My goal of working new countries has been getting harder, as I am at 259 confirmed, and something like 266 worked.FT8 certainly makes the task easier, especially with a modest station (which is me).
So when a new country is highlighted in WSJT-X. it is a pleasant surprise, though is is often difficult to actually work them. Sometimes, they do not hear me, or there are many stations calling them. Often, they don’t stay on the air very long.
But I saw E51WL pop up, and sure enough we made the contact. E51WL is North Cook Islands, in the South Pacific. As I usually do, I looked him up on QRZ, for various reasons. One, to see what his QSL policy was. LoTW is my preference, and the QRZ page may or may give a clue. Then I probably would go to LoTW, and look up his call sign. It will say when was the last time he uploaded a log (or never has).
QSOs with DX stations are generally short, whether phone or cw, and also with digital modes. So if the DX station I have worked in very far away, is a small country or remote island, I like to look it up.
E51WL is Warwick Latham. The Cook Islands are associated with New Zealand, although pretty far away. E51WL lives on the Penrhyn Atoll, which I think is the northern-most island of the Cook Islands. It is about 850 miles to the capital city of the Cook Islands.
Only about 220 people currently live on Penrhyn. They lost over 50% of their population in the recent past. There are no stores, no doctors. No hotels. They get a handful of visitors a year. The center of the atoll is a shark infested lagoon.
There are a couple of YouTube videos that people made who visited the island. There are occasional boats that bring supplies, and a sandy airstrip for a plane to land (if they have any fuel on the island. They recently had some solar panels installed. They had a diesel generator that would run during the day, and shut down at 11PM. Not sure if they have battery storage now to go with the solar panels.
Just fascinating to see how people live in other parts of the world. I wonder how Warwick ended up there. He clearly is not native to the islands, as most of the residents are typical of Polynesian descent.
Even with the remoteness of E51WL’s QTH, I saw he does now use LoTW, as mail to/from the US has been disrupted (wonder why? One guess!) He hasn’t uploaded my QSO yet, but hopefully soon and I will be at 260!
