The International Radio Club in the International Telecommunications Union, Geneva counts as a separate country in the DXCC program.
Their call sign 4U1ITU is activated regularly, but has been absent from 160 Meters until now.
It took an hour of calling to get their attention through the EU Wall, no easy task since their signals were quite weak with hordes of stations calling.
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This was country #173 worked on 160 Meters.
Update: The Postman delivered the QSL card on January 6., 2012.
They use the call sign 7Q7GM and battle high noise and frequent power cuts.
I have called them for hours on end on 160 Meters without any luck. It was also clear that their noise level must have been very high, as they did not answer any of the dozens of calling stations.
Last night the noise on their end must have subsided and once more the Arctic King showed his power.
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My totals now stand at 172 Countries Worked and 166 Countries Confirmed on Top Band.
Due to the recent sun spot minimum more or less since 2003, there has been little activity on 10-Meters and almost no activity from my station.
Yngvi´s score was 5 times higher than last year´s top score in this category from Europe and his QSO total is similar to what Multi-Operator stations in the US and top stations in the Caribbean accomplished this year.
KC1XX had 3061 QSO’s, the K3LR super station had 3033 QSOs on 10 meters and W2GD made 3356 contacts on 10 meters from P40W in Aruba to give a few examples from the contest this past weekend. TF4X´s 3124 QSOs compares very favorably considering the difference in propagation in the frigid north to what stations further south experience.
Most of the contest was recorded, both the audio and the 10 Meter Band spectrum using a Perseus SDR.
Here is a recording made on Sunday:
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Andrey, DL/KL1A sent me a link to a recording he made of TF4X in the Contest.
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Yngvi wrote in his Soap Box comments :
“Had a great time. Ten showed a bit of life but still big room for
improvement, e.g. no JA’s. Being able to transmit to many Rhombics
while selecting others for reception is a big plus. The performance
of the station was excellent apart from a 40 min. electricity outage
due to a fault at the power company. Thor’s station keeps improving
year by year. Due to poor conditions in the past few years there has
not been much activity from the station on ten meters. We now have
proof that the Rhombics do a great job on that band as well. “
It’s not all work and no play, we also take time to enjoy good food and wine, it has become a tradition that my visitors contribute to the food over the weekend in exchange for the use of the station.
On Thursday I put a leg of Mountain Lamb into the oven to slow cook for 24 hours at 60°C – it turned out absolutely magnificent – I will be using this method often in the future.
Yngvi generously brought a very nice aged T-Bone steak 5cm thick which I prepared in my gourmet kitchen for Saturday’s evening meal.
The raw T-Bone steak ready to cook
Ready to eat!
Perfect ! – details of cooking method provided on request.
The best T-Bone in the Arctic.
Sunday morning we had Spinach Shakshukah and in the evening slow cooked chicken…all dishes washed down with conservative amounts of fine wines.
Despite generally poor conditions on 160 Meters due to the recent Aurora, I heard TL0CW in Bangui, Central African Republic last night.
He is staying in Bangui for only one week from the 25th of October, so it was important that I make the QSO since TL is quite rare DX.
Rudi, DK7PE is on a one man DXpedition around the world and has visited 152 countries and operated from 127 countries!
I was unable to raise him last night, but tonight his signals were slightly stronger and I became convinced I would eventually get through the pile up of stations from Japan, Asia, Europe and the USA who were calling him by the thousands.
At times it was quite obvious that he was having reception difficulties due to QRN, since he would not come back to any of the callers.
It took about two hours of calling to get through, thanks to the magnificent signal of the Arctic King.
This is my 160 meter entity number 170 worked – I now have 166 entities confirmed.
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Southern Sudan is being activated as a new entity with the call sign ST0R.
Pile ups have been fierce but I was able to work them on 30 Meters.
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And on 40 Meters SSB:
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The pile ups have been very chaotic and unruly, it seems that constant calling is in vogue and in addition extremely bad behavior may be observed on the transmit frequency of the DXpedition making copy extremely difficult. On top of all this jammers are out in force as well, creating a most shameful spectacle.
I agree with Andrey, RW3AH in his post, that this is probably the result of dropping the morse code requirement in Amateur Radio licensing.
We now have many former CB freebanders within our ranks who bring their criminal mindset to our hobby now that the only requirement for an Amateur Radio licence is enough money to buy a radio.
To the ST0R team: Thank you for going there and making the effort and thanks for all the excitement!
I found ST0R on 20 Meter CW in a free for all huge pile up this morning. It took only a couple of calls to get into the log and since it took a few tries to correct my call, I was greeted by name by the operator (RA9USU)
ST0R on 20M CW:
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The recording runs for a minute after the QSO to give an idea of the massive pile up.
Here is a video from RW3AH of the ST0R 20m pile up:
Wednesday July 27.: This morning they were quite light on 17 Meters, but I decided to try anyway. When I heard the operator say UP8 I immediately gave my call a few times on that frequency which resulted in the valuable contact.
ST0R on 17M CW:
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I spent a long time calling ST0R on 80 Meters when they first came on, but without a dedicated 80 Meter antenna I am simply not making it through the EU wall.
Later I was ready when they started operation on 40 Meters CW and snagged them within a minute of calling. The operator started listening low in the band moving slightly up with each QSO – such predictable operating makes it relatively easy to work the DXpedition – good work. (RA9USU).
ST0R on 40M CW
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This is what the pile up looked like on the display of my SDR receiver. (click on image to see it full size)
Thursday, July 28:
Things seem to be calming down a bit. After monitoring 17 Meters SSB for most of the day, their signals improved a bit and it only took a couple of calls to make the log.
ST0R on 17 Meters SSB:
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They have now been QRV on 80 Meters for a couple of nights. I have called them endlessly without luck since I do not have a dedicated antenna for 80 Meters (under construction – will hopefully be ready this winter) and have been using my USA Rhombic which has a poor radiation pattern at such a low frequency although it accepts the power readily.
I heard TF3SG work them – congratulations Guðmundur! – and it took me an hour more to finally work them.
ST0R 80M CW:
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ST0R 20M SSB:
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Now I am waiting for them to show up on Top Band and if I can contact them there I will be well pleased.
Just before going to sleep, I decided to check 160 meters.
Only one very faint signal was heard on the whole band and a closer listen revealed that it was 9L5MS in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
A quick look at my log showed that I already had 9L confirmed on Top Band, but I decided to test the power of the Arctic King and call them anyway since they did not have many callers.
I am not really surprised anymore at the power of the Arctic King – what marvellous DX!
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It seems it is still worthwhile to keep an eye or a big ear on Top Band.
This is what their signals sound like in the Arctic.
VU4PB on 17 Meters:
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VU4PB on 15 Meters:
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