| Date | User | Challenge | Status | Toot summary & link |
|---|
| 2025-01-02 21:01:21 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 1 | Success! | My #hamchallenge week 1 QSL design. The front side is very similar to the card I am currently using. It shows me during my visit to the Woodpecker radar site in Ukraine in 2018. The back side is a recycled/updated version of my old LaTeX QSL template I made in 2008 or so. HC01S #hamradio |
| 2025-01-06 17:08:24 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 2 | Progress update... | HC02 NCDXF beacons right now on 20m at SO5CW: 4X6TU 1W, OH2B 10W, CS3B 100mW, 4U1UN 1W, VE8AT 10W, W6WX 100W, VK6RBP 10W, VR2B 100W (not sure?), ZS6DN 100W, 5Z4B 10W. VE8AT has very lovely polar flutter and multipath, the "V" almost sounded like a "4". #hamchallenge @hamchallenge |
| 2025-01-10 17:19:47 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 2 | Success! | NCDXF beacons 16:00-16:15 UTC @ SO5CW (KO01MW), after sunset:10m: CS3B 100W, LU4AA 100W, OA4B 10W, 4U1UN 10W12m: CS3B 100W, OA4B 100W, 4U1UN 1W, W6WX 100W, OH2B 10W15m: ZS6DN 1W, 4X6TU 100mW, OH2B 10W, CS3B 100mW, 4U1UN 10W, W6WX 10W17m: CS3B 100W, 4U1UN 1W, VE8AT 100W, W6WX 100W, VK6RBP 10W, ZS6DN 10W, 4X6TU 1W, OH2B 100W20m: CS3B 1W, 4U1UN 1W, VE8AT 1W, W6WX 100W, ZL6B 100W, VK6RBP 10W, ZS6DN 100W, 5Z4B 100W, OH2B 10W#hamchallenge #HC02S |
| 2025-01-12 22:11:18 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 3 | Progress update... | Before bedtime, a few QSOs on 160m to see how conditions are for #hamchallenge HC03 - not bad but no DX tonight for me (according to https://www.reversebeacon.net/). I will check again when I get up tomorrow! @hamchallenge |
| 2025-01-14 06:05:10 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 3 | Progress update... | @pg4i Similar for me: Last night R9IR, RU9CZD and even UA0S heard me on 80m, this morning W1NT and WZ7I from the West, but no DX QSO. I will get up early on Thursday to catch the end of the 03Z CWT, I guess. Also in next weekend's HADX there is a good chance to catch some DX on 80m... #hamchallenge HC03 |
| 2025-01-14 20:19:08 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 3 | Progress update... | Barry, VK2BJ is solid 539 on 80m CW now at his sunrise but no chance to make him hear my 100W 🙂 HC03 #hamchallenge |
| 2025-01-15 05:46:11 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 3 | Success! | WWA station N1W just worked on 3518 kHz CW, big signal at my remote station SO5CW. https://www.qrz.com/db/n1w #hamchallenge HC03S (I wonder if I can still manage a DX contact on 160m...) |
| 2025-01-19 14:01:35 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 4 | Success! | But it took me 23 years to convince myself to change my callsign, and I picked DJ5CW - because I love Morse code (CW) and it matched my Polish call SO5CW very well. The callsign was previously assigned to someone called Oskar from near Ludwigsburg but except for a photo from 1959 I could not find any information about his radio career. It appears that he was not really active in the last 30+ years, so I felt it was OK to pick a re-assigned callsign. And I love it! #hamradio HC04S |
| 2025-01-28 20:43:16 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 3 | Success! | A map of my #morsecode contacts in last weekend's CQ 160m CW #contest. Best DX was R8OM (Novosibirsk). 100W to a top loaded vertical (16m long, see https://social.darc.de/@DJ5CW/113730049445445190). By working IG9/S51V and CR3Z (Africa) and R9DX, R8OM, UN0L, 4L5O, P33W, TA3NE (Asia) I finished #hamchallenge HC03S also on 160m. On Sunday evening I heard several JA and HL stations, but no chance to get through. I slept during the times when conditions to North America were good... @hamchallenge |
| 2025-01-30 21:24:41 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 5 | Success! | For #hamchallenge week 5, I updated the QRZ.com profiles of DJ5CW and SO5CW. For the former, I added a link to Mastodon. For the latter, I added a link to Birdweather to show off my BirdNet node. Tomorrow I will take care of my HamQTH.com profiles, too. HC05S |
| 2025-02-04 07:28:37 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 6 | Success! | #hamchallenge week 6 ("Take part in a contest") is very easy for me. In an average week I take part in a few of the smaller contests (MWC, CWT, sometimes SST and MST) and every weekend I at least drop into one of the contests for a few contacts as well. With yesterday's quick participation in MWC, in which I worked @df7cb and @on5zo on 40/80m, CW, the challenge is fulfilled but my thirst for more QSOs is not quenched 🙂 #HC06S |
| 2025-02-12 07:35:24 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 7 | Success! | I just sent out the DARC DX Newsletter / DX Mitteilungsblatt for this week. Being responsible for the technical side of the distribution (email list with 4k recipients), I also get to look over the contents of the newsletter, so #hamchallenge week 7 is done for me. I am not much of a DXer but from today's newsletter I learned that Alan, G4DJX will be on the air as C5DX again, from where I worked him previously on CW. Hope to work him again. #HC07S @hamchallenge |
| 2025-03-09 08:54:29 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 10 | Progress update... | And on RS44, I heard F5JLQ calling CQ on CW. I was not able to reply this time (need to figure out how to set the FT857 to do cross band split) but this really gave me an adrenaline boost this morning! #hamchallenge #hamradio #morsecode #HC10 |
