PE6A – ARRL 10m contest 2023

This year Roy, PD8RW, and myself decided to join forces and compete in the ARRL 10m contest with a special contest call, PE6A. Conditions were really good in the CQWW cw contest just 2 weeks earlier so hopes were high on a similar experience in this contest.

Unfortunately, the solar flux started to drop right after the CQWWcw and in the days just before the contest it was already apparent that we had to deal with less favorable conditions. But because the band definitely would be much better than a few years ago, we started to erect the 4 ele OWA beam in Roy’s 11 m mast and we also put up a 5/8 vertical as back-up and RX antenna (but, after a short listen, we never used it).

On Saturday we started around 08:00 utc, just after sunrise. The band was open, but we felt activity was not great and signals were not particularly loud. So it was mainly S&P to pick out the multipliers. But as mentioned before activity was not great and there were quite a few “standard” countries missing. The few short runs we could make only yielded a bunch of Russian stations … Interestingly, we worked ZL3CW around 10:30 utc via the long path. He was maybe S3, but workable. 2.5 hours earlier we heard him short path, but barely audible and not workable.

In the afternoon, the story was similar. Mediocre signals from the Caribbean and NA. Although we had one decent CW run towards NA, we could hear many US/VE stations work each other for state/province multipliers, while the band had its (meager) opening towards EU.

Fortunately on Sunday things were slightly better. Louder signals and it was a bit easier to raise a short run although this yielded mostly Russians in the eastern direction without any exotic DX. In the afternoon we could fill most of the missing US states as signals to the west were also louder, except for the north-west as W7 was still difficult: only AZ was worked. As far as VE provinces are concerned, SK was the most western province, with quite a few others lacking. We only heard a few XE stations, so just 2 districts made it into the log.

Here are the stats and multiplier listings.

Just as a comparison, in the CQWWcw I worked 112 countries in CW, indicating that both activity and conditions were better then …

The QSO plots show that we worked truly world-wide this weekend, but, again, with difficulty and relatively low “real DX” activity …

We had a lot of fun and hope conditions will be better next year (probably the last chance before the solar cycle will go downwards again). We used a Yaesu FTdx10 transceiver fitted with an extra 300Hz CW filter (this is a must-buy item for any serious CW operator), 400W amplifier and a home built 4 ele OWA yagi based on G0SKC’s design.

Algarve 2023

This year I spend another three weeks with my wife in the Algarve (very close to Portimão). So, another opportunity to activate some of the local CTFF parks while enjoying the beautiful weather. And beautiful weather it is … With temperatures hovering between 25 and 33 degrees and clear blue skies !
I brought my IC-7300, 12m Spiderpole with random wire and MAT-40 tuner. Along with the Ecoflow River powerstation and a solar panel it makes WWFF activations a lot of fun.

CTFF-0886, Costa Sudoeste, September 28

My first activation was on CTFF-0886, Costa Sudoeste. I activated this park last year as a “new one” so I thought it would still be a sought-after reference … I drove to the same spot as last year a little north of Raposeira, near Budens. It is a nice plane with a good take-off to all directions.

In contrast to last year, activity seemed to be less. This is most likely due to the fact that there are many DXpeditions going on right now, whereas last year, still due to Corona, there were only a few … So nowadays as an WWFF station you are not as sought-after as in the previous couple of years.
Nevertheless, I could make quite a few chasers happy with a new reference. I made 82 QSOs (net) with a lot of emphasis on the higher bands.

CTFF-0242, Las Dunas de Vila Real de St.Antonio, October 6

My second activation day was on October 6. While my wife was going for a round of golf near Tavira I went to the Spanish border area of the Algarve to activate CTFF-0242, Las Dunas de Vila Real de St.Antonio, in the late morning. This park has never been activated before, although it is listed already for quite some time. It is easy to activate because the M511 road runs straight through it. The road itself is not part of the park so you have to bring your equipment inside the fenced area. There are some walking paths so it is not difficult to do this. I put my station on top of a dune about 20m inside the park. Unfortunalety I forgot to take a picture of my set-up, so you only see my camping table before I packed it as the last item in the car (the M511 in the background).

