LU5DX

Amateur Radio, HF propagation and other stuff

QSY to Solar Monitor

About me and this blog

This is LU5DX's blog. It is mainly devoted to Ham Radio contesting, Ham Radio News and HF propagation. I publish stuff now and then.


2014 CQ WW DX CW - CE3CT (Op LU5DX) SOAB HP


Personal
2014 CQ WW DX CW at CE3CT
I discovered Amateur radio at age 11 through my father Carlos, LU6EBY. He used to have his station at his workshop and occasionally I would tune in the bands in the old Yaesu FT 101. Shortly after that, I found and old Morse key and he explained to me what that was used for. He built an oscillator for me, so that I could start practicing the code.
I started making my first contacts with other hams on 80 meters, a month after I started practicing with that old key.
Then my father suggested I should try DX on 40 meters. I was magic to me! Only 80 Watts out and an inverted V at 90 feet and I was amazed at how far away the signal could travel.
I used to go there to work DX every afternoon and also on Saturdays and Sundays mornings I enjoyed working JA stations for several hours.
2014 CQ WW DX CW at CE3CT
In 1988 I was listening to 10 meters, it was a Saturday afternoon and the band was full of stations. Everybody was calling CQ Contest on SSB. The level of activity was overwhelming. I asked my father about that on-going craziness and he explained to me that it was the CQ WW DX SSB contest. The most important on-the-air competition in the world, sponsored by CQ Magazine.
He told me to search in his CQ Magazine archive to look for the rules.
I discovered that a month after the SSB contest the CW leg would take place, so I spent several hours listening to activity on the bands.
My father told me that one of his commercial HF equipment suppliers Jorge Bozzo, LU8DQ would be active on CW, so when I found him on 10 meters, his style of operation was really hypnotic to me.
Team LP1H 2008 ARRL INT'L SSB
I spent several hours listening to him running EU and later on that day US stations. He was signing LT8WW. I waited for the results of the contest in CQ Magazine, but he was left out of the results. Then that operation was incorrectly assigned to other operator...
Next year in 1989, I decided that I would enter CQ WW DX CW on 10 meters. I did that with the same straight key I was using to make contacts on a daily basis, and of course using the trusty FT 101. What an experience! I managed to work 1073 Qs in 29 zones and 85 countries. The contesting bug had bitten me!
From that point on I started entering as many Amateur Radio Contests as time permits. Nowadays, I mainly enter 4-5 contests a year.
2014 CQ WPX CW at LT1F
I enjoy operating either in multi op categories with friends or single Op. However,  in the case of CQ WW DX CW I enjoy it the most in SOAB or SOAB(A).
Friends like LU5HM (LP1H) and Roberto CE3CT are kind enough to let me re-arrange the layout of their stations to operate SO2R. (Single Op with two radios). SO2R is the most fun you can have in a contest!
I had the chance to meet friends from around the world. That is the most amazing thing about this beautiful hobby.
I had the privilege to guest-operate from: LU2DJY, LU6EBY, LU4FM, ZP0Y, LU1IV, DA0FF, LU7DW, S50Q, S522R (WRTC 2000), LT1F, LU6DK, LU3HY (LT0H), PW5A (WRTC 2006), LR2F, AY8A (LU8ADX), LW9EOC, ZW5B, LP1HCW5W, CE3CT and many others.
2011 ARR DX CW at CW5W
In 2014 I received an invitation from Randy K5ZD to join the CQ WW Contest Committee. I didn't know the amount of work that takes place behind the scenes to have results published right on time. It is really nice and comforting for me to have the chance to help a little in whatever I can.
Tech Stuff The blog is hosted in Google's infrastructure (using Blogger) and some pages are hosted in Google App Engine. For charting I use Google Visualization API. For comments I use a Disqus widget. And for theming I use Twitter Bootstrap. Data for charts is stored in either Google Fusion Tables, Google Cloud SQL, or simply in Google Spreadsheets in Google Docs.

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