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Activity moves towards the high bands since the sun activity goes up. One one hand this produces some nice DX openings but produces also some unproductive times especially during dusk. Nevertheless, this contest has been a lot of fun. For the first time I could break the 2000 QSO mark. (more…)
Unfortunately I didn’t get all the sleep that I wanted the night before the contest due to a medical condition in the family. So, I had to take a few short breaks during the contest. Nevertheless, the result is the best I have been achieved so far.
Just a few QSOs for fun as fixes station to support the portable enthusiasts.
This time the station had been prepared well in advance and the operator got a good rest before the start of the contest. High band conditions had been excellent the days before the contest with 15m open to the Pacific in the middle of the night and good 10m openings. So the hopes have been high for a great contest result.
Just a few QSOs during spare time. Fun to see 40m open late in the morning.
Being able to start setting up the station on the weekend before the contest allowed for some extras. So, the tower with 40m beam had already been cranked out and a second double zepp at 16m broadside to North America had been installed. The aim had been to test if such a dipole would give an advantage over the regular dipole towards the US. This dipole is fed with ladder line and got an overkill L-match at the bottom. An additional 1×6 antenna switch had been installed in the attic in order to switch between regular and add-on dipole. It has been quite some effort. However, it paid off eventually. It gave just a little bit of signal improvement in the order of 1..3 db which made a few times the difference of ‘in log’ instead of just ‘heard’. I’m now thinking of a bit more of a permanent installation.
Family summer holidays brought us to Årø an island in the Little Belt of the Baltic Sea just of the coast of Denmark mainland. I just took basic gear to take part in the weekly OK1WC Memorial Contests and to communicate with the guys back home.
The storm system Herwart endangered my participation in the CW part of the CQWW contest this time. During the lsat days of October it split a chestnut tree about 25m high at the DL2LSM QTH. About a third of the tree fell onto the guying cables of the 20m high central mast. The latter holds the 2m horizontal antenna as well as the 2-by-20m dipole which is essential for any serious low band work from this QTH. Actually, none of the 4mm and 5mm steel cables broke. However they got stretched quite a bit and as a consequence the top of the antenna got bent.
In principle all had been prepared to run this contest as it had been done last year. However, DL2JRM and DL8DYL bailed out on short notice to do an individual approach as DR7B/P. I decided to go on with the project anyway since I had promised the kids some camping on the hill.