Closing 2020 in amateur radio with a plot of the number of contacts and a review / 2021-01-01

Time to plot the number of contacts in 2020 and a review. I made no specific resolutions for 2020 but looking back there were positive developments.

• The Kenwood TS480-SAT is at a remote location with good antennas for most of the HF bands. This enabled me to work new countries and get more voice and morse contacts in the log.
• I was active on amateur satellites a few times, including from Austria.
• The morse speed improved and I got on the air more with morse. Including a few morse contests.
• I tried to follow the Bulgarian Saints 2020 stations and I had at least one contact with one of the stations in 10 out of the 12 months of 2020. In 8 months I had at least one contact in morse with the station of that month. So I earned the Bulgarian Saints diploma 2020.
• In general I made more contacts in this year than in any other year. The endfed antenna is now mounted outside in such a way I can leave it there, which makes getting on the radio for a few contacts easier. There were also more special event stations active this year.
• I had radio contacts with several new countries.
• The box with outgoing QSL cards is now empty!
• I'm active as QSL manager for my local club, this is fun and my part of keeping the club running.

Plans for 2021:

• Keep practicing morse, try to pass the morse exam.
• More satellite contacts. Weather permitting...
• Morse and phone in contests.
• Order new QSL cards and keep on sending them.

More detailed statistics

By month

Plotting the number of contacts by month in 2020 shows clearly the contest months and the holiday months. This happens about every year.

Bands

Stopping with graphs and using just database queries:

+------+-----+
| band | cnt |
+------+-----+
| 80M  |   1 |
| 60M  |  21 |
| 70CM |  44 |
| 17M  |  48 |
| 15M  |  58 |
| 2M   | 154 |
| 10M  | 230 |
| 40M  | 636 |
| 20M  | 994 |
+------+-----+

I try to get on 10 meter as soon as it opens, which did happen in this year.

Modes

+-------+------+
| mode  | cnt  |
+-------+------+
| PSK31 |    3 |
| FM    |   20 |
| FT4   |   84 |
| CW    |  129 |
| PSK63 |  193 |
| SSB   |  289 |
| RTTY  |  419 |
| FT8   | 1049 |
+-------+------+

No surprise at the end, but there is a clear growth in CW contacts because I'm learning morse and a growth in SSB contacts because I can now use the remote radio.