The ARRL Honor Roll – Reality check

Whilst waiting for FT5ZM to make an appearance I was exploring some of the Clublog functions. Clublog is a fantastic tool, it has so many useful functions.

I digress….

Recently I had a chat with one of our top DX’ers Bernie ZS4TX about the difficulty of achieving No 1 on the HR. He made a statement along the lines off “it takes about the same time to work and confirm the last 9 entities as it takes to reach the bottom rung of the Honor Roll (331 DXCC entities confirmed)”

The graph below confirms that statement.

I used the same Clublog function on several of the top DX’ers and the graph pretty much looks the same. Achieving 300 entitles in one solar cycle is feasible, but then the real test of patience start…….

ZS4TX DXCC timeline

Exciting times…

This morning whilst watching the progress of the Brave heart on its way to Amsterdam Island I saw FW5JJ being spotted on 15m. I have been trying to work Jean-Jaques for several weeks without success. For some odd reason he is not workable, in fact that is putting it mildly. I have not heard a whisper from him.  That all changed this morning we had a brief opening and he was just above the noise, I called once and he was in the bag. This on SSB, very weird, I thought CW would be our only chance. Just goes to show, never give up.

ATNO # 264 in the log

I believe Heard Island is also on the cards (January 2015). It looks as if they might be using Cape Town as the staging port. That is also good news. I sure hope the locals will shower them with South African hospitality.

Heard Island