In front of a shortwave rig, today, you only had to pick up your flavor. The JARTS contest, the Jamboree On The Air, and the Worked All Germany contest, plus the ongoing XX9, T30 and 3B9 DXpeditions, provided enough options for a full  radio day. Like it often happens to me, I wnet for a bit of everything. On teletype, I worked my first UA0 ever (UA0AYA, to be sharp), and a couple of UN6 (which makes Read more →

Yours truly isn’t too much into the Olympic Games hype (exception made for the special callsigns related to the even, which is fun to work), but amateur radio has its sporting side, so title for this post is quite a forced option. Straight to the point, now: I got lately results for Helvetia Contest 2012, held last April, which I was glad to join as a resident in a bordering region, and the proud owner of a swiss Read more →

Any serious DXer can’t forget today is “day one” of the activity from Sovereign Military Order of Malta, 1A0C. Woke up a bit late (7.30 UTC), and at first I got someway disappointed. The cluster reported Giorgio, Francesco, Gabriele and the rest of the international team on 40, 20 and 15 meters. I couldn’t hear them on any of these frequencies, and I noticed a generally high noise floor (I have Read more →

It’s not impossible, as I’ve yet to find something falling completely out of radio boundaries, but it’s neither usual to receive strong signals from a distance on higher bands at late night. With the heat wave rocking my sleep (around 27° C inside home), last night I decided to give a go to the radios. You can guess my surprise in finding 20 meters quite alive at 01.30 UTC. I told myself Read more →

Everyone who played intelligently with a radio knows that, as low as you move on the frequency side, you need an horizontally polarized antenna to be heard well at a distance. That’s what I learnt as an SWL, and that’s what my “Fishing rod” proved me, with not the best performance on 80 meters. So, I decided to fill – at least on the listening side – this gap, and, since my space allows, I stretched a wire from Read more →

It happened me to hear WPX or CQ WW, in the past, but this was the first time I had the chance to launch myself in the struggle, being licensed since three months. First decision I took was to avoid any extra equipment: on oct 29th and 30th I wouldn’t have had all the time needed to devote myself completely to the contest. So, I decided I would go – as we say in Italian – in “what comes will be taken” mode. Expectations Read more →