During this activity the condition on the highest bands were excellent again, in particular 12m was hot. I was even called by ZL2AGY (11:36utc, so quite late in the evening ZL time). He was quite weak, but I was excited that we made it, with 100W and a random wire on my side, wow ! Here are the overall stats (net QSOs):

CTFF-0022, Reserva Natural do Sapal de Castro Marim e Vila Real de St.Antonio, October 6

A bit North of St. Antonio, lies CTFF-0022, Reserva Natural do Sapal de Castro Marim e Vila Real de St.Antonio. Only 10 minutes drive from my morning activation. This is a flat marsh land area and easily accessed by a dirt road taking off from the N122. The station was set-up quickly again. I found a great spot on the shore of a brackish rift.
As this park has been activated many times before, I was not planning for a huge number of QSOs and, besides, I needed to pick up my wife from the golf course. Nevertheless I could raise quite some interest among the chasers, so ended up with a reasonable amount of QSOs after 1 hour of air time. As you can see in the stats below, 12m was the money band again …

CTFF-0075, Caldeirao, October 10

My last activity this year from the Algarve was from CTFF-0075, Caldeirao. I found a great location at a viewpoint, the Miradouro do Ameixeira, along the M1202, a little north of Sao Bras de Alportel. On top of a hill, so clear take-off in all directions.

I arrived around 13:15 local time, and after building the station I started a little after 13:00utc on 10m which was wide open. European signal were loud and there were plenty of chasers fighting to get in the log … Similarly on 12m, QSOs were quickly made. The minimum of 44 QSOs were made in 24 minutes ! Also 15 and 17m were given a little work-out, so after a little over an hour of air time 107 QSOs were made. That is the best runrate I had during my 4 activations in the Algarve.

Here are the stats.

In this time of the year I think the Algarve is one the best areas to do outdoor radio. The weather is great and you will always find a band with good conditions.

Meanwhile, with the activations above, I have activated in total 16 CTFF areas. Although I am not an award collector, in this case I have applied for the CTFF-A-14 award. It was quickly issued to me by Hugo, CT7AOV.

PACC 2023 (11/12 Feb 2023)

As always, also this year, I was doubting whether I should make a real effort or not in the Dutch PACC contest. But, as always, after a few hours it appeared I was doing quite well, so GO for it. This conditions were pretty good and of course with the solar cycle 25 getting real momentum now it was fun on the higher bands. 10m and 15m were wide open. I compete in the SOAB HIGH CW class and there is a lot of competition … PA3AAV, PA5KT and PG5M, to name a few. All with better stations (i.e. better antennas and/or environment with less man-made noise) than the one I have.
As said, the contest started off really great, nice runs and the first hours were all with >100 QSOs. I kept going (except for a 30 min dinner break) until 00:15z Sunday morning at which point I already had more than 1100 QSOs in the log. That was promising … !
After getting up at 0530z, things started at a relatively low rate. Conditions were not great and a good sunrise grayline opening on the lower bands was absent. Also no ZL long path (a few years ago S9+ sigs …). Fortunately the higher bands opened early, 20m even before sunrise. Nevertheless the activity on Sunday was a lot less than on Saturday, and I could not raise the pile-ups I had on Saturday. I could monitor the progress of others on Contestonlinescore and see that I was gradually loosing my position due to lack of rate and multipliers. You really need to be loud everywhere i.e. have excellent antennas in order to make it …

Here is my score and a map of the QSO along with some stats.

As you see, despite the good openings on the higher bands, 40m is still the money band both for number of QSOs as well as multipliers. This indicates that the PACC is really a Europe oriented contest as can be seen on this table:

Although 114 QSOs with the USA is not bad compared to recent years, most of the other countries are European (with European Russia leading the pack …). Only one QSO with Australia which was my best DX … on 40m !

All in all, it was fun again to participate and to be the “wanted” guy … Now the waiting for the final results starts …

[June 2023 edit] Final results are available and I am happy to see that I am third place in my category (SO high power CW).

EA8/PF5X, Fuerteventura, 21-27 January 2023

A short holiday to Fuerteventura with my wife and youngest son, enabled me to get on the air from the Canary Islands. Not a real DX “most wanted” entity, but a fun spot to play with the radio. Conditions from that latitude are also a lot better than what I am used to from home …

We were located in the village of Lajares in the North-Eastern part of the island, close to Corralejo (well-known beach and surf spot). We had a basic Airbnb house with some space in the garden to place a Spiderpole mast with my random wire/MAT-40 antenna.

12m spiderpole tied to a little palm tree with a ~14m random wire and MAT-40 tuner.

