. While I appreciate his offer and do keep whining here about the amount of QSL, I think there are stations that do need this service more than I do. Some weird DXCC's spring to mind where the "QSL buro" is either non-existing or not working properly. Now that Global QSL entered the scene my biggest problem (sticking labels and sorting cards) is gone. Speaking of QSL, this comes from the VP6DX website:

Late yesterday, Feb 21, the Ducie Island expedition submitted over data for over seven thousand VP6DX contacts to the ARRL robot. These contacts were with over 900 stations whose owners made financial contributions of at least five US dollars to the expedition through Feb 24.

If you grant me the liberty of interpreting the above quote in red, it seems that you can "buy" an early upload of your DX contacts to LotW. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. I even like the idea. Probably the VP6DX logs will end up on LotW anyway, just like the N8S logs gave me credit for Swains Island. But if you need a quick confirmation - buy it. The more common ways (QSL direct to manager or via the "buro") are still an option but the modern means offer the opportunity to get the job done in no time. VP6DX not only brought me a new DXCC since I missed the previous expeditions and not only did they have good signals into EU but also they seem to have a refreshing new way to use LotW. Usually I include a few US$ when I apply for a rare DXCC's QSL card. I get quite a few direct cards myself and I consider this a good way to give something back to the guys spending big bucks to bring us new and rare DX. However lately the trend is that there are "online QSL application facilities" on the DXpedition's web site. That means: fill in the form and you get your cards. No need to send yours. That implies: no Dollars to add. Sponsoring through PayPal becomes more and more popular except PayPal gets a small percentage of our contributions. But in the end I still prefer this to going to the post office hoping the cash will arrive and you'll get a card in return.