ARRL CW contest

Contest season starts next week with the ARRL 160m CW contest. Last year I wiped my "0" topband DXCC score and replaced it by "47".
This year I wont participate in the 160m contest but go full throtlle for the ARRL CW. in 2010 I made over 600 QSOs on 20m alone, using my hexbeam and 1KW. For this years edition I can use the biggun station of Ruddy, ON7DR. With a 6 elements KLM KT34-XA, an 1 element optibeam for 80m and vertikal with elevated radials on 40m I hope to finish top 3 in Belgium. To achieve this, at least 1750 QSOs are needed, so I challenged myself to break the 2000 barrier.
Another goal is to get the 80m WAS, there won't be many occasions to get it that easy.
My special thanks goes to Ruddy, ON7DR to let me use his antennas and infrastructure.
On the photo's you see some images of the biggun (ON standards) antennas. Note: The 40m yagi is down and replaced by 1 elm 80m element.

Happy new year

2010 was gone in a blink of en eye. Managed to work 16 new countries (to bad I missed ZL8X), the hexbeam is still working great with 2 years of trouble free operation, operated in some contests and finally was active /P and activated a few lighthouses in PA & F. Hope 2011 will be as great as last year and the future looks bright....will tell more about that later.
Last friday a fresh pile of cards was waiting for me at the clubstation. Not the big numbers we usually get, mostly Russian and Italian cards but got a few more rare cards as well. VR2XLN is the first card from Hong Kong that arrives via the buro, thanks Clive. Well known DXer/traveller DK7LX was signing S92LX in June 2009 from AF-029, thanks for the new IOTA and bandslot Georg. Finally, my friend Mark, ON4CCC was active from lighthouse BEL005 & BEL006. During a weekend nearly 1000 QSOs were made. I operated as guest operator and made a few hundred CW QSOs.  Hope you like the cards....Want to know more about the (near) future? Stay tuned for the next post.