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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April 20th, 2016 by DK3WE
Eventually
It took some time but eventually it arrived. My plaque won in the CQ WWDX CW 2014 has been delivered yesterday. So, I have to find a reasonable place now for display 🙂
April 18th, 2016 by DK3WE
Another Plaque
The results of the CQ WW DX SSB 2015 are published in this CQ magazine article. I win another Plaque (All Band QRP Europe) by finishing second place behind VE3VN. A total of 115 QSOs and 58 multis could not compensate for the higher QSO point value operating from North America. Nevertheless, that is great news taking into account that I operated without my voice being seriously ill that weekend.
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April 16th, 2016 by DK3WE
My u2R from microHam has been working flawlessly for a couple of contests now. Unfortunately, it is recommended to be operated from an isolated power supply in order to prevent ground loops. I have been using some bricolage solution for a while now. It is not clear why there is no solution originally directly on the board.
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April 5th, 2016 by DK3WE
Loosing the Mood
Operating SSB during times of low solar activity is not much fun. However, I took the challenge again and eventually lost the mood to go on to the bitter end.
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March 9th, 2016 by DK3WE
The Thousand Stands
The results of the IARU HF World Championship 2015 have been published by the ARRL. I’m World Champion in the new Single Operator Unlimited QRP class. Read the rest of this entry »
December 1st, 2015 by DK3WE
It’s going down
Declining conditions on the high bands due to the solar cycle have the effect of DX signal levels becoming weaker and openings becoming shorter in general. Thus, operating QRP becomes harder in two ways. The time window to work a certain DX station becomes shorter, i.e. there is more competition from high power stations. Additionally, less bands will be open and stations will concentrate on the ones open. Thus, increasing the competition even further. The result is supposedly much less DX stations and multipliers worked.
So, exactly this happened over the weekend. The final result — 1.7 compared to 2.4 million points last — is down by about one third despite having worked almost as many stations.
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November 9th, 2015 by DK3WE
Monster Call
Family obligations prevented us to work from our usual portable QTH in JO61JF. So, we decided to run the contest from home. Günter, DL5YYM, came up with the idea of using DK65DARC. This is a special call of 65 year celebrations of the DARC. Although, it is a monster call for working a VHF contest we agreed.
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October 30th, 2015 by DK3WE
SSB without a Voice
John, W2GD wrote: ‘The other thing you learn operating LP or QRP is you must have perfect timing to overcome the ‘brute force’ advantage of your KW brothers. Sounds simplistic, but this has a huge impact on how well you do breaking pileups. It is a learned skill that takes practice to master.’ Well, he is pretty right. Almost all of the time during this contest I had to operate using the voice recorder of my K3 due to having lost my voice. This hampered the score quite a bit not only because the timing hasn’t been right but also responding to specific questions has been quite a challenge. Additionally, calling CQ myself has been out of question. Last but not least, operating having fever is not much fun…
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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.
