[RTTY] G6NHU: Makrothen 2017

[Keith Maton]

Well that made a nice change.  I forget the last time I exchanged grid squares on HF.

What wasn’t welcome were the conditions.  Absolutely dreadful.  I did a few hours yesterday and today and only managed 131 QSOs, most were on 20m with a few thrown in on 40m for good measure.

On the plus side, I picked up a new entity on 40m and a new band/mode slot of Panama on 20m.  I’ve worked Panama on 10m SSB and 15m CW before but never on 20m or RTTY.  CU7AA appeared on my frequency a couple of times but we didn’t complete.  He was strong and sent his callsign a couple of times but never responded to my exchange.

Claimed score:  lol 

I use Contest Log Checker (http://www.contestlogchecker.com/ <http://www.contestlogchecker.com/>) to create my logs and it hasn’t heard of Makrothen.  I’ll let the robot deal with the score.

I had the same old issue of some stations calling well off frequency, a couple were nearly 100Hz away from me but were definitely calling me because they repeated my callsign when I replied.  Another slightly annoying quirk is for people to call with the exchange on their first transmission.  When conditions are so bad and the bands so quiet, it doesn’t really interrupt the flow but it does throw one off track a little bit.

All in all, a fun way to spend a few hours at the weekend.

73 Keith G6NHU