Ham Radio Geekery: DXCC

[randy]

I just got my DXCC certificate for digital.

DX is the term for long distance communications (other countries in this context). DXCC is the DX Century Club, having made confirmed contacts with amateur radio ops in 100 different countries. The confirmed part is often the hardest thing to do with this.

The majority were using the FT8 digital mode (with one lone PSK31 contact), using mostly a wire antenna, and just recently my new Hexbeam, all at under 100 watts of power.

Just wanted to do a little bragging.

Here's a pic showing the contacted countries:

GridTracker DXCC All Bands 24Aug21.jpg

[blackeagle603]

suh-wheet. Love me some long wire HF. If only to tune in for some BBC on those slow nights in the IO and Pacific a long ways from home...

[SoupOrMan]

That is some fantastic propagation! What did you use mostly? 40? 80?

[randy]

Actually, I found that 30 got me the most contacts, followed by 20 and 17. The break out of DXCC contacts (as of today) is:
Band QSOs
80: 29
40: 53
30: 77
20: 78 (It's been catching up to and surpassing 30 since I started using the Hexbeam)
17: 59
15: 29 (My sloper/tuner combo really does not like 15, so most of these have been on the Hexbeam)
12: 9
10: 12
6: 7

Of course the raw numbers don't tell the whole story. For instance 80 is where I got Guantanamo Bay And Anguilla. I've got a couple like that, only worked them on one band, so it was a combination of them all to get me to 100.