For the past few days the bands have totally bombed, 40 has been dead in the early hours of the morning and twenty has shown little action through out the day. Hopefully, this is not an indication of propagation for the end of the year.
What few notable stations there are, I can list with just a few entries.
There has surfaced a German operator with a portable location of Trinidad. May be this will take the load off the two operators on the island at least for a while. 9Y4/DL7VOG has been copied on 40, also noted on other various bands. Signal is good, mostly cw operation.
5T0SP continues to surface, heard on 15, 20/30/10/17 grab this one while you can, it may be several years before anything is heard again from this country.
Finally, worked my friend Charlie HS0ZCW on 40 phone this morning, this one is a tough one to get on any band, I was really jumping up and down for this catch. Charlie is in Thailand and used to live in my location of Henderson, ky.
Another suitcase operation is PJ2/K2PLF and K9EL/FS if indeed these operations send in the proper documentation to the league for DXCC then we are good for credit. If not, well good luck and hope for the best. FS is pretty rare and I have not worked any operation from French Sint Marteen for many years. So, if this one counts and we say if, grab it while you can and be happy. Actually, over the years, I have never worked a native FS station other then portable stations on the island.
Dominican Republic is active with HI8A on various bands, but Haiti has been silent for years, due to the recent conditions in this country, it is doubtful we will see anything surface for some time. In past years there were several stations on the air and active.
Last station and this one is a sparse operation is 8Q7AU, Maldive Islands, this one surfaces now and then, mostly twenty cw, or an occasional jag to 40. Check all mentioned stations on DXscape for exact information.
Still, I am listening for those elusive Chinese stations on 40 cw. for the last few mornings only one station has spotted BD4QA, we hear nothing after the spot is posted, nor do we hear anyone else calling. Either the dx has vanished rapidly, or the signal is simply not making it to the U.S.
I did however copy a very faint signal from BM0LF on 7.006 yesterday, signal at best was 449 and only a couple of West coast stations were working him. Again, this operation stayed for about five or so contacts and then vanished. After I heard the signal very faintly, but the horrid conditions, plus the QSB in to the noise produced no results.
We will keep trying for this one, it is Taiwan and not China, but again we can use this one on 40. Oddly, when this station is spotted by a few ops the Japanese stations are making it fine. BM0LF must be a very sparse operation less then 50 watts and very simple antennas. We will try and find more information on this one.
Glad all stations reading my posts are finding it useful. If there is any information I can provide such as qsl routes and if a card was ever received do drop a line. .. Later. and good DX
