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Here is my question, coming up next weekend is a very popular Russian contest for both CW and SSB the Russian DX contest. In the past, I have seen lots of participation on the bands regarding this contest and it has a very good turn out of Russian hams. Are you going to take part this year or boycott it? I have read both sides on this one, how ham radio and politics should be separate. Or ham ops also need to boycott as well to send a consistent message to Russia. 

This is the first time as a ham that I have run across this issue does participating in the contest show support for what Russia is doing or does it show we support Russian hams by participating and allowing world events to remain a separate issue?

What are your thoughts on the RSGB banning Russia and Belarus? 

Are you going to take part in the upcoming contest and if you are not a contest fan are you still contacting hams from Russia or Belarus?

Should the ARRL or RAC come up with a position either way? 

Finally, I would ask those who do comment to keep it polite and realize we all have an opinion that we may not agree with. I also will delete any inappropriate comments. I always think a good healthy debate is a good thing.

Here is my question, coming up next weekend is a very popular Russian contest for both CW and SSB the Russian DX contest. In the past, I have seen lots of participation on the bands regarding this contest and it has a very good turn out of Russian hams. Are you going to take part this year or boycott it? I have read both sides on this one, how ham radio and politics should be separate. Or ham ops also need to boycott as well to send a consistent message to Russia. 

This is the first time as a ham that I have run across this issue does participating in the contest show support for what Russia is doing or does it show we support Russian hams by participating and allowing world events to remain a separate issue?

What are your thoughts on the RSGB banning Russia and Belarus? 

Are you going to take part in the upcoming contest and if you are not a contest fan are you still contacting hams from Russia or Belarus?

Should the ARRL or RAC come up with a position either way? 

Finally, I would ask those who do comment to keep it polite and realize we all have an opinion that we may not agree with. I also will delete any inappropriate comments. I always think a good healthy debate is a good thing.

A little further down on 15m I heard 7X3WPL in Algeria. I checked out the call on QRZ.COM and this is a very active club called Sahara DX radio club. I gave them a call and I think they were not working split (can't remember) but there was a bit more of a pile-up. I decided to come back in a little while and see if things had calmed down. I came back about 5 minutes later and the log jam had cleared. I worked 7X3WPL and we exchanged signal reports. 

I then came across another Algerian station 7X4AN he was calling CQ with no answers but he was just above the noise floor so I put the APF on (audio peak filter) and this helped out a great deal. I gave him a call and we did some repeats but contact was made and he was in the log. After my contact, he was spotted and the pileup began. It was good I got in when I did. 

I also had CN8KD in Morocco booming in on 15m he was operating simplex and had a huge pileup. I did give it a go here and there but the number of stations calling him made it a waste of time for me to sit there and try. I moved on but he had a great signal at my QTH. 

DX Heat was also showing 10m to be pretty active. Now up to this point, I have seen many spots for 10m and when I have always tuned there at my end it is just plain dead, no signals at all. This time there was a spot for 7Q6M in Malawi. To my surprise, he was there and with a signal of S7! He was operating split and I could hear some of the stations trying to contact him but not many. I did try a few times but no luck but just hearing some DX on 10m was a huge step! 

Well, that was my afternoon on the radio. I was using my Icom 7610 at 100 watts into a multi-band End-Fed antenna about 30 feet off the ground. All contacts were CW with filter settings at 250 and now and then using the APF. Having the 2 independent receivers in the 7610 is a great help. I have VFO A in my left ear and VFO B in my right. When operating split it's a great help to hear both sides.

A little further down on 15m I heard 7X3WPL in Algeria. I checked out the call on QRZ.COM and this is a very active club called Sahara DX radio club. I gave them a call and I think they were not working split (can't remember) but there was a bit more of a pile-up. I decided to come back in a little while and see if things had calmed down. I came back about 5 minutes later and the log jam had cleared. I worked 7X3WPL and we exchanged signal reports. 

I then came across another Algerian station 7X4AN he was calling CQ with no answers but he was just above the noise floor so I put the APF on (audio peak filter) and this helped out a great deal. I gave him a call and we did some repeats but contact was made and he was in the log. After my contact, he was spotted and the pileup began. It was good I got in when I did. 

I also had CN8KD in Morocco booming in on 15m he was operating simplex and had a huge pileup. I did give it a go here and there but the number of stations calling him made it a waste of time for me to sit there and try. I moved on but he had a great signal at my QTH. 

