HNY!

Hello 2015! 
The Tarheel was brought out of storage and set up, all the cables run, all the pieces of the station unboxed and connected. I'm now QRV from CKFL.

My first Cedar Key QSO at 1848 on December 31 (W100AW, 15m CW); the first of 2015 was with RI1ANR at Novo Airbase, Antarctica (20m CW @ 0330).

I'm currently operating 30m~15m. If band conditions a right I will try 12m and 10m. Hell, maybe even 6m. Just without the amp -- the analyzer shows the Tarheel tunable to SWR 1.2 or lower down to about 8.7 MHz; the upper end of the tuning range is around 22 MHz. That will have to be worked out. Made 24 contacts for 20 countries in the first seven days of 2015, including Order of Malta (1A0C) for all-time #205 worked.

The shack is going to be minimalist for a while. My new office is a lot smaller than the last so I need to keep the radios near the end of the desk in order to have better access to the rear panels of the K3 and KPA500. I'll beaving the NRD-515's and all the rest of the radios boxed. The mic is going to stay packed, too, unless and until I play in a phone contest. Or I may dig out the Heil Proset and get that working again instead. Right now I'm happy making almost every QSO with a straight key.

---

Twenty-Fourteen was productive for me even though there were several months that I was QRT. The DXCC totals that I'm starting 2015 with:

DXCC Totals
12/31/2014
	Cfd	Wkd		Cfd	Wkd		Cfd	Wkd
Mixed	170	204	80m	11	26	17m	57	86
CW	149	187	40m	112	135	15m	105	135
SSB	105	133	30m	59	89	12m	6	11
Digital	60	82	20m	130	168	10m	41	52

A big +74 country gain on CW, from 75 confirmed at the beginning of the year to 149 at the end. All that key slappin' paid off! Passed 100 on CW, Phone, 40m, 20m, and 15m. And finishing off Triple Play a few days before moving to Cedar Key was a great way to end my 5-year, off-and-on operating stint in Texas.

My 2015 plans: put some wire in the air for the low bands, at least 80m and 40m; connect the Macbook Air to the K3 so I can finally put the old Dell desktop out to pasture; start chipping away at QRP-DXCC and QRP-WAS; and most importantly, install a good ground system. Like, soon.

---

Latest eQSL design for Cedar Key, FL operations:

That is, I believe, the No. 16 channel marker. North Key is in the background, one of our favorite boating spots. I'd really like to operate from one of the little outlying islands here in the Cedar Keys. But when I'm actually setting foot on one of them I'm reminded that they're full of things that make me itch. Still...