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Harald JW7XM asked me if I could help him out with a new qslcard. He is active now and then and he gets a lot of qslrequests, so he needed more cards. Harald sent me this beautiful picture he had taken of Longyearbyen and the surrounding mountains. Here is the result and the cards will be printed by UX5UO.

When I got home yesterday, I turned on the radio. 5M2TT was on 10M with a good signal. Since I need EL on 10M, I started calling. I couldn't get through, but I did check the pile-up and heard several stations on aurora. I checked the cluster on 6M and I noticed that several people were spotted on aurora. I also did see two new grids active with LA4VGA in JP43 and LB1AF in JP64. 

LB1AF in JP64 was worked on SSB aurora for a new grid. After our contact, I went to CW and started calling. One station after another went into my log and 2 hours later I had worked 42 stations in LA, PA, OH, SM, OZ, OY, YL, LY, SP, DL and GM. 16 of the stations I worked, were new stations to me and that's always nice. I didn't get JP43, so I hope he'll be around in another aurora.

As a sidenote, I worked SV2ASP/A on 12M RTTY before I went to 6M. That was a new one on 12M and RTTY.

Recently I've gotten several new ones on LoTW. My goal of 300 is getting closer and closer. I've gotten a few surprises that I didn't expect. Last year I worked XX9TLX and last week I got my contacts on LoTW. Yesterday I got V85/9M6XRO. That wasn't really a surprise, since all the past years 9M6XRO activations has been uploaded to LoTW so far. Today I got another nice surprise with V31JP for #280 on LoTW. That was from a contact back in 1999. I have several V3 stations, but it seems I've always missed the ones that use LoTW.

Now for some dx worked the last week.

March 28th gave me the following stations:

• VP5/W5CW on 15M CW, my 5th band
• 9N7AN on 30M CW, or so I thought. I'm not in the log.
• PJ4/W9NJY was worked on 17M CW for a new one on 17M.
• YN2ET was worked on 17M SSB for a new one on SSB.
• OX3XR was worked on 17M CW for our 6th band.
• HR5/F2JD was worked on 17M CW
• YN2ER was worked on 15M CW
• J39BS was worked on 15M CW

March 29nd I worked these stations:

• VO2NS 15M CW
• VP5/W5CW 12M CW, my 6th band
• PJ4/W9NJY 15M CW, new on 15M

March 30th:

• D2AM 17M SSB
• CU7MD 17M SSB LoTW user
• KD4POJ 17M CW Dwayne in ND

March 31st:

• WY7LL 15M SSB Leo in WY, LoTW user
• 9N7AN 30M CW again

April 1st:

• A65BR 12M RTTY new on 12M
• 9N7AN 17M CW and both my 9N qsoes are in the log
• JW/F8DVD 40M CW some flutter, but nice signal

April 4th:

• P29VCX 30M CW OC-101, new IOTA for me
• KD4POJ 17M RTTY New RTTY state, 6 more to go on RTTY
• TK1CX 17M RTTY LoTW user

Conditions has been quite good lately and the higher bands has been open late in the evening. Some of the other confirmations I've gotten on LoTW are KD4POJ, J39BS, PJ4/W9NJY, WY7LL, TK1CX, OX3XR and HR5/F2JD.

Band conditions are really picking up, and several expeditions are on for the time being.

March 20th gave me VU4PB on 17M CW, S21YZ on 30M RTTY (#211 RTTY) and OX3XR on 30M CW. I probably duped S21YZ. I noticed my call being sent, but never got the report or the confirmation of the contact. Someone had to make qrm on top of the signal, so I managed to work him for sure 20 minutes later.

March 22nd gave me FP/W6HGF on 30M RTTY (#212 RTTY), and the contact is confirmed on LoTW.

March 26th gave me RI1FJ on 17M RTTY (#213 RTTY). He had a nice and strong signal. He was on 30M the night before, but I couldn't decode him. Another station that had a nice and strong signal was V85/9M6XRO on 20M RTTY. I had to wait maybe 45 minutes to get him. He was only working NA. You can say I was frustrated about such a strong signal and not be able to work him. Too many times in the past, the path dies out before the stations starts to work EU. Luckily this time this wasn't the case. Thanks John for my third new RTTY country. The previous ones were 7P and 9M6.

March 27th was quite good on 12M CW. BA7LO was worked with a nice and strong signal. VR2UW also had a nice signal. 9M2MRS and 5X1NH were worked for 2 new ones on 12M. The last station worked on 12M was YB0AKM. I tried to get FY5LH and HP1/IZ6BRN on 12M RTTY, but the signals weren't too strong and I couldn't get through. That would have been two new on LoTW.

I wanted to wait a little while after my 2011 JW trip to make this post, since I knew I would get plenty of new confirmations. I've got 73 dxcc's and 49 states confirmed on LoTW from my 3 trips.

Yearly statistics:

Band and mode statistics: