[ADXA] Chasing the last 126

[Scott Branyan]

>> Noticed I buried that last comment at the end on purpose! <<
You are a wide man, Jay.

In fly-fishing circles, guides don't fish. Fly-fishing is supposed to be non-competitive. Guess it's the fear of competing, or rather outcompeting your customers. I rarely did. I demonstrated casting, but I could tell if I let the fly hit the water, many of customers started getting anxious, haha. And you can't win. You either wind up catching fish bigger than your clients or you don't catch anything and your clients think you don't know what you are doing. So much psychology in fishing with others. 





-----Original Message-----
From: Jay Bromley [mailto:jayw5jay at cox.net] 
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2022 5:26 PM
To: 'Scott Branyan'; 'ADXA'
Subject: RE: [ADXA] Chasing the last 126

Hi Scott,
Noticed I buried that last comment at the end on purpose!  Hi.

When I worked as a Cell site puke/switch tech.  I remember an engineer out of Little Rock telling me to never fear technology.  Every week there were software upgrade and improvements added.  Many lost hours of sleep over that sort of gig.    

However I do miss the old days.  Buy a rig, then put up an antenna, log it on paper.  Now you have to be an IT guy it seems to get around this mess.  But in other ways it is so much nicer.  Like OQRS QSLing and ARRL's LOTW!

I still think you would have been fun to watch you fish as a guide!  73 de jay/w5jay..

-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Branyan <sbranyan at cox.net> 
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2022 5:09 PM
To: 'Jay Bromley' <jayw5jay at cox.net>; 'ADXA' <adxa at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: RE: [ADXA] Chasing the last 126

Love the comments, Jay. Thank you for the recommendations.

Always like that there is technology available but I've always been "oldschool" when it comes down to it. Too many times hardware/software has let me down when I needed it. And I've been messing with personal computers since DOS and Basic. 

I'd probably be keeping a written log if there were not simple, reliable, and free logging options out there. But I've never liked spreadsheets and I hate resource hog software suites. Give me simple, dedicated, low-resource programs. Keep backups, and I'm happy. 

Probably why I was a fly-fishing guide. Fishing with me was like boot-camp for the first two hours of the day in the drift boat. "Hold your cast ... hold your cast. Get ready. Hit that pocket now at 10 O'Clock. Mend your line downstream ... now upstream. Fish should pick it up about now. ... OK. Forget that area. Keep that backcast high and recast ahead! ... Mend, mend, mend."  A lot of my clients were sales types, and they needed direction and motivation starting the day after 6 cups of coffee. After two hours in the boat with Scott, when we would take the first break, I would hear these big sighs as they begin to unwind and relax. Then we'd be ready to fish--about the time we'd drift out of cell phone coverage! Awesome rest of the day.

But yeah, I was a control freak. LOL

>> Does that make them SUPERMAN?  <<
Looking forward to the responses on this one, Jay, Hi!

73,
Scott







-----Original Message-----
From: Jay Bromley [mailto:jayw5jay at cox.net] 
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2022 4:21 PM
To: 'Scott Branyan'; 'ADXA'
Subject: RE: [ADXA] Chasing the last 126

Hi Scott and the ADXA crew,

Scott I admire all your hard work!  Give me some of that energy!  You must have been a hoot to go fishing with!  

 

Since we are talking logging programs of late, attached is how I do it with a program called DXView within the DXlab suite.

 

This jpg was for the 9N7AA.  It shows where I have worked them band/modes.  Worked, Confirmed, and Verified.   Beam Heading, short and long path plus their distance.  If you have one of those fancy computer smart rotators, you can activate that feature to have it swinging the beam as you get other things ready.  LOL.  I can still push the button on the rotator controller, hi.  

 

There is other info to help one on that window.  If you are looking for a callsign, but only know the prefix, you can double click in the progress table and it will come up in the main log tab all the contacts you have for that band/mode.  Then decide what to do QSLing wise.  If you see W’s instead of C’s or V’s you can concentrate more on getting the entity confirmed.  That program alone is pretty neat, but since it interoperates with the rest of DXLab makes things more powerful to the DXer IMHO.  

 

BTW, if I am doing FT8 with JTAlert, when I point and click on the callsign it will put that callsign into DXV.  I can instantly see where I need to point the beam, if I even need them or not, but JTA also shows if I need them or not for an ATNO or just a new Band/Mode.  JTA many times will also show the beam heading by hovering the cursor over that callsign.  Sometimes that info is not available, but it always is there under DXV.  So in some ways JTAlert and DXView is somewhat redundant.  

 

So the other day on the internet I saw that super nice CW station with that TenTec Century 21 with all the super nice morse code keys.  Says CW is like FT9, but for Real Men!  So I got to wondering what if a person does both modes (FT8/CW)?  

 

Does that make them SUPERMAN?  😊

 

73 de w5jay..

 

From: adxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net <adxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net> On Behalf Of Scott Branyan
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2022 3:53 PM
To: ADXA <adxa at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: [ADXA] Chasing the last 126

 

Today my DX count is at 214. Only 117 to go to Honor Roll--light at the end of the tunnel :-). So this weekend I made two short lists of entities large enough, perhaps to catch without a major DXpedition--about 60 entities for me. 

 

I made one short list grouped by Prefix and including bearings (since I now have a beam). 

 

The other list I grouped by bearing (from my station) starting with 0° North and going around the compass face clockwise. This also allows me to learn to associate a general bearing with several entities in the direction.

 

The idea behind the two lists is to make a quick reference if I see a time-critical opportunity pop up unexpectedly.

 

Anyway, I thought some of you, especially newcomers, might find something like this helpful. I'm all the time making lists for bands and awards--it's how I track what I am chasing. I just like lists. LOL

 

2 Lists are attached.

 

73,

Scott/W5AAJ