"I'm your host, Joe DX"

The tally box up there on the left now says 137 138. I've had a good run of late: GU, 3D2/f, FO/a, KH4, and FO/m. And VK on 'phone. Much of it is just happenstance. I use the DXLab Suite and the Spot Collector application works FB.

One evening, while filling out QSLs, I saw a VK7 (Australian state of Tasmania) spotted on 17 m 'phone at about 2100 local. I figured that this was a spot from a station outside of the middle part of the country -- Spot Collector lets you specify the origin of the spots that are displayed -- and that there was little chance of hearing him. Ha. Clicked to his freq and there he was, S9! It was midday in Tasmania and the op was working a little DX on his lunch break. Managed to actually break the pile-up, which made me happy. I've already confirmed him on LoTW for #99 on 'phone.

Well, make that 138. Just worked LA on the 17-m band. Thought I already had Norway, but no.

The others I got while looking for the KH4 DXpedition. I've been playing with the keyer memories in the IC746Pro again and worked the FO/m on "CW". As with K5D, I used UA9OV's CwGet to "help" with copying the code ... you know, since it was so fast and all. I worked K4M the same way. Actually, the K4M op was really cooking - about 40 wpm, I would estimate.

Now I just need to confirm them all. Don't have enough (and won't confirm enough) to get the 150-country sticker for my Mixed DXCC, but should be able to get Phone and 15 m this year.