Best place is the highest hill with a 360 degree view withing 10 minutes of my house.

If I had missed nothing since I started DXing seriously in 2006, I would have Kure, Bouvet, Heard, and VK9X, so I'd be at 320 instead of 316.  That would be nice, but I wouldn't want to have to take a day off from my new site development/antenna work to spend it in a pileup to work the next one if I didn't really feel it was fun.

It's honestly bad manners to criticize another group for doing what they want to do, it's unreasonable to carry the attitude that no one else can go because we or I am going. Then again, when did you ever see DXers exhibit good manners and sportsmanship...if it's not worth going, then maybe they shouldn't this time.

I missed K7C for Kure back when all I had was Butternut vertical HF-9.  I really still am not happy about that, it was before I got the message that you better work 'em NOW.  I'll be waiting quite a while for that one again.  I missed 9M0L although I have Spratley from another operation, so it doesn't sting much.  I have never gotten any VK9X, and there are operations there every year.

I was worried, because my amp is out of comission and I've gotten used to being heard with it. No chance of getting it back before this one folds up. However, I have managed SSB and CW on 20M plus 15 and 17 CW, barefoot FT-2000, so all is OK in the world. I have listened on 40M every night, things are VERY noisy there, 7O6T sounds weak, and the pileups are horrible.  I have hopes for 12M and 40M CW before they close up, and 15-17 SSB seems very possible as well based on signals and expectation that the pileups will be prety much thinner in a week.

I live in a village nestled between ridge lines to the west and east, but I can shoot to EU and south pretty unimpeded. My HFTA plots are not great, but I still have worked 315 countries from here by hammering with 1500 watts and decent antennas, none over 53 feet high.  One way to think about your antenna situation is how much better will a tribander be on a 60 foot tower than your dipole fixed in one orientation? ALOT! You will never win contests from that location, but you will work alot of DX and you will have alot more fun with a better antenna, even if your location is compromised.  To overcome my limitations of site, I bought a property on a hilltop 10 miles from my home, with a rental property on it; I'm setting up towers with a goal of running a station there in 1-2 years.  The site gain, meaning the difference in gain between the same antenna systems there and at homee can run as high as 10-12 dB for certain directions on certain bands. Non ideal is the norm for most of us.

My Alpha 99 went down today, first problem in 4 years, so I guess I don't have to worry about working them!   I did hear them Sunday 4/15 AM local time about 8:30 AM working a string of JA, occasional EU, and one N4 made it through.  They were not strong, S1 but audible.  Anyway, the throng of JA will work down as the week progresses. 

Yes!  Upload your log to ClubLog and you can get it anaylzed automaticaly by following their log analysis tabs, find out about your confirmations status for each band and mode.  You get a great visual display.  They will also check your log for accuracy on country/prefix assignments.

I wish I had kept better track of what I mailed out.  One thing I can say is that the mail system eats my letters to Jordan, India, Armenia, and a few others.  I'm waiting on HK0NA, 3C0E, VK0TH for new ones, and a host of band fills.

There are several active stations, and they are on often, so check the DX clusters and spot search.  CW is best.  I tend to work them on 15-12M around 1330-1500Z, and on 20M around 0100-0200Z from central NY. Right around this time of the year you should bag UK8IF, UK8AJ, UK6AC, UK8AR or one of the other active guys, I worked two one evening within the past 2 weeks.

This is huge!  Campbell has not been on the air to my knowledge since I started serious DXing in 2005.  Can't wait.

Last night I had trouble sleeping, so I stumbled downstairs and listened to Trevor's whisper like signal on 20M CW here east coast USA at 3 AM.  He was working EU, no luck for me at all. However, seeing he is leaving the island soon, I decided to re check the cluster at 7 AM and found he was spotted 40M SSB. He was at least 4 by 4, no pileup, and worked easily.  So after months of sort of thinking I should put some effort into getting into his log, and having kinda given up, it happened. So much of DXing is being in the right place at the right time, either by design or sometimes by luck.  #315...

The Cluster, and anyplace else free.

I have no issue contributing $5 to a DXpedition effort and do so frequently for OQRS. The artile in QST magazine April 2012 gave a pretty open accounting of the finances for VP8ORK, and pointed out the generosity not only of time but also $$ by the DXpeditioners to bring that one to the air. It actually is not too common to see the expense accounting for expeditions posted on line, at least in my causual reading of QST, this column and a few others. There are a group of hams out there who somehow believe that DXpeditions are making money on QSLs, so more transparency would tend to silence that and increase donations.

I think that includes the FT-5000 if it doesn't need to be an ICOM