My Most Recent QSO's

Thursday, June 16, 2011

EG8LP Canary Islands

"The Amateur Radio Union of Las Palmas has the honor to provide assistance to the City of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in the promotion to radio amateurs around the world. This is why this partnership works with the spread of the Application for European Cultural City 2016 with the special callsign EG8LP."



EG8LP is a special event station in the Canary Islands and the only station I heard on the entire band this evening.  (other than W1AW) ...but I was able to work him!  There's a very interesting "video" (captions in English) explaining the celebration of this European City Cultural Event via their website.  You should take the time to view it by "cutting and pasting" the call sign (EG8LP)  into the search engine of the QRZ.com website. It's very interesting, and hopefully,  a vision of the future for us.

I did something rare for me this evening. I confirmed the call sign through a DX Cluster, and somehow, I don't feel the sense of accomplishment, which I normally have when making a DX contact. Although I coped the call correctly (he was sending very fast), and I returned my call at better than 20 wpm, I find the excitement of chasing DX diminished when watching "DX" scroll down the long list on the cluster. Seeing the calls and the spotters, for me at least, takes the challenge out of working DX.

I have a fear of the bands "going to pot" since reading about the latest sunspot forecasts. (pretty dismal) Tonight's contact makes number 93 for me and the thought of a dismal ending of DX'ing (without making my goal of 100 contacts) is a bit too much to bear.

Still, the DX Cluster makes it almost "to easy" and I don't plan to rely on it anymore. 

1 comment:

Bert, PA1B said...

Hello John, Cherish this wonderful moment, 93 in the log and 7 to go. Spots or no spots, I enjoy both sunshine and rain, so I am always happy. If a station wants to work with lightning speed, so be it. What if you were his 93th QSO of that day. LOL
Good luck in QRP, 73, Bert