December 20th, 2017 by DK3WE
Participation in Danger
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.
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June 14th, 2017 by DK3WE
SO3K – Single Operator Three Kids
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.
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May 31st, 2017 by DK3WE
Killer Sun
This is the second CQ WPX CW contest from the DL2LSM QTH in a row. I have been ahead of last years performance until the sun shut down the bands for quite a while. So, I kept the number of QSOs almost constant. However, the final result is a bit lower compared to last year.
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January 6th, 2017 by DK3WE
Happy Second
The final scores for the CQWW DX CW 2016 are out and the ranking from the claimed scores stands. Thus, giving me a second place finish after two consecutive wins in this contest. Karel, OK2FD, wins this time with almost the same number of QSOs but quite some more multis. Congratulations. Considering the illness and the resulting operating time during the weekend I’m still quite happy with the result and will definitely try to fight back in the 2017 competition.
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December 22nd, 2016 by DK3WE
Killing a Birch
A birch grown to about 25m height over the years became a creeping danger to the house @DL2LSM. Additionally, it came to close to the main antenna mast and damage already the 2m antenna. So, we decided to cut it down.
Unfortunately, the close proximity to the house and the limited space around the birch prevented us from doing the job on our own. We hired professional tree climbers who cut it down piece by piece. They did a marvelous job.
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June 10th, 2016 by DK3WE
First Serious Participation
The idea of taking part in the IARU Region I Fieldday came up when chatting with René, DL2JRM, during the annual BCC Meeting 2016. It has been decided that DL2JRM provides the Fieldday-QTH and is responsible for all social activities wheras DL2LSM and DK3WE provide the rig as well as housing. The team has been joined by Irina, DL8DYL, on short notice. We decided to play with the big boys in the Low-Power-Unassisted category.
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June 1st, 2016 by DK3WE
Continuous Improvement
The CQ WPX CW contest has been in coincidence with the family holidays on Bornholm Island for the last couple of years. However, my daughter started school last September and consequently family holidays moved to August. So, this WPX participation has been the first one from the DL2LSM QTH for quite a while. The overall result is comparable to the one from last year despite the declining sun activity. So, it has been managed to work about 100 more QSOs whie keeping the QSO points and prefixes at a constant level.
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May 24th, 2016 by DK3WE
The standard antenna setup @DL2LSM consists of:
- a three band spider beam at a height of about 13m, and
- a 2-by-20m dipole fed by a symmetrical antenna tuner AT-502 at about 12m.
The ground conditions are pretty good with ground water close to the soil. In principle the antenna setup is rather small. Nevertheless, it works amazingly well and allowed for some nice contest scores, e.g. the actual World Record of the Single Operator Assisted QRP category of the CQ WWDX contest. Additionally, a couple of different temporary antennas have been used, e.g. 40m delta loop, 2-by-27m double zepp, 80m wire pyramid, and 80m horizontal quad loop. None of these antennas — although often praised as killer antennas with gain several S units above a dipole — has been really convincing. In order to put the practical observation into perspective a numerical analysis with the 4NEC2 package has been performed. The results are presented in the following.
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April 27th, 2016 by DK3WE
In order to use the spiderbeam @DL2LSM in parallel on several bands I’ve been looking for a triplexer. Looking at several approaches both commercially as well as homemade, I stumbled across the work of Pavel, VA6AM. He has been developing a triplexer with respectable performance numbers. Additionally, he provides printed circuit boards, parts, as well as entire triplexers. I opted for a full assembled board. It arrived in good conditions. DL2LSM did his usual mechanical magic to mount it in a suitable enclosure.
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April 24th, 2016 by DK3WE
Accuracy Pays Off
It has been a real surprise to me having a look at the results of the CQ WWDX CW contest 2015. The claimed scores put me in second place with Karel, OK2FD, leading the pack by a clear margin. However, he lost more than 6 percent of his score during the process of log checking. In contrast my result got reduced by only 2.4 percent. When the dust settled the difference between the two of us is less than a single DX or two inner European QSOs. Luckily – at least for me – the initial ranking got reversed. So, giving me my second consecutive win in this contest.
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