New year starting and who knows what the ham bands will bring us? Looks like the C 56 operation did not take place, so be it. Unless they make some showing in the next few days this one is a dud.
We have had some limited operation from 3V8CQ, mostly working Europe, nothing heard on this side of the pond.
UPDATE ON 3V8CQ.
Station was heard this morning weakly on 14.031.1 this appears to be an on and off operation, off more then on, according to spots one or two contacts, then vanishes, comes back an hour, or longer later and does the same thing. Only thing I can suggest is wait on Frequency if they vanish and maybe some one will get lucky.
We did work for our last contact in 2017 R150ANO this station is located on South Shetland, beam south and the signal is pretty good. We found him on twenty cw around 14.030 2300Z
XT2AW nothing heard on this side, again working mostly Europe, If there is any 80 meter operation we can use a contact, but so far nothing heard.
There is another operation from Bhutan on the schedule in the next few days, A52PD we will see how this one works out, if we hear them at all due to poor propagation. I am dreaming about a ten meter contact, not much on that band at all, 15 just as bad. We could use this one on 10/40/80 but dream on, we shall see what happens? Have this entity on 14/21 may be a long time before anything on the bands mentioned.
Keep in mind this year is a sponsored ARRL grid chase operation, check ARRL for details or last month's QST if you are into grid chasing this may be your forte'. An LOTW based affair, so if you do not use LOTW might be a good time to try it. Or, you can confirm your grids in QRZ amounts to the same thing, a paper award when you are finished. Same thing with EQSL.
I am not really into chasing grids, and I do not use LOTW, so we will continue to DX as usual.
One final note, at the end of the month is the major DX Expedition to 3Y0, again I would love some action on 10/15/40/80 but again dreaming. My two contacts to 3Y0 were on twenty SSB and Twenty CW back in 2011, we will not seek any contacts on 20, but will check the other bands and hope.
Ok, that is it for the first day of the New Year, Happy New Year and good DX.
