Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Does the early bird get the DX...it's said he gets the worm.

Last Friday we had a "situation" at work that had me working until about 3 a.m. and when I got home I was still all pumped from work and was not ready to jump into bed. The thought came to me about getting on the radio and seeing what DX pileups were out there. I had heard of folks getting on in the wee hours of the morning and catching some rare DX. With great expectations  I turned the radio on....10m dead, 15m dead, 17 and 30 same thing!! Alas on 40m my Elecraft P3 showed some faint signals, I spun the dial to the frequency only to find it was some very weak State side stations. Not that there is anything wrong with that but it's kinda a let down when one is anticipating WILD DX!!!

I did not check the propagation that morning so there could had been a storm brewing or maybe everyone but me was in bed sleeping. As I have blogged about in the past I am trying to get my ARRL Diamond Challenge award (and doing it QRP) at this point I am at 81 DXCC contacts. You only have one year to accomplish this goal and it's now almost December!!!  Having said that I am "really" at 95 DXCC's for 2012 according to Club log. The catch is the ARRL for the Diamond award is not counting ALL DXCC on the list. It is a long story but it's just how the ARRL perculates. I was hoping to bring my K2 or my newly acquired KX3 to work as I was wanting to get some operating time in before work. I am usually in around 5:30 in the morning and I have until 7 to make some contacts. With my Saturday mornings performance I am not to sure if bringing  the rig would be a waste of time.....any ideas out there???

4 comments:

Dick said...

Hi Mike, I wouldn't judge 3AM DX possibilities during this period of poor prop. I don't know much about it, but it seems operators are sleeping more and letting auto digi-modes do the midnight-shift radio watch-keeping. 73 Dick

VE9KK said...

Hello Dick, I was thinking the same about the poor propagation being the reason as well. I hope the sun gods turn a kind check to us by the next weekend when the ARRL CW contest is on.....:)

srmorrison1 said...

Mike,
Good morning from Shell Beach. Yes, odds are it was propagation with SFI numbers cycling to real highs then real lows, perhaps, even, telegraphing the beginning of Cycle 24 winding down? I'd suggest looking at the 3 day forecast when planning to operate portable. I'm thinking about portable operations for the Ten Meter contest scheduled for next weekend.
73, Scot KA3DRR

VE9KK said...

Good evening Scot from the cold and almost snowy north!!! I was checking out the contests on WA7BNM's contesting calender site and did notice the 10m contest coming up soon. Good old 10m has been very good to me with DXCC's.
Have a great weekend Scot.
Mike