Firstly, I’d like to wish everyone a very happy new year – all the best for great 2014.
The weather over the last few weeks has been dreadful, so thoughts are with anyone adversely affected. As I type, we have yet another storm (“Christine”) passing through with 125km/h winds just offshore to the south of us, thunder and lightning, local flooding and damage… We could do with a break now, please!
On the radio side, things have started off a little better. I’ve worked a couple of nice EME initials, i.e. ZS9MADIBA, commemorating the life and recent passing of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, and RA22AL, one of the 2014 Russian Winter Olympics special event stations.
The Quadrantids meteor shower was predicted to peak at around 19:30z on January 3rd and is one of my favourites, with a reliably strong peak, albeit usually fairly short-lived. I concentrated on long-distance skeds (e.g. > 2000km), especially with stations that I’ve tried and failed with before (special thanks to Dule, YU7TRI, and Zdravko, E77AR, for many previous attempts), and chased a few new squares that were closer in.
I was delighted with the results this year, completing with the following (bold = >2000km, red = new locator):
| 02/01/2014 | 09:56 | S58M | JN76JC | 1794km |
| 02/01/2014 | 12:43 | IK2DDR | JN55GN | 1544km |
| 03/01/2014 | 09:47 | I3MEK | JN55SJ | 1619km |
| 03/01/2014 | 13:21 | SM7THS | JO76WU | 1647km |
| 03/01/2014 | 15:03 | LY2BUU | KO15XH | 2141km |
| 03/01/2014 | 15:27 | LY2R | KO15VS | 2128km |
| 03/01/2014 | 16:39 | OH1MN | KP10FO | 2104km |
| 03/01/2014 | 17:37 | OH2NHP | KP10RN | 2157km |
| 03/01/2014 | 18:25 | OH4LA | KP20LG | 2232km |
| 03/01/2014 | 21:30 | DL8II | JN49GP | 1205km |
| 03/01/2014 | 21:39 | DH0LS | JO51UA | 1383km |
| 03/01/2014 | 21:41 | DL2RMC | JN59IF | 1369km |
| 03/01/2014 | 21:53 | S57VW | JN76HD | 1780km |
| 03/01/2014 | 21:54 | OK1TEH | JO70FD | 1596km |
| 03/01/2014 | 21:57 | DL3YEE | JO50LX | 1333km |
| 03/01/2014 | 22:23 | IW5ECS | JN53GQ | 1670km |
| 03/01/2014 | 22:58 | YU7TRI | KN04KV | 2272km |
| 03/01/2014 | 23:35 | E77AR | JN94AS | 2088km |
| 04/01/2014 | 09:48 | DG0JMB | JO60LV | 1472km |
Quadrantids 2014 QSO map from EI3KD, IO51vw
There were several exceptional contacts, including Dule, YU7TRI (KN04kv/2272km), who’s bursts can be heard in the links below:
Note 1: The second clip (with “RRRR”) was not automatically decoded by WSJT, probably due to significant doppler on the signal. It required a lot of manual mouse-clicking around the burst!
Note 2: There are a number of very short breaks in the audio, which were caused by a poor internet connection to the remote rig.
Reflections from Pasi, OH4LA (KP20LG/2232km) were also good, with eight bursts similar to this one:
Top burst prize goes to Timo, OH2NHP (KP10RN/2157km) for a great burst peaking S9, containing finals – a nice way to complete a QSO!
Links to the .wav files that can be opened directly in WSJT are here: YU7TRI_140103_223700.wav, YU7TRI_140103_225200.wav, OH4LA_140103_180300.wav, OH2NHP_140103_1737001.wav