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Alex VE3NEA has done it again! This time he has created a program named Pileup Runner. Alex is the one who created Morse Runner, another CW program I have enjoyed a lot. Pileup Runner is a pile-up simulator with an interface that is a mix between CWSkimmer and a contest loggingprogram.

Work the pile-up visually and use your mouse to move around in the pile-up. At first I thought that it was stupid not to have buttons to make small moves up and down in the pile-up, but after trying out with the mouse, it works excellent. You can also read the CW visually, though I’m kinda a slow with that at the moment. Another neat thing is that once again, we have a competition mode and a toplist. The big difference compared to the 60 minute Morserunner competition mode, is that it’s only 15 minutes. I find it much easier to  sit down and use 15 minutes for a quick run.

If you haven’t already tried it, head over to dxatlas.com and download it for free.

Thank you again Alex for the software you write and for the time you make us waste 🙂

A week ago, I happened to stumble across an interesting website. WG7J have written something he calls GridMapper. Basically it takes your adif-file and makes a Google Maps or Google Earth gridmap overlay for you. Take a look here to test it out.

Below is an example from my log. When I first tried it, it would not accept my DXBase adif-file. I exported a file from DXKeeper instead, which then worked without any trouble.

The picture on the left is from Google Earth, and the picture on the right is from Google Maps. Now if only we could have a logprogram or a standalone application implementing something like this, I would be very happy. Not that there is anything wrong with this, it’s just a personal preference.

Thank you WG7J for programming this and offering it for free!

A week ago, I got HH2B confirmed on LoTW. That is only 1 out of 5 qsoes I have with HH. Last qso was in 2011. That brings my LoTW total to #306.

Only a handful of contacts since last time. I worked Z60K (Kosovo) on 30M CW September 20th. I also thought I worked them on 20M CW, but too many pirates were abusing that call.

LA6Q was worked from JP62BB on 6M SSB on September 21st. LA5UKA and LA9VDA was on a weekend trip.

Harald JW7XM came in with a strong signal on 12M SSB on September 29th. 5H1HS/3 was worked on 20M CW later that day.

I managed to work the 3D2C Conway Reef expedition twice with a qso on 30M CW and on 40M CW. Both were new bandcountries.

5U6E was worked for a new one on 30M CW on October 6th. TT8TT was worked on 10M CW for a new one on that band. 7Z7AB AS-190 was worked on 12M SSB for a new iota. And the last qso that day was SV9/DF8DX/P EU-187 on 20M CW for my second new iota that day.

Soundclips:

• 5H1HS/3 20M CW  – very fluttery signal
• 5U6E 10M CW
• TT8TT 10M CW

Little radio since last time, though I have a short report here.

Since last time, I worked RW0BG/9 in AS-109 for a new iota. R7LP/0 was also worked but I’m not 100% sure on this iota. I think it is AS-149. If it is, I worked it once before. OZ3FYN/p was worked from EU-172 as a new iota. I have probably worked it before, but it wasn’t logged.

UA0ZC/p was worked from AS-095 and was a new iota.

NH8S (Swains) was worked on 20/30M CW, 20M SSB and 17M RTTY. 30M and 17M were new bands and SSB and RTTY were new modes.

4O7TC was worked on 17M CW for a new dxcc on 17M.

The Scandinavian Activity Contest was on 2 weeks ago on CW. I didn’t intend to participate, but did listen on the bands on Saturday evening. The bands seemed quite good and I gave it a shot. The fun thing was watching Reverse Beacon Network at the same time to see where I could be heard. It was very interesting and really added a new dimension to the experience.  I only worked around 5 hours and had quite a pile-up from time to time. Below is my small report for a few hours of work. I felt quite rusty at first, but quickly gained back the contesting and pile-up feeling.

LA8AJA - SCANDINAVIA LA

Band QSO Points Multipliers
------------------------------------
80m  0   0      0
40m  106 232    29
20m  338 744    48
15m  73  165    26
10m  0   0 0
------------------------------------
Total 517 1141 103

Dupes: 2
Invalid: 0
QSO Total: 519
Points: 117.523

Soundclips:

• NH8S 20M CW
• NH8S 30M CW

A few days ago I got #305 confirmed on LoTW with P29VJY in iota OC-008. I have only 8 qsoes with P2, so that was a pleasant surprise. Thank you very much!