During daytime there was not much QRM and condition were quite good during my stay. However, EA8 is not really sought after anymore, so raising a pile-up was not possible given my set-up. In the evening it appeared that the 3 LED lamps in our apartment were a huge source of noise on all bands. S9 noise … These are cheap Chinese made LED panels with apparently a very bad LED driver in them. I was allowed by my family to be active with only a small bed lamp lighting the room. A little USB LED lamp lit my laptop keyboard …

LED lamp causing a lot of noise.

Set-up of EA8/PF5X (IC-7100)

All in all it was fun to get on the air, despite the fact I made only ~330 QSOs. Log has been uploaded in ClubLog and in LotW as well.

ARRL 10m contest, 10/11 December 2022

With the fast increasing solar activity into cycle 25, the 10m band showed some nice openings in the recent weeks. The solar forecast was very favorite with relatively low K (~2) and high flux numbers (~140) for the weekend, so I decided to join the ARRL 10m contest (SOHP(A) CW category) and go for a somewhat serious effort. Because my Mosley mini beam is simply not good enough – too many coils in the elements – I put up my 10m Moxon on a temporary 10m mast. The Moxon is at nearly the same height as the Mosley beam.

Moxon on the left @ 10m height

I could make a comparison between the antennas and the Moxon is definitely putting out a better signal (about 0.5 to 1 S point). This is more than I expected and I think I should check the coax cable to the beam because I am not sure weather the Moxon can be that much better …

Being a slow starter in the morning I started off maybe one hour too late on Saturday morning at about 08.30utc. The band was already wide open to the East and I started to S&P for DX multipliers. Definitely not as many goodies on the band than a few weeks ago in the CQWWcw, but still I could catch some nice ones including ZL, VK, JA, VR2, HS, 9N, 9V1YC (nice to hear you on this band, James !), 8Q and YB. During mid-day I had a few runs with mainly east-block countries and some S&P for multipliers. Then, in the afternoon North America opened up and it was nice to make a few runs on 10m after so many years. Yet, the disadvantage with this contest is, that it is actually a bit too late in the season. The days are very short and the band closes early. At 1545utc I could hear (weak) USA station either working each other or work into South America and the Caribbean and signals dropped rapidly, so I called it a day.

Sunday was again a fairly late start at 08.00utc, and I noticed that the band was less crowded than the day before. Nevertheless I could catch a few DX stations again for needed multipliers, noticeably 9M, XV, JT, HL, and BY. But activity seemed to be lower and conditions were not close to what they were on Saturday. In the afternoon NA signals were not as loud and I could not raise a decent run. Caribbean signals were really weak ! At the end of the day there was some sort of an opening towards South America but again only a few loud signals around. Shortly after 1600utc the band closed and I just made 450 QSOs. All in all a fun contest after all these years without decent conditions on 10m …

Here are the result of fourteen and a half hours in the chair … I am particular happy with the multiplier/QSO ratio. Congrats to Jaap, PA0O, who just beat me with more QSOs and score. Fun watching this on contestonlinescore.com.

CTFF-0007 / IOTA EU-145, Ria Formosa – Culatra Island, 28-Oct-2022

Last year I already thought about going to Culatra, the only island counting for EU-145. And it is counting for CTFF-0007 as well. This year I finally managed to go there in a day trip fashion. I could not find decent accommodation. I was given a contact by Markus, DJ4EL, who stayed on the island, but the owner never reacted on my e-mail. You can only go by foot to the island and you need to bring some sort of hand cart to carry your gear. I had bought a second hand foldable hand cart, which was big enough to carry everything.

Foldable hand cart with all equipment except for the transceiver which is in the aluminium photo case.

My wife accompanied me to the island and helped with carrying my things. The ferry service from Olhao to the island is still rather frequent in winter season (starting Oct. 1). So we took the 11:00h (10:00utc) boat.

Boat to Culatra and Farol (which is actually the same island).

On the island only a limited number of paths are paved and otherwise it’s sand. Dragging the cart through sand with its small wheels is not very convenient, so we looked for a place close to the village to set up the station. Fortunately I spotted an old abandoned house at the edge of the village which seemed to offer an ideal operating place. The last part of the path to the house was heavy sand, so getting there was quite an exercise …

Obviously the abandoned house was a mess with a lot of debris around. My wife found a mirror mounted against a wooden plate which could serve as table after laying it upon a well. Really very handy !! The Spider pole with random wire was put against a wall and after setting up the rig I was ready to go at around 11:40utc.

Station and antenna in the abandoned house

Abandoned house from outside. Antenna just visible through the door opening.

