Elecraft announce new products for Dayton 2016:

Elecraft announced two new products for Dayton 2016.  A new radio, the KX2, smaller and lighter than the KX3 and the k-Pod.  Just what DXers and contester's using Elecraft K3/K3S radios have been after for a long time. Some have designed their own or tried to get computer devices like the Griffin control knob through software.

When you have optimized you station, antennas and software.  Got the human skills  to the point where you can cannot eek out any more performance there is very little left. The k-Pod gives the Elecraft user an extra edge.  How, ergonomics  When running a pile up you can constantly be back and forth to the RIT control.  The k-Pod moves the RIT to beside your left hand right beside the keyboard.  For us right handed users the left hand looks after the RIT and the right hand can type.

2016 Contests:

Its almost that time again.  CQWW SSB is just a week away as I write this.  I am hoping to get up a dedicated 40m dipole up for this contest and hope it will provide some useful contacts on 40m the the 80 doublet does not. The proof will be in the number of Q's on 40m and where they come from. In November we have the WAE RTTY and the CQWW CW rounding off the year.  The LZ DX contest is the weekend before the CQWW CW in November and its an excellent warmup to CQWW.  Only 24 hours and a great way to warm up the station and operater, its excellent fun and gets the bugs out of the system.  An opertunity to try those new pieces of kit or software before the big one.

Band conditions have dropped of significantly in the last few month's so the lower bands are going to be of more importance as 10m is now closed a lot and 15 is not in the shape it was in last year.  This year I have concentrated mostly on CW contests.  I have been enjoying them and plan to finish this year doing the CW leg of any multi mode contest.

Contest University 2016 videos now live:

I managed to catch some of the live streaming of the CTU session from Dayton this year but missed quite a few of them.  Thanks go out to ICOM for putting them on the internet live.  Well they are now all up on Youtube.

Hamvention 2016 Videos

WRTC 2014:

WRTC 2014 is now finished and we are all looking forward to the competition heading toward the 2018 event in Germany.  There has been a video of the weekend released and its very interesting to see the background to and efforts of the participants during the event.  The video in high definition can be found here.
WRTC 2014 Documentary

WRTC 2018 Standings site:

There is now a web site up to check your standing as you work towards entry for the 2018 WRTC.  The link is here.  www.wrtc2018.de

New DX Cluster site:

DXHeat is a new web site set up last year which has some very nice features.  Its very clearly laid out and customization which makes it very east to check activity from specific call areas or modes.  Check it out here at dxheat.com

Reverse Beacon Network: Spotting Report: