New Year - new project!

Hello everyone, and a Very Happy New Year to you all! I hope that 2012 is a good year and brings you everything you hope for.

I had been thinking for a while of a "project" to concentrate on for the new year, and had decided to try to work a different country every day for as long as possible - i know that it would not be possible to do one for every day of the year, as there simply aren't enough countries in the world, and a lot of the ones that are there are VERY rare in ham radio terms.

The plan was to use the data modes, mainly JT65, start with a zero country count and go for it........

Well, having spent a couple of hours or so on the radio this morning, the plan has slightly changed. So far i have had NO contacts, BUT have had tremendous fun.

I started out on 20m on JT65, and the very first country that came through was Japan, so i figured that the band was fairly open. In an hour and a quarter on the band, i had HEARD 15 countries, and my signal had BEEN HEARD IN 10 countries.

I changed to 10m for a while, but the band seemed dead, so tuned instead to 15m. I spent just under an hour on here, and got the total country count up to HEARD=20, HEARD IN=16.

So, this is going to be my challenge for the year - get these two figures up as much as possible. I'm not going to separate out bands and modes i don't think - the logistics of keeping track of it to that degree does not appeal - i may change my mind on that though, we will see.

Just as a matter of interest, i normally use 30 watts on JT65 and a station in Brazil was hearing me on 15m. I turned my power down to 5 watts, and i was only 2dB weaker to him. Quite incredible really - it would have made no real difference to my signal at his end even though i was using a SIXTH of the power. It just goes to show what can be achieved on the HF bands with low power and poor antennas. If only we could persuade EVERYONE to reduce their power levels, the bands would be a much quieter and more pleasant place!

So, to sum up todays activity:-

Countries HEARD by ME:-
Japan, Romania, Malta, Spain, Italy, Germany, European Russia, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, Austria, England, France, Saudi Arabia, Denmark, Greece, Venezuela, Slovenia, Finland, Belgium.

Countries where MY signal was HEARD:-
Poland, USA, Portugal, Corsica, France, Italy, England, Sweden, Denmark, Venezuela, Spain, European Russia, Jersey, Finland, Brazil, Kazakhstan.

Large Grid squares HEARD = 13.  HEARD IN = 11.