And now for something completely different…
Last Summer I took my vanity call (OH2HA) into use and decided to try how long it would take to work 200 countries again starting from zero. First time it took 35 years with my other call (OH2BSC).
The goal was achieved on April 8th 2014, in 9 months. All qso’s were made on 100W, most of them with my trusty 15+ year old FT-1000MP. The main contributors were better antenna (6 element log periodic Tennadyne T6) and more extensive use of CW (1/3 of countries were on CW). Maybe I even have learned something about working DX. Solar cycle 24 certainly helped, but I’ve seen better sunspot numbers in the past. Still I think the most important contributor was, that during the last 5 years my hamshack has been computerized.