Operator at the station. IC-7300 and laptop.

Conditions and activity were good. I started on 10m – first station was KD1CT, thanks Bob ! – and had a nice run before I went to 12m, which was also yielding quite good. Most chasers found their way into the log while I gradually worked my way down to 30m. It was also nice to be called by quite a few Dutch friends like Aart, PA3C, Gerben, PG5M, Martin, PA4WM and Gert, PA2LO. I had the impression that interest in EU-145 was not as high as I had hoped for, but it is not a very rare island group of course and activated in the past quite a few times.The weather was just great and I kept on going until 15:00 utc when it was time to break up in order to catch the 17:45 (local time) boat. I had 226 QSOs in the log so a pretty good result for 3.5 hours of air time. Here are the stats:

This was my last CTFF activity of this year. Thanks to Slavomira, CT7ARW, for handling my logs !

CTFF-0157, Area Protegida de Piçarras, 18-Oct-2022

Being the last day of good weather – the forecast shows rain and wind for the next 6 days or so – I decided to go out and activate another park. Although CTFF-0075, Caldeirao, is still on my list, I found another park not too far away which has never been activated before, CTFF-0157. It is relatively small, close to the village of Ourique. On Google maps I found a spot which seems to be OK for setting up my station.
After one hour drive I reached the park. The spot I had in mind was fenced off, so I drove around a bit to find another spot. After half an hour I found a real nice and high location not far from my initial choice. It seems it is normally fenced off as well but the fence was open so I could drive about 100m to the small hill top (sign-posted with a little concrete structure). The take-off was excellent, sloping down in all directions. Only problem were the little flies who crawled over my arms and legs (fortunately they did not sting).

Location is blue dot. Initial choice is orange star

You can find the park perimeter on the website of CTFF.
I quickly build up the station and started to call CQ on 13:10utc on 20m.

Set-up at CTFF-0157

At the top of the hill …

Being a normal weekday activity was not so high and conditions were also not as hot as a few days before. Nevertheless most chaser found their way into the log, including our overseas friends (KD1CT, KG8P – 10m & 17m ! – and a few more). 20m and 17m were the best yielding bands, but I also worked quite a few stations on 30m because I was active a little later than I normally do. After 107 QSOs I pulled the plug at 15:30utc. So a little less than two and a half hours of air time, not bad. Here are the stats:

This is the last activity for the coming period. The weather is really bad now and we are going to the Costa del Sol, Spain for a few days, as it is supposed to be a lot better there … After my return in Portugal (25th) I might activate yet another park, but that is not certain …

CTFF-0077, Cerro da Cabeça, 14-Oct-2022

As the weather forecast was again very good I decided to go for the next reference on my list: Cerro da Cabeça. It was a 55 minute drive from Alvor (next to Portimão) where I stay. This relatively small park is in fact a hill. I found an accessible road on Google maps, and upon arrival it appeared to be on the North-West slop of the hill with an excellent take-off to Europe and NA.

On a Friday and in the weekend activity is always better than on the other days of the week, which immediately became apparent when I started on 20m at 11:00z. I got entwined in a huge pile-up with everyone calling exactly zero-beat … After 30 minutes or so and 68 QSOs in the log the pile-up finally dried and I could move to higher bands: 17m, 12m and 10m. Conditions on 10m were slightly less than the day before, but activity – as said – was a lot better, so I could make almost 70 QSOs ! All in all a very successful activation with in total 194 QSOs. Here are the stats:

The weather forecast for the coming period is not as good as I have hoped for. Nevertheless I will definitely go to CTFF-0075, Caldeirão, but activating Culatra, EU-145/CTFF-0007, is doubtful … Hopefully the forecast will improve a bit. All I need is dry weather !

CTFF-0076, Barrocal, 13-Oct-2022

Yet another beautiful day in the Algarve … ! With this weather you just cannot resist and go out for another activation. So I went to Barrocal, a large protected area with plenty of spots to choose from. I decided to try the most South-Western part of the park as it is closest to where I stay. On Google maps (using the terrain view) I found a nice plateau with clear take-off to most directions, a little South-East of the village of Tunes.

