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With all the excitement of moving into the new basement ham shack and operating in the Colorado QSO Party, I almost forgot to write this update blog posting on my 2012 Challenge to have at least one QSO per day.  I’m pleased to say that my QSO a Day challenge continues.

As I have stated in previous blog entries.  My own version of a QSO a Day challenge has helped me be more active on the bands and as a result has produced many positive results.

My DXCC count grew by three in the month of August with the addition of Puerto Rico, South Africa and Bolivia.  My DXCC count currently stands at 70 with approx. 65 confirmed.  Also, I’ve not missed a month in 2012 of adding at least one new DXCC to my count.  Hopefully this streak will continue throughout the rest of the year. 

The total QSO count for August is a bit low with only logging 81 Q’s.  But so much of my free time during the month was devoted to getting the new ham shack ready for equipment.  The balance of effort for this milestone versus the lack of Q’s in my opinion balances out.  One other way of looking at this stat.  During both the 2009 and 2010 calendar years, my total QSO count for each year was less than 81. But this isn’t about how many Q’s I can rack up in a month or a year.  It’s about quality over quantity. 

A few other noteworthy items for August 2012.  I operated the PSK63 mode for the very first time and worked the London 2012 Summer Olympics Special Event station 2O12L.  I also successfully worked W9IMS in August which was their third and final special event station in support of the Indy Motor Speedway events.  I’m looking forward to receiving the certificate for working all three race events in the same calendar year. 

Finally, I worked several 2m FM contacts in August in support of the annual Colorado 14’er event.  These contacts also increased my total SOTA chaser points to over 100.

I can’t remember if I shared the website I use to create the ADIF to Google map I display each month.  This web-tool is made possible by David Levine, K2DSL.  Thank you David!

The QSO breakdown for August is as follows:

Mode
Number QSO’s

JT65
68

SSB    
3

PSK31 
5

PSK63
1

2m FM 
4

Additional notes of interest:

DX Stations Worked in August – 13

New DX Entities in August – 3

Total QSO’s for 2012 – 937

Total consecutive QSO days – 244

Days left in 2012 – 122

Until next time…

73 de KD0BIK