My QSO with 157DA/0 Montserrat Island

    Mike's 13DA016 upcoming expedition, calling 157DA/0, to one of the most inaccessible destinations in the Caribbean—Montserrat Island—was announced in December 2025 on the DA-RC group website. The expedition's launch was an anticipated event in January 2026 among the 11-meter radio community. A series of solar flares earlier in the month triggered strong magnetic disturbances in the Earth's ionosphere, which resulted in poor radio propagation and could have prevented radio contact. So, expedition 157DA/0 launched on January 15th, but I couldn't hear Mike loud enough that day, and the number of stations calling him from Europe negated the possibility of establishing a QSO that day. Everything changed on January 16th. Although the Caribbean access route opened somewhat late, I was still able to hear and establish a QSO with 157DA/0, which added a new 182 DXCC country to my collection. A big thank you to Mike for his hard work organizing this DXpedition.

My 180 DXCC

    On the morning of December 19, 2025, I unexpectedly managed not only to hear 57 with a rapport, but also to establish a QSO with Giovanni 197DA981 from Vanuatu. This QSO brought me my 180th new country on the DXCC list. At the moment, I have a total of 180 DXCCs across all continents: Africa - 30, Asia - 35, Caribbean - 17, Europe - 56, North America - 8, Oceania - 25, South America - 8, and Antarctica - 1. I consider this a very good result for me at this stage. And so! Moving on!

 

My QSO with 524AT/0

   These days, the Alfa Tango DX group's previously announced expedition, led by an experienced team, launched to the highly coveted African country of DXCC on the 11-meter band under the callsign 524AT/0. The country's identity is being kept secret for the duration of the expedition, which has caused considerable excitement among operators worldwide. A large number of people wanted to work 524AT/0, which led to difficulties establishing radio contact. Initially, I made numerous attempts, and efforts to establish a QSO, but all of them yielded no results. On November 27, 2025 at 07:57 UTC, after several more unsuccessful attempts, I finally managed to establish a QSO with 524AT/0, exchanging 59/59 reports, which I was very pleased about. So, now we await the end of the expedition, after which we will learn the real country of the DX expedition's arrival.

P. S.   WOW! 524AT/0 is revealed, and it's 159AT/0 Somalia!