A great, enjoyable afternoon and small JA3-EME-Meeting happened in Kyoto / Japan today with my friends (left to right) Taka-san JP3EXR (2m EME), Koji-san JE3GRQ (6m/2m EME), myself and Kay-san JH3AZC (2m/23cm EME).
In addition to the large amateur radio fairs in Friedrichshafen / Germany and Dayton / USA, the Tokyo Ham Fair in Japan is by far the largest of these exhibitions. In 2024, it recorded a new record with around 45,000 visitors.
I had long planned to travel to Japan and visit the Ham Fair. This year, it finally worked out. The new exhibition hall “ARIAKE GYM-EX” is located directly on the Pacific and is convenient and easy to reach by public transport.
The following pictures give a small impression of this great exhibition.
It was a great pleasure for me to meet many well-known DX’ers in person and to make new friends.
See you in Tokyo or see you again on one of the amateur radio bands.
During my stay in Bangkok in November 2023, I had the opportunity to meet probably the most famous and successful radio amateur in Asia: Champ E21EIC and his lovely wife Goi, E20NKB.
Champ is not only known by his own call sign, but also by E2A, under which he and his crew wins almost every major contest in Asia. In addition, he is probably known to most active DXers through many DX expeditions like XW1IC, XW4XR, 3W3B, OJ0A, HS60RAST to name just a few.
Thank you Champ and Goi for the lovely day and the meal together. We’ll meet again soon!
After a break of a few years, I took again part in my favorite contest, the “Marconi Contest VHF” this last weekend. In just a few hours on Saturday evening and Sunday morning, a total of 120 QSOs and a total of abt. 43,000 points with an average of 363 km/QSO were made. And it was a lot of fun working old friends and pounding the brass again!
These are the best DX contacts:
Nice surprise: The ARRL DXCC Challenge Medallion 2500 was in the mailbox today. Just a small round sticker, but so much time and work went into it. Challenge 2500 means an average of 250 DXCC Entities on each of the 10 Bands from 160m to 6m. The next and final level is 3000, but I’m out of business now. Unfortunately it is more difficult nowadays to get the confirmation for a QSO than to make the contact itself. Not to mention the cost of requesting QSL cards or LotW confirmations. Now it has a dignified place on the wall and will remind me of so many nice contacts.
50 MHz: Also the month of July brought some nice Es openings to Japan and minor openings to Florida and, after a very long time, again to Brazil. No new DXCC could be worked in July.
Overall the year 2020 ended up with 9 new DXCC Entities. Particularly worth mentioning are those 82 stations from Japan, never worked that much before on the Magic Band.
144 MHz: Regarding Sporadic E July was also a disappointed month. Only OH7RJ was heard and worked during a very short opening on July 3rd.
50 MHz: Seasonally 6m was open every day within Europe. In addition, there were very long openings to Asia and North America. Towards the US and Canada, the terrain of my QTH rises to 10 degrees elevation, so at all again only a few stations from the west have been heard and worked.
In total, six new DXCC entities could be worked in May: 4S7VG (Sri Lanka), BU2EL (Taiwan), DU1IST (Philippines), HL2ZN (South Korea), JT1CO (Mongolia) and VR2XYL (Hong Kong).
144 MHz: Regarding Sporadic E, this June was a real disappointment. Only on June 21st there was a brief opening to the east and just two contacts could be logged. RU3GX, R3KBF, UA3QHF were heard only.
50 MHz: After a few short band openings in April within Europe, things really got going in May. The first intercontinental opening for me took place this year on May 18 towards Asia, especially Japan and China. On May 25th XV1X suddenly appeared out of nowhere and brought the first new DXCC of the season.
Since this QTH is unfortunately not working so well to the west, only a few contacts were made into the Caribbean on May 29th. The pileup around various stations from Jamaica was huge and luckily 9Z4Y could be logged as another new country.
For the first time ever Saudi Arabia showed up on 6m and 7X1SJ was the first one I got among others.
In total, three new DXCC entities could be worked in May: 7X1SJ (Saudi Arabia), 9Y4D (Trinidad & Tobago) and XV1X (Vietnam).
144 MHz: The first very short band opening 2020 at 144 MHz from here to TA and SV took place on May 25th. Just two stations could be heard and worked.
The next day the band opened towards east into UA4 and UA6. As the center of reflection was very far to the east, stations from the Saxony area were, as so often, clearly preferred. Nevertheless UA4ALQ was worked over a distance of 2.437 km.
The best ES opening of the month took place on May 29th. Spanish stations could be heard in CW, SSB and FT8 for hours. The 2m band sounded like shortwave. This time I focused in particular on new squares and DXCC and with CN8LI in Morocco DXCC # 95 came into the log. What a great day!
Also the month of July brought some nice Es openings to Asia as well to North America. Unfortunately, due to geographical reasons, the midwest of the USA could not be reached again from here. On July 24 at around 8:00 am my signal was heard from a VK3 station. Unfortunately, there was no 2-way-QSO this time.
In total, another three new DXCC entities could be added on 50 MHz in July: 4L/DL7ZM (Georgia), BA4MY (China) and JW7QIA (Svalbard). Thanks to David, DL7ZM and Peter, LA7QIA for their great DX-Peditions!
For ES on 2m this month see further below (Opening 23.07.2019)
The day was quiet on 6m as the band opened up to Africa in the afternoon, July 23, 2019. I was busy watching for a TU2 station from Ivory Coast and a look to the MUF showed some red spots in southern France, means the MUF was above 140 MHz!
Time to switch to 144 MHz. Not too late and after some CQ-calls CT1FJW popped in, followed by other stations from Portugal. And there was another caller in between – could I trust my eyes? I thought my heart stopped beating. D41CV from Cape Verde was calling me! 15 second periodes for FT8-mode could be sooo long, would the propagations be stable enough to finish? Yes they were and then it was done: D41CV was worked on 144 MHz via Sporadic E plus Tropo Extension over an unbelievable distance of 4.966 km (3,086 mi), also setting a new Region I Distance Record! The signal of D41CV war copied for about less than 5 minutes.
If we have a closer look at the Hepburn Tropo Index, we can find the highest value of 10+ for the area west of Africa just between the Canary and Cape Verde Islands. This maritime tropospheric ducting widens the range of the massive Sporadic E Opening between Germany and EA8. What a lucky constellation today!
Thanks Monteverde Contest Team Club for calling and for this incredible QSO and Record!
Thanks to EI7GL who made a very nice analysis about this remarkable contact, see here.
Heard but not worked were CT1BYM -9, EA1HRR -6 and EA8TJ -7.