QSO Distributions (as of 20-Aug-2009)

The K3PP log currently contains 51,460 QSOs with 21,043 stations!

In my professional life, I am an industry analyst, researching, analyzing, and publishing the results of this analysis. Naturally, my curiosity about data compelled me to do some analysis of my radio activity. Here are some of those results. I hope you enjoy. As always, I am interested in any suggestions you may have or any similar analysis you may have done. Together, we can learn a lot from such analysis.

The breakdowns are illustrated below. Click on the graphs for the full-size versions.

You can very clearly see the drought I had over the 2003 through 2006 period. I made some progress on a rebound in 2007, but I started to kick it back into a higher gear in 2008. I'm now doing better than the drought years, despite the worst solar minimum in anyone's memory! Onward and upward we go!

I indicate my employers over this period in the boxes on the top of the graph. Work has been the major influence to the time I can dedicate to radio. In early 2008, I made a great job change to Forrester Research, but I also refocused my attention to amateur radio. Work is still brutally demanding, however I can dedicate more time for the major contests and even a little in between!

I'm a decent CW operator, but not good enough to run much in the big contests. I can run well in phone contests and running is how you accumulate lots of QSOs. The result is that I have many more phone QSOs than CW. I do RTTY sporadically, but I am starting to do more RTTY and other digital modes now. I've improved my equipment to be more effective at the digital modes.

My distribution has slowly been increasing for CW and digital modes. This does not indicate a reduced effort on phone. In fact, phone is still my dominant mode. What is happening, however, is a stronger effort in the CW contests and a little more in the RTTY contests.

As a contester, it should come as no surprise that the overwhelming majority of my QSOs are in the "contest bands" of 160m, 80m, 40m, 20m, 15m, and 10m. I played a little with 60m when it was first made available, but I don't do much more than listen there now. I do want to do more, but I need more time to tinker there and hopefully build a tuned dipole for the band.

This is an interesting graph that shows the number of QSOs I've had with the twenty most popular DXCC entities over the years. It gives you a good perspective on contest activity from these locations. Here in the northeastern US, we can run Europeans at a blazing pace during contests. That's what makes it so much fun to do contesting from this part of the world! Many in this part of the country have difficulty getting through to Japan. Compared to Europe, we do, but loads of our JA friends get on for the big DX contests and make it a lot easier for us. I know I've worked lots of JA's, but even I was surprised to see them at #3 on my list! Arigatou!

The table below shows this same Top Twenty list, with last year's rankings also shown. The top twelve remain unchanged, but you can see a few at the bottom shuffled places:

DXCC Status

These charts are also as of 20-Aug-2009. I picked up two all-time new ones this past year (KP5 and C2), so I only have 13 left to work. I hadn't verified anything with the ARRL since I got my original DXCC as N3BDA in the mid 1990s. I recently submitted a whopping 953 QSOs via LoTW (ARRL's Logbook of the World). This raised

I just confirmed the last few on 80m to give me enough for 5-Band DXCC, so I will soon be sending a package to ARRL HQ or maybe even make the trip to Newington. By the way, if you ever get the chance to visit ARRL headquarters, by all means go! It's a fabulous place and everyone is warm and helpful.

Here are the 13 remaining entities I need to work and my current breakdown for each band and each mode: