52 Week Challenge
Rather than have 1 post per week, I will be posting a weekly update on my progress in the 52 Week Challenge.
Week 1 - Design a QSL card
Job done. The QSL card on the front page is mine…ordered some and so I’ll have to use them now. The JoyPlot is the bit I’m keen on as it comes from the Joy Division album Unknown Pleasures which was done by Peter Saville. There’s a subtle red dot for the QTH and the font is Acid and the logo’s were just turned into single colour ones as opposed to multiple colours.
Week 2 - NCDXF Beacon Listening
Another successful week. I hooked up the IC7300 to Mrs G7KSE’s laptop (she wasn’t impressed) to Faros and let it do it’s thing with the attic antennas. None of which are ideal for beacon monitoring. However the results were really surprising. Stuff that I thought I wouldn’t hear came through quite clear. A typical plot is below
Week 3 - Make a contact with a different continent on 80m or 160m
This is going to be hard. Not because of anything weird, just I don’t have an 80m or 160m antenna. But, this did coincide with our fortnightly radio club meet up and a decent bit of propgation and a contact in Eurpoean Russia at 1285km. Not quite intercontinental but closer than I’ve been before.
Week4 - Research the history of your callsign
Pretty boring this one for me. I’m the only owner and I’ll be keeping it for life. The only interesting part is that there aren’t that many G7’s. That part was reserved for those who didn’t sit th emorse test and were confined to above 30MHz. Fine by me at th etime. Packet was more interesting as was SWL’ing.
Week 5 - Update your profile on QRZ.com, HamQTH.com, etc.
So I keep QSL pretty much up to date. But thgis website is another thing altogether. So the plan is to do a minor edit to QRZ and a focus on moving all the content that sits in all sorts of places onto this. thats a bit more useful I think.
Week 6 - Enter a contest
I do this infrequently, not because I’m keen to score points but for short ones of an hour or so I kind of enjoy it. I’ve dipped in and out of CWT for a while but really wanted to give UKAC another go. I did it quite a bit when the kids were younger but I’ve not done it for a while….so close to a CW contact. Might have to go and do it again if kid transport isn’t on
Week 7 - Where are the DXpeditions?
Probably not one to tax many people. DXWorld has the list. I just never really get to contact them . Can’t be bothered with the bear garden antics for this kind of contact. We’ll elave this one as is I think.