2nd Subregional VHF and Up Contest 2012
Being the Rain Scatter Point
The joint effort of the south east contest team and the DF0MTL crew went into the second round. This time we operated from JN59RF.
1st Subregional VHF and Up Contest 2012
DQ7A – The Contest Year 2012 starts
Having a few good contest in 2012 together the members of the south east contest team and the DF0MTL crew decided to put in a full contest effort in the multi-operator category in 2012. So the fun starts as always in early March.
Working HK0NA
I normally don’t work DX-expeditions. However, I wanted to give it a try with HK0NA. Those guys did a tremendous effort to put that rock onto the air. So, why not giving them the great opportunity to work me too…
CQWW DX CW @ DK0EE
Is it true: Save the money for the dominatrix and just do QRP?
So operating in the Marconi Memorial Contest exhausted my time being allowed to operate seriously in an all weekend contest. Nevertheless, I have been allowed to work part time during the CQWW CW. So, I ask around if I could join a group nearby or use a local club station. I ended up to join Markus, DK2CX at DK0EE. He wanted to do a serious All Band Low Power Assisted entry. I didn’t want to hamper his effort to much. So, I could only use antennas he didn’t need. Meaning when he is operating the high band beam I could only use the low band antennas for 40 and 80m and vice versa. Unfortunately, there is no 160m antenna and my K3 used has no tuner to match the 80m dipole.
The condition forecast looked very promising and my only goals had been to work some of my old friends back in California, Zone 3. … Read the rest of this entry »
Marconi Memorial Contest 2011
They did it again
Unfortunately, the members of the DK0CG contest team lost their battle for the 3rd place in the German Contest Trophy against the DF0YY team in October. Nevertheless, they are still in a good mood and joined us for the final frontier of the contest year 2011. And as far as I can see they didn’t regret.
In contrast to other years the weather has been more than perfect. It has been warm and sunny during the day and even at night it hasn’t been to chilly. It is of course very nice to be able to set up the station as well as tier it down in absolutely dry conditions. However, it allowed our opponents as well to use their contest sites in the mountains. Well we will see where we end up in the ranks. Read the rest of this entry »
IARU Region I VHF Contest 2011
DK0CG portable @ JO61JF
Something seems wrong when the weather forecast for a contest weekend predicts almost perfect weather. And it is unbelievable when the forecast is even correct in every respect. So, we have been able to set up the station as well as tier it down in absolutely dry conditions. Almost too warm in my respect. Well, next time this is gonna change again I suppose… Read the rest of this entry »
RDA 2011 @ DL2LSM
Russian District Contest
Being with my parents on parts of the weekend gave me the opportunity to do some operating at my dads (DL2LSM) station again. This time the tuner problems have been fixed. The reason for the instabilities has been an empty back-up battery… Read the rest of this entry »
WAE CW 2011 @ DL2LSM
Cherry Picking
Being with my parents on parts of the weekend gave me the opportunity to do some operating at my dads station. The later consists of an Elecraft K2 with the 100W option and a 2-by-20m dipole at an height of about 20m. Unfortunately, there were some problems in tuning the antenna. The reason is not known at the moment and needs some more investigations. I had to re-tune on a regular basis and 20m hasn’t been usable at all. Obviously, not the perfect setup for a DX only contest… Read the rest of this entry »
IARU HF World Championship 2011
Dummy Load on the Roof
Main objective for the weekend has been supporting the DA0HQ team in defending their world title. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough space (and time) at the house we are renting to set up some decent short-wave antennas. Normally, I would take my portable 2-by-20m doublet and sign portable in the early morning hours. However, some bad weather forecast let me opt for a temporary installation of the dipole at the roof of the house. So, the antenna center had been fixed at the chimney with the dipole sloping almost to ground at a very steep angle resulting in the antenna wire touching the roof at several occasions. There were some problems in tuning the antenna on some frequencies. Obviously, the setup wasn’t perfect but there was no better way… Read the rest of this entry »
DARC VHF and Up Contest: July 2011 @ DK0CG
Making new friends
I have been very welcome by the DK0CG team in March contest. Therefore, the core team of the DF0MTL VHF team (DL2LSM and DL5YYM besides me) decided to help DK0CG to defend their 3rd place in the German Contest Trophy. So, we had to haul our entire 2m equipment some 300km south from JO61 to JN59. I took the caravan to Munich already the weekend before the contest to shorten to trip for the contest weekend. The both of us, DL2LSM and myself arrived at the JN59RF contest location early Friday afternoon just when the rain stopped. As usually the weather changed for the worse just before the contest weekend… Read the rest of this entry »