| 2025-03-09 08:54:29 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 10 | Success! | My first foray back into #hamradio #satellites since my last AO40 QSOs around 2004, so I can claim success for #hamchallenge week 10: I just heard the CW beacon of CUTE-1 on 436.836 MHz, using my FT857 and a single element quad antenna that peeked out of my attic window. The pass was at 22° elevation only and I could only briefly hear it close to the peak, but it was clearly there and had the expected doppler shift. #HC10S @hamchallenge |
| 2025-03-31 19:05:03 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 14 | Success! | #hamchallenge Week 14: My #hamradio logbook #backup system is simple: My central log (to which I live-log contacts and import all my contest logs) is the console logger "YFKlog", which uses a MySQL database backend. It's running on a Hetzner VPS which creates nightly snapshots of the system disk that reach back seven days. In addition, a nightly cron-job creates a database dump which gets rsynced to another VPS in another datacenter. I also regularly upload my log to LoTW. #HC14S @hamchallenge |
| 2025-04-06 10:35:24 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 8 | Success! | A little late for #hamchallenge week 8, but last week I provided a colleague of mine who had shown interest in ham radio a few times with information about where to learn (https://50ohm.de/) and upcoming dates for license exams... could always do more, but that's #HC08S for me 🙂 |
| 2025-04-07 07:13:45 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 15 | Progress update... | For #hamchallenge week 15 (#HC15) I will monitor the QRSS transmissions on 30m by S52AB. The reception usually follows a clear pattern: The signal appears in the morning when the skip zone gets small enough to arrive, during the day we see increased D layer absorption, and some time at night the signal disappears again. Interestingly, if often briefly re-appears at night, probably due to sporadic E. #hamradio @hamchallenge |
| 2025-04-13 08:52:11 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 15 | Success! | For this week's #hamchallenge I observed the QRSS transmissions of S52AB on 30m. They're running 24/7 so it's a good indicator for the propagation on this 800km path. Each day I noted the times when the signal became visible in the morning and when it disappeared. The results are tabulated below. Typically the signal comes out of the noise with a big peak in the morning and then becomes weaker again, the same peak can be observed before it fades out. HC15S @hamchallenge |
| 2025-04-13 08:53:11 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 15 | Success! | For this week's #hamchallenge I observed the QRSS transmissions of S52AB on 30m. They're running 24/7 so it's a good indicator for the propagation on this 800km path. Each day I noted the times when the signal became visible in the morning and when it disappeared. The results are tabulated below. Typically the signal comes out of the noise with a big peak in the morning and then becomes weaker again, the same peak can be observed before it fades out. HC15S @hamchallenge |
| 2025-04-20 15:06:04 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 16 | Success! | #hamchallenge week 16: Work a xOTA station. This last week I was travelling and although I took my remote stuff with me, I barely had time to get on the air. But I worked three station that qualify: DL3BRE/P (WFF), DL4FDM/P (SOTA) and DL6YYM/P (WFF). The latter is the maker of the famous Bamatech Morse paddles! https://www.bamatech.net/morsetasten/ HC16S @hamchallenge |
| 2025-05-02 21:35:58 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 29 | Success! | Early entry for #hamchallenge week 29: During our hiking tour close to Cesky Krumlov today we took a break in OKFF-2717 (Vyri vrch) and I set up my Elecraft K1 and made 45 QSOs on 20/30/40m. It was the first ever activation of this OKFF reference. We were blessed with perfect weather, but conditions were rather poor. #HC29S #hamradio #morsecode |
| 2025-05-12 21:16:44 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 19 | Success! | @g7kse A quick simulation with CST of a quarter-wave vertical over a ground plane. Diameter 1mm, length 81mm, resonance at 875 MHz. Added an ABS (er = 3) cylinder 0.5mm wall thickness, with diameter 2mm: 852 MHz, i.e. about 20 MHz drop. Edit: HC19S @hamchallenge |
| 2025-05-14 22:03:28 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 20 | Success! | I must have heard the RTTY transmission a million times, often using it as an indicator for how long the skip is on 30m. Today I finally decoded it for the first time with fldigi, with the settings described by @ian in his blog (450Hz shift, 50 bd, 5N1). I was not patient enough to wait for an actual weather report, though. #HC20S #rtty #fldigi |
| 2025-06-09 10:17:29 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 23 | Success! | For #hamchallenge week 23 I can report having heard contacts in 6 different languages last week on the air: English, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and Swedish. I was not on the air much as I am traveling right now and for a change I did not take a radio with me! HC23S @hamchallenge |
| 2025-06-10 23:35:46 | DJ5CW@social.darc.de | 24 | Success! | This week's #hamchallenge is to make a contribution to an Open Source ham radio project. Since I am currently exploring Not1MM by @mbridak and I found a little bug in it during WPX CW, I fixed it and submitted a pull request: https://github.com/mbridak/not1mm/pull/336 #HC24S |