REF And ARRL DX Phone Cotest Ops

Back to back contests, love it. For the past two weekends I have been on the air working contests. The first the REF contest was a fairly successful venture, 16 contacts, 3 on 20 and the rest on 15 Metres netted a score of 720.

This past weekend was even better 86 contacts for a score of 15K and some new countries on the following bands 40, 20, 15 and 10. I was very pleased to work KP2, KP4, KG4 and V2 on 10 but, the highlight was 15 metres. The conditions were outstanding and I worked some really good DX. Honduras the Bahamas and Madeira Island CT3 are in the contest log. But, the prize QSO was between 6 and 7 am on Sunday when I worked TF3W out of Iceland.

I even worked HB9CXZ the owner of a remote I used to use often in Edmonton when I was VE6TJL. I was aiming for 100 contacts but, had some work to do in the afternoon hours and settled for the 86 contacts. I feel that I had a great showing regardless of the fact that i was 14 shy of the 100 I wanted in QSOs. At the end of this month is the the CQWPX phone contest and yes I will be taking a run at this contest.

KP2 U.S. Virgin Islands
KG4 Guantanamo Bay
KP4 Puerto Rico
V2 Antigua

The above are the first ever DX contacts for me on 10 metres and I have been a ham for 20+ years.

73 Cliff VA2UTC