On 18th September 2023, I tuned in to VMC – the Bureau of Meteorology Marine Weather HF service transmitting on 2201 kHz from Charleville in Queensland.

References.

1. Bureau of Meteorology, 2023, <http://www.bom.gov.au/marine/radio-sat/marine-weather-hf-radio.shtml>, viewed 10th October 2023.

The 2023 Oceania DX Contest was held on the weekend just passed, Saturday 7th October 2023 from 0600 UTC, to 0600 UTC on Sunday 8th October 2023.

I entered into the Single Op All Bands Low power category. I ran the Yaesu FTdx101MP and 100 watts during the contest. My antennas were the 5-element tri-band yagi @ 50 feet and the 40m rotatable dipole @ 55 feet.

I made 785 QSOs with a claimed score of 859,500 points.

The majority of my QSOs were on the 20m band (385), followed by 10m (196), and then 15m (125).

I worked a total of 61 different DXCC entities during the contest:

• Alaska
• Argentina
• Asiatic Russia
• Australia
• Austria
• Belarus
• Belgium
• Bulgaria
• Canada
• Chile
• China
• Colombia
• Corsica
• Costa Rica
• Croatia
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• England
• European Russia
• Federal Republic of Germany
• Fiji
• Finland
• France
• Greece
• Hawaii
• Hong Kong
• Hungary
• India
• Indonesia
• Ireland
• Isle of Man
• Israel
• Italy
• Japan
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Madeira Islands
• Mexico
• Netherlands
• New Caledonia
• New Zealand
• Northern Ireland
• Norway
• Oman
• Philippines
• Poland
• Puerto Rico
• Republic of Korea
• Scotland
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Thailand
• Turkey
• Ukraine
• United States
• Wales
• West Malaysia

The map below shows my contacts around the world during the contest.

I went to bed at a respectable time on Saturday night, about 11.30 p.m., and didn’t get back into the shack until about 8.30 a.m. on Sunday morning.

I was down about 200 QSOs from last year when I won the category. Nonetheless, I had a lot of fun again this year and I would like to thank everyone who called me, and thank you to the organisers of this great Contest.