The station was set-up quickly and my first CQ on 10m started at 11:51utc. Conditions were great with loud EU signals (northern part that is). After 30 QSOs in 25 minutes I went to 20m which is always good for the die-hard chasers. So the log quickly filled to 56 in the next 15 minutes. The first part of an activation always gives the highest rate, in particular now that Corona has more or less gone (it has actually not…) and quite a few DXpeditions appear, so you are dependent on the WWFF chasers as there are less casual collectors … Anyway, 12m and 17m were given a work-out as well, before the rate really got low. 15m was not so good mainly because my laptop’s USB interface appears to be generating noise on that band and is susceptible to RFI (I can output max. 50W, above which the USB port crashes and looses control over the IC-7300 via the microHAM CW keyer). No clue yet on how to fix this. It might be inherent to my cheap Lenovo laptop … 10m yielded some USA stations including KG8P (also on 12m and 20m), N5G – who was really loud – and K8P. The latter two were good for a Park-to-park QSO.
I briefly tried 30m, which yielded only a few QSOs as everybody was on the higher bands I guess. So with 142 QSOs in total, I was satisfied when I pulled the plug at 14:45z. 10m appeared to be the money band today, and that’s a first for me !

Here are the stats:

CTFF-0886, Costa Sudoeste, 12-Oct-2022

Today I activated a recently added and never activated park, Costa Sudoeste, CTFF-0886, which is for a very great part overlapping with CTFF-0012. The latter being the smaller one you have to be careful that you are really activating the bigger -0886. So you need to be OUTSIDE CTFF-0012. The new CTFF website shows informative maps which you can use to determine a good location (thanks Hugo, CT7AOV, for setting this up). I chose a location North of Raposeira. The area is a high altitude plateau (with a lot of wind generators), perfect for radio as the take-off will be good.

Location at the blue dot

Conditions were quite good with nice signals on 10 and 12m. Even NA stations made it into the 10m log including KD1CT who was eager to work this new one. The needed 44 QSOs were made within the hour. Also 12m was in good shape and many chasers could be logged. 15m was very noisy and I could not hear many signals. Maybe a nearby high-voltage line caused trouble again … 17 and 20m yielded the usual EU chasers. And at the end of the activity I shortly tried 30m, which offered an opportunity for some more EU chasers. After seeing him spotted, I made one surprise QSO on 6m/SSB with TT8SN, Nicolas, who is very active on 6m. Tnx Nico !!

Operating position nicely in the shade of the trees

Antenna (random wire + MAT-40 tuner). Looking West

After about two and a half hours of air time and 124 QSOs in the log I pulled the plug and packed the station. Activity was better than during my previous activations this week, but attention is definitely taken away by the current DXpeditions (D60AE and TO2DL) as well as by the CWT contest this afternoon (13-14z). Tomorrow another chance when I will visit Barrocal, CTFF-0076.

Here are today’s stats:

CTFF-0070, Rocha da Pena and CTFF-0071, Fonte da Benémola, 10-Oct-2022

Yet another sunny day in the Algarve, so I decided to activate two parks which are only a 15 minute drive from each other, and both a little north of Loulé. The first one was Rocha da Pena. I found a little road on Google maps which leads to the sub-top of the “Rocha”, a little east of the summit. This appeared to be an absolute top location. Great take-off (and view) from North-west over North to South-west. And it had a pick-nick area with a roof to keep the burning sun away from the set-up. So the station was set-up rapidly and I was on the air at 11:09utc on 30m. Activity on a Monday is considerably less than on a weekend. The rate was low, maybe conditions were also deteriorated compared to the days before. I never could raise a pile-up and it took almost an hour to get to the required 44 QSO’s to make it a valid activation (as an activator).

Location at CTFF-0070

“Room (shack) with a view”

Direction North

Direction West; Rocha da Pena summit

Fortunately, North-European signal came in quite loud on 10m, so I could make some QSOs there as well. Very few intercontinental stations made it into the log (2 NA and 2 AS). At 12:22utc I pulled the plug in order to pack and move to the next park. Here are the stats:

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A 15 minute drive brought me to Fonte da Benémola. This is basically a park along a river valley. Therefore I chose a location at the edge of the park and not in the valley (bad take-off) which is the main tourist attraction. At the west side I found a spot with a good take-off to the North. The station was set up quickly and I was QRV again at 13:48utc. Conditions seemed to be slightly better as I could raise some little pile-ups on 20m this time. On the down side, I encountered some local noise on 21 MHz and up. Maybe due to solar panels or a high-voltage line which was rather close-by …

Location in CTFF-0071

Set-up in CTFF-0071

At 15:08utc I called it a day with 79 QSOs in the log, but again with hardly any DX, only PY2CX on 10m (quite loud …). Here are the stats:

Logs have already