DX Heat was also showing 10m to be pretty active. Now up to this point, I have seen many spots for 10m and when I have always tuned there at my end it is just plain dead, no signals at all. This time there was a spot for 7Q6M in Malawi. To my surprise, he was there and with a signal of S7! He was operating split and I could hear some of the stations trying to contact him but not many. I did try a few times but no luck but just hearing some DX on 10m was a huge step! 

Well, that was my afternoon on the radio. I was using my Icom 7610 at 100 watts into a multi-band End-Fed antenna about 30 feet off the ground. All contacts were CW with filter settings at 250 and now and then using the APF. Having the 2 independent receivers in the 7610 is a great help. I have VFO A in my left ear and VFO B in my right. When operating split it's a great help to hear both sides.

A busy time on 40m

This past weekend was the running of the ARRL International DX CW contest. If you are not a CW buff then there is also an ARRL International DX SSB contest March 5-6. These contests are great to log some very nice DX stations. I had a few interesting one-offs in this contest but more on that later. If you are a frequent reader of my blog you will know I have graduated from search and pounce contesting to holding my own and calling CQ contest or running as it's called. 

In this contest, DX stations are only allowed (to gain points) to contact stations in North America and likewise, North American stations can only contact DX stations. With this in mind, I knew that it would be interesting for me to be on the calling (running) CQ contest end of things. The contest is 48 hours in length and as always I have high hopes of getting into the action at the start, Friday at 8 pm. Well as always it's Friday and I just want to relax and take it easy. So as always I started Saturday morning and I was not disappointed the bands were very very busy with DX. 

Before beginning the contest I opened up my go-to CW practice program G4FON contest trainer. I find it to be very helpful to get my ears warmed to fast speed CW before going live! I spent about 15 minutes with G4FON and then it was off to the races. I started out sending CQ CONTEST at 31 WPM but found most stations coming back to me came back at around 24-30 WPM. I then slowed things down a bit as I don't want to be sent at speeds where no one wants to answer me.

 Saturday morning and afternoon went well and here is one of those "one-offs" I was mentioning earlier. On Saturday EA3OH spotted me on a cluster....all of a sudden all hell broke loose!! I called CQ CONTEST DE VE9KK and 10-15 stations (most all at once) were calling me. I had NEVER had this happen and I can understand what rare DX stations go through. If this was not a contest I would have worked split but as they say, it's not a perfect world. Once the first 3 seconds of what I called a CW mess finished then one of two stations would toss out their call. This would allow me to work with them and I continued to work this way. Sometimes a few stations waited and I could only get 2 or 3 letters of their call. I would send out those letters followed by ?. This worked very well but I assumed some stations just moved on and came back later. 

I was spotted about 4 different times and to be honest I felt overwhelmed and I started at times to make silly mistakes. Hitting incorrect keys so wrong call letters were sent, not hitting a correct key on my contest program so instead of my exchange being sent I sent TU (thank you). I could just imagine the look on the face of the station I was contacting. At one point I called Julie my wife into the room and with headphones removed I gave her a listen of the "pack. 

When I was spotted my hourly worked station count went to around 80-90 per hour. To be honest, those times were exhausting and at times my nerves got the best of me. I now fully understand one of the "how to's" to trying to work a popular station. Don't drop your call as soon as the station signs their call. He will only hear what I did....a CW mess. Wait until things clear, about 3 or so seconds and then drop your call in. This was how I heard stations calls or part of the calls. 

Here in New Brunswick, our COVID restrictions had just been lifted to the least restrictive level. This meant going to a restaurant was almost back to normal. Julie wanted to celebrate by us going out for dinner. That gave me a nice break from the contest BUT it's time for another "one-off". Once we arrived home from our dinner out almost right away I started to feel ill. YUP bad food from the restaurant, I was sick all Saturday night and Sunday until late afternoon. This cut into my contest time and evening in the afternoon while on the radio I was not feeling the greatest. 

Since we are on the subject of "one-offs" here we go again. I was on 40m (7.027) early Sunday evening and a station came back to me but it was not your standard exchange. I heard "PSE QSY UR ON CHAN 816 PSE QSY TU" I thought WHAT....so I sent "? ?" and the same message was sent. No worries I sent "SRI" and two short DIT's. After the contest, I did some online searches and came up with nothing. Does anyone know what this op was talking about I would be interested to know?

The final score

Because this was a contest with emphasis on DX I was pleased to have made some nice DX contacts such as: 

- Turkmenistan is number 23 on the DXCC list

- Congo 

- Japan 

- South Cook island 

- Liberia 

There is a nice piece of software that takes your ADIF file and shows you many visual options adventure radio.

Below is just one option the program gives you to view your ADIF file. All the contacts I made in the contest.