This page is archived. It was last modified in January 2010 and it will probably not be updated.
Summary
In my review of 2008, I remarked that I should be starting a new job in 2009, and that sunspots should be increasing during the year. At the time, I felt safe making these predictions but, as it turns out, sunspots have only started to increase in the last couple of months. I also had a problem with my PhD which has prevented me from finishing as soon as expected, so I could not start a job during this year, either. The result of this is that my QSO totals for the year are, unfortunately, lower this year than they have been for many years.
Some of the highlights for me, however, have been being part of the annual CQ WW DX SSB contest at M4A in October, our DXpedition to Culatra Island, Portugal in September and a SOTA activity from Snowdonia in August. Other contests and DXpeditions are linked in the news, below.
This year I have also been continuing my computing efforts for the hobby. The IOTA website, which I develop, has continued to undergo maintainance and some new code has been written. In addition, in June, I assisted the Dartmoor Radio Club's race communications for the Dartmoor Discovery by mapping runner positions in Google Earth and development of /qsos/, my innovative web-based logbook (which will shortly be coming out of beta testing) has continued.
As a nice surprise to end 2009, I was pleased to have a QSO with Louis M6LJK on New Year's Eve. He was one of the young Scouts whom I helped introduce to radio at my old Scout Troop in January and it was a real pleasure to be his first ever QSO at the end of the year.
Looking forward to 2010, I will be starting a new job in May, which is located in Cambridge, so I should have better access to radios at the Cambridge University Wireless Society shack. With sunspots finally increasing, my DXCC score will hopefully start to rise once more.
Between 01-01-2009 and 31-12-2009, I made 243 QSOs to 41 DXCC entities (countries).
QSO totals by band/mode
--------------------- ------- Raw Totals Band % --------------------- ------- BAND CW PH DATA ---- -- -- ---- LF 0 0 0 0 160m 1 1 0 0.8 80m 10 1 0 4.5 40m 23 22 0 18.5 30m 0 0 0 0 20m 87 25 0 46.1 17m 0 1 0 0.4 15m 31 6 0 15.2 12m 0 0 0 0 10m 8 1 0 3.7 6m 0 2 0 0.8 VHF 0 24 0 9.9 --------------------- Mode %: 65.8 34.2 0
DXCC totals by band/mode
BAND CW PH DATA TOTAL ---- -- -- ---- ----- LF 0 0 0 0 160m 1 1 0 2 80m 8 1 0 9 40m 15 3 0 18 30m 0 0 0 0 20m 23 16 0 39 17m 0 1 0 1 15m 16 6 0 22 12m 0 0 0 0 10m 6 1 0 7 6m 0 2 0 2 VHF 0 3 0 3
Top 10 DXCC entities
All-time new DXCC Entities in 2009
The following stations were all-time new DXCCs for me:
QSOs by Month for 2009
News from 2009
- Year in Review 2008
During 2008, I made a total of 1164 radio contacts as M0BLF, in 83 DXCC entities.
1 January 2009 - RDXC Contest Results
The results from the Russian DX Contest held on 15th/16th March 2008 were released at the end of December 2008. I came 54th of 254 entries in the SOSB/20 category, 47th of 182 in Europe. After log-checking, I had 335 QSOs, giving a total of 181,104 points, a reduction of some 19% from the claimed score.
3 January 2009 - 2kg of bureau QSL cards sent
I today posted nearly 2kg of QSL cards to the QSL bureau, only two months after the last 1kg load. In addition, recent logs for both M0BLF and M4A have been uploaded to LoTW.
7 January 2009 - Dartmoor Radio Rally
Sorry I've been rather QRT of late - PhD thesis is getting near completion and has been taking over my life. Today was the annual Dartmoor Radio Rally, however, and I was helping out as usual. Photos are on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/dnas2/sets/72157617689720488/ and, if you missed last year's video of the rally on YouTube, a reminder that it is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYeM-KqedZs
4 May 2009 - CQ WPX CW Contest
I made 101 QSOs in the CW leg of the CQ WPX contest.
31 May 2009 - DXpedition to Ilha Barreta (EU-145) Announced
I will be one of a large group of operators activation Ilha Barreta, off the coast of Faro in Portugal, on 4th-6th September 2009.
29 August 2009 - Successful DXpedition to Ilha Culatra (EU-145)
Our DXpedition to the Ilha Culatra (EU-145) on 5th-6th September was a big success, with over 400 QSOs made.
1 November 2009 - CQ WW DX SSB 2008: M4A win First Place M/S England
Received a certificate this morning: M4A got 1st place in England, Multi-Single in CQ WW DX SSB 2008.
1 November 2009 - CQ WW DX SSB 2009: M4A
I was one of 14 team members at M4A for the CQ WW DX SSB Contest. Claimed score is 4,586,025 points from 3,566 QSOs.
1 November 2009 - MW0BLF/P August 2009: Logs now in SOTA database
With apologies for the delay (I had misplaced one of the bits of paper I logged on), the logs from my SOTA activations in Snowdonia in August are now on the SOTA website. They can also be browsed and searched on my site.
24 November 2009 - G7WJF Log now available
It has been a big project to type up over 1500 QSOs recorded on paper, but the logs for my old 'class B' callsign, G7WJF, are now available to browse and to search on my site. I held this callsign from 1996 until 2000 (although most of my QSOs from 1998 onwards were made with my current M0BLF callsign).
24 November 2009 - VE2/M0BLF/P and W1/M0BLF/P (2003) log-search added
My logs from my 2003 DXpedition to the islands of the St. Lawrence Passage and US Eastern seaboard are now online and searchable. I have also added a direct link for requesting bureau QSL cards to all log search results on my site.
28 November 2009 - MM0BLF/P IOTA+SOTA Sept 2004: Logs online
Log search from my IOTA and SOTA operations in September 2004 is now available.
5 December 2009
