My 2015 summary

Last year was very successful in my ham radio career – over 5000 QSO. Unfortunately not everything was good… .

My TS-930SAT worked quite well, vertical  survived gusty wind over 120 km/h. Sloper wasn’t lucky but we fixed it and still works. Since July I’ve been using L-4B PA with about 700W out borrowed from our local club OK1KMG. Thanks to my family I spent more time with radio, even in contests. The best contest ever was OK/OM DX contest with almost 1000 QSO in SOAB HP category.

I’m not an award hunter but have a few awards in my collection. This year I spent a lot of time hunting California counties for WACC award. It’s very difficult to make a QSO with all of them. Right now I have worked with 28 counties, all on CW. Propagation is very bad and it’s very hard to work any station from California. It will take long time to QSO all 58 counties, QSL cards will be another story… .

Everything was fine but a few days after OK/OM DX contest TS-930 died. No output power at all. Something happened with power supply and it took whole PA section to silicon heaven. Last month was very sad for me, I had to use QRP FT-817. I like QRP, use it from SOTA but it’s not funny for daily QSO. I like rag-chewing and it’s almost impossible with a QRP and vertical antenna.  Our sons were ill and couldn’t sleep, is there anything better than spend almost whole night on 40M? It would be great with 100W or more but really sad when you hear stations from Ecuador, Chile and Brazil but they can’t hear you. They are calling CQ without response and my QRP was not enough.  

My 2015 activity in numbers:

CW QSO: 5,127
SSB QSO: 7
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Total: 5,134 QSO

Countries worked: 162

My ham radio activities are not only about being on the air. I released a few versions of CQRLOG, also made some improvements to HamQTH website. Next year, I’d like to spend more time visiting SOTA, make even more QSO and spend less time with a computer.  Thanks to my friend Martin, OK1RR I’m not QRP only anymore… . See you on the air also in 2016!