If you’ve read last month’s post or are playing along yourself, you’ll be aware of the 52 Week Ham Radio Challenge. If not, hit up that link for the details!

This post covers the challenges from weeks 5-8, which were:

5. Update your profile on QRZ.com, HamQTH.com, etc.
6. Take part in a contest!
7. Find out which DXpeditions are active this week.
8. Encourage someone to take their ham radio license exam

Week 5 (27 Jan-2 Feb): Update your profile on QRZ.com, HamQTH.com, etc.

This was an easy one, and nothing much to say about it. I had already updated both my QRZ profile and my HamQTH profile with a new POTA photo and some changes to the details back in December, so there wasn’t much to do.

I did add a POTA widget to both though, this one created by WD4DAN.

Week 6 (3-9 Feb): Take part in a contest!

This week took a little more effort. I’m not much of a contester, having only tried an FT4 contest once, and exploited CQ WW SSB for personal gain. According to the Contest Calendar my choice was either CW, 80/160m bands, contests focussed on other countries, or CQ WPX RTTY.

I chose the latter; Saturday promised to be a cold and rainy day, and I wanted something I could casually work around my cooking and chores while also letting my wife study in peace. As you can imagine, between this schedule, a 20-30W power limit and a single wire antenna, I was absolutely not in this hoping to win anything. In fact if I didn’t come dead last, I would consider it a good result!

I’d never done RTTY before, so I had a quick practice on Friday night, followed by setting up some macros following online advice. I then got stuck in on Saturday morning, and followed it up now and again throughout the day when I had the chance.

fldigi software showing a contest QSO

The 40m band morning and evening were fairly productive, as was the 20m band all day. I did spend a while trying 10m, and grabbing Brazil was nice, but with my limited equipment compared to many contesters I struggled to be heard over the longer distances.

I made it to 50 contacts before the point our friends would start showing up for dinner, and chucked an extra 3 in there just in case any of the previous ones were wrongly logged.

Map of my contacts during CQ WPX RTTY

All in all it was a good experience, despite having computer/logging trouble several times which probably annoyed the more experienced contesters I was contacting. Would I do it again? I’m not sure. Even though part of the reason I like outdoor radio is that the QSOs tend to be more protocol than ragchew, I think contesting takes it too far in that direction for me, and it’s nice to share more than just a few numbers.

Week 7 (10-16 Feb): Find out which DXpeditions are active this week

I’ve never really thought much about DXpeditions before, much less tried to contact any of them—I have enough trouble getting through a normal special event station pile-up, let alone one that half the ham radio world is trying to talk to.

After someone on fedi mentioned it, I checked out the NG3K website list of ongoing and planned DXpeditions, which aggregates from a number of sources. There were more than I expected, with 18 in the list covering the weekend of 15-16th February. While I did a perfunctory check of some of the spots, I had other priorities so didn’t manage to contact any of them.

If I’m honest, I’m kind of torn on the concept of DXpeditions, especially after finding out that some of them have cost north of a million dollars. On the one hand, great for the participants having a cool adventure whether or not ham radio is involved; on the other, there’s something uneasily colonial about a bunch of comparatively rich white guys rocking up to a remote island chain, largely for their own fame and often without it being clear that the locals want them there.

A million dollars could buy a lot of equipment and training for local people instead, who might become interested in amateur radio and put their remote location “on the air” permanently. But no-one seems to fund-raise for that.

Week 8 (17-23 Feb): Encourage someone to take their ham radio license exam

Well, a pretty easy one this week. My occasional POTA logging assistant has been talking about getting her Foundation licence for about 9 months now, so I have yet again reminded her to read the book and practice with me. Unfortunately hanging out with friends is a bit more appealing than nerding out with your dad, but who knows, it might happen one day!

That’s it for this round-up, see you at the end of March for weeks 9 to 12.