2012 Challenge – Another Month Down
Another month in the logbook and a QSO each day in 2012 has been successfully worked and logged. This goal has truly been a lot of fun and while I still have a ways to go, I can honestly say that I’m focused to make sure I successfully complete it.
July started out a bit slow. The first week of July my wife and I were on a staycation (stay at home vacation) and I spent much of that week working on the new basement ham shack. I did take one day and completed a SOTA activation of Mt. Evans. During my staycation, I managed to install the tile flooring and complete the baseboard trim work in the shack.
Around the middle point of the month I had not worked any new DX and I was concerned that July would come and go and be the first month in 2012 where I didn’t work at least one new DX entity. But, I shouldn’t have worried…on 15 July I was active in the shack and I heard and worked Poland and before I knew it I had also worked and logged Ecuador, Costa Rica and Chile all within about an hour. Then later in July, 20 July…I worked Honduras for the first time. So July earned me five new DX and a grand total of 19 new DX entities logged for 2012. My total DXCC count is 66. With about 60 confirmed.
My QSO breakdown for July produced a higher ratio of SSB QSO’s compared to JT65. I’ve actively worked more contest QSO’s and more special event stations in July. While I didn’t work any PSK or RTTY in July, I did manage one 2m FM QSO. I don’t usually log 2m QSO’s, but the one 2m FM QSO I logged was a station I chased on a local Colorado SOTA summit. Since I logged that QSO for SOTA Chaser points, I also logged it in my main logbook.
The QSO breakdown for July is as follows:
Mode
Number QSO’s
JT65
35
SSB
62
PSK31
0
2m FM
1
Additional notes of interest:
DX Stations Worked in July – 16
New DX Entities in July – 5
Total QSO’s for 2012 – 856
Total consecutive QSO days – 213
Days left in 2012 – 153
Until next time…
73 de KD0BIK