This was my third year of the “Twelve Days of QRZ” event that runs from December 1 through the end of February. The object is to have QSLs, that is, confirmation of radio contact, either on QRZ or Logbook of the Web, on twelve separate days. It is pretty easy to get the base award, especially via digital contacts, and I did that 12 days after getting a new antenna launched after the bomb cyclone had knocked it out of the tree. (It took a while to clear out debris so I could do that.)
To add to the challenge, one can try to get endorsements for having confirmed contacts for the three modes — digital, CW, or phone — on twelve days. Additionally, one can do the same for bands and bands-modes combinations. If you clear five bands per mode, there is a “5-band” endorsement. It breaks out simply:
- Mode: Mixed (which is CW, Digital and SSB), CW, Digital, SSB
- Band: 160, 80, 60, 40, 30, 20, 17, 15, 12, 10, 6, 2 meters
- 5-band endorsement per mode
When I started, I figured the digital and CW 5-bands were easy enough for me to accomplish doing what I normally do. Adding SSB, which has been difficult for me, would be a good personal challenge. With five days remaining, what I will likely end up, with bold indicating “not done yet, but likely”:
- CW, 5-band endorsement: 10, 12 (3), 15, 17, 20, 40, 80m
- SSB, 5-band endorsement: 10, 12, 15, 17, 20m
- Digital, 5-band endorsement: 10, 12, 15, 17, 20, 40, 80 (2) m
- Mixed, 5-band endorsement: 10, 12, 15, 17, 20, 30 (1), 40, 80m
Through 2025-02-23 23:59Z, the contact and confirmation rates by service vary: 71% for digital, 52% for CW and 48% for SSB. QRZ can import Logbook of the Web confirmations, so it will always be higher. Confirmation rates on eQSL are significantly worse. It doesn’t affect this event, but given how complicated they make roving, it’s an indication that putting effort logging with them is not worthwhile. (QRZCQ, which was not used, is even worse.)
| Mode | Days Worked | Contacts | QRZ QSL* | LoTW QSL | eQSL QSL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CW | 56 | 954 | 521 | 504 | 117 |
| Digital | 22 | 604 | 491 | 430 | 255 |
| SSB | 29 | 229 | 138 | 110 | 31 |
| Total | 69 | 1,787 | 1,150 | 1,034 | 403 |
Best contact day was 2025-02-16, during the North American QSO Party (CW), where I had 141 CW and 4 SSB contacts. There were sixteen days where I had no contacts. I’ll likely work the remaining days in February just to eke out the maximum boxes checked, because that’s how I roll.
Looking at the bands worked by mode, I’ve been taking advantage of contest opportunities, especially as we’re at the peak of the solar cycle. This also reflects my new antenna being a hacky “temporary” that has sunk lower with each of the four subsequent wind storms. Sometime in mid-March, I’ll have the yard cleaned out enough to launch it again and try to get better elevation.
| Mode | 6M | 10M | 12M | 15M | 17M | 20M | 30M | 40M | 60M | 80M | 160M |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CW | 1 | 157 | 29 | 223 | 30 | 170 | 3 | 271 | 55 | 15 | |
| Digital | 5 | 92 | 122 | 91 | 67 | 48 | 36 | 77 | 17 | 24 | 3 |
| SSB | 47 | 28 | 53 | 32 | 41 | (n/a) | 21 | 7 | |||
| Mixed | 6 | 318 | 179 | 367 | 129 | 259 | 39 | 369 | 17 | 86 | 18 |
My general feeling on the bands:
- 6m – aka “the magic band” is one I don’t have patience to keep checking/trying. Also, if I’m being honest, I find the hard-core digital folks on this band can be cranky-pants, refusing to work me again because I am not DX. My lone CW contact on this was a Parks on the Air three miles away.
- 10m has been pretty nice in the daytime, with long distance in “hops” that are most visible on FT8 (and its abundance of spotting). There have been a lot of openings to South America. Lots of space. Also a lot of beacons (xxxx/B) in the 28.200s. When active, *****
- 12m is one of the WARC bands (with 17, 30 and 60), where contesting is prohibited. I’ve been working it a lot to get SSB and (soon) CW done, and it’s interesting how clear it can be to the east coast of the US and certain areas of Europe (Italy, Germany) in the morning. If someone’s nearby, there’s almost no chance I can work them. So it’s been a fun band to pop onto in the morning.
- 15m is a good daytime band for working middle US and east-coast of the US, Hawaii. Sometimes I can get contacts on Europe and Asia.
- 17m is another WARC band that I should like more than I do, but it’s been noisy as all heck. Most hams on 10, 12, 15, and 17 are pretty cool, the type who try different things for the challenge.
- 20m is an okay band, readily accessible to a lot of people, but also kind of a pain for SSB because it’s so busy with a lot of entry-level behavior, like sending one’s call sign at four times without listening for the response.
- 30m is rough, noisy and, because it’s so narrow, is only used for digital and occasionally CW.
- 40m is the 20m of nighttime. Propagation and my antenna are meh so parks on the air people are not reachable unless they’re within a few hundred miles.
- 60m is a weird band because it’s channelized, and I think hams are afraid to work it. I tried to catch people when spotted, but I only hear digital modes on 5.375 occasionally. As I’m trying to diversify, I spent very little time on it.
- 80m is a local/nighttime band. My antenna setup is inadequate and won’t improve with the space constraints of my postage stamp-sized lot.
- 160m is just above AM radio, and with an even longer antenna needed is just not going to happen. I finally managed to work some CW people on it during a 160m contest, but I could only get to adjacent states and provinces.
Parks on the Air have been very productive for the WARC bands, and it’s been a lot of fun working some of the same folks as they re-activate their local parks.