A big THANK YOU to Derek (ZD7CTO) on Saint Helena Island for being my 800th confirmed contact toward the ARRL DXCC Challenge Award. This was also my first contact with Saint Helena Island which made it doubly exciting.
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| Flag of Saint Helena Island |
Saint Helena Island is a remote volcanic tropical island 1,950 km (1,210 mi) west of the coast of south-western Africa, and 4,000 km (2,500 mi) east of Rio de Janeiro in South America. It is one of three constituent parts of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha.
80% there with only 200 more contacts to go to complete the ARRL DXCC Challenge Award. The award now seems within reach and achievable instead of distant and theoretical. There are still many DX locations that are relatively easy to reach representing holes on various bands to fill. For example, I need Vietnam on 17m. The easy to fill holes probably don't add up to 200 contacts though. That means I need to work the hard-to-reach stations which for me are in Africa and the Middle East.
I have an opportunity to add a good number of new DX contacts by working more on the 12 Meters band. The band is performing really well with the return of sunspots, and it has traditionally been one of the bands I am least active on. I now have a 12 Meters half-wave end-fed vertical antenna that I can tune up.
I only need to confirm two more contacts on LoTW to complete 40 Meters DXCC. I have a bunch of unconfirmed DX expedition contacts that will eventually be confirmed on LoTW. In the meantime, I continue hunting for additional 40m DX contacts who use the LoTW.
I have made several DX contacts recently with stations that don't confirm contacts via the Logbook of the World (LoTW). I remain hopeful that these radio amateurs will eventually see the light and join in the LoTW and upload our contacts. From time-to-time, this does happen.
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