30m DXCC
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After more than 26 years of DXing on 10.1 MHz, I could work K5P, Palmyra, on January 14, 2016 as my next-to-last DXCC entity on 30m. This brought me to the top of the ARRL DXCC 30 Meters on March 2, 2016 with 338 of the current 339 DXCC entities and eight deleted entities. I had missed KH6ND/KH5 on 30 meters in 2005 by 15 minutes. The last and only one missing now on 30m is - of course - P5.
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My first few QSOs on 30m were a few Europeans in 1983 and TA2BK, FT5ZB, FR/DL4BBO in 1988. My activity on 10.1 MHz increased a bit in 1990 with 15 more countries - all made using a matched W3DZZ. In 1991 I decided to add a 30m extension kit to my Cushcraft A3WS 12m/17m duobander and to seriously chase new DXCC entities. The rotatable 30m element at a height of 12m performed very, very well. I could work all stations I could hear. A few of the rare ones at that time were AH1A in 1993 in a 5-minute-opening, 3Y0PI in 1994 or 3D2CU (Conway Reef) in 1995.
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In late 1995, when my current station was ready, I had worked 260 DXCC entities on 30m. At the new station I installed a Force 12 3 element monoband yagi (serial no. #001) for 10.1 MHz. This antenna performs extremely well on a band where most operators still were using single element antennas. We can create large pileups on 30m working e.g. 100 JA's per hour. I think the rarest one in the past years was 3Y0C (op Chuck, N4BQW, SK in 2006) on 30m in 2001. He made only a handful of QSOs on 30m.
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I love the 30m band, it is a reliable band - also in years of low sunspot activity - no contests and no Phone :-) In 2014 I could reach another goal and worked all US states on 30m CW for the 30m ARRL WAS award. All confirmed by LoTW only. I repeated this by working the W1AW portable stations in each of the 50 states in the ARRL Centennial 2014 and once more by working all 50 states on 30m JT65. Just six states missing for my WAS 30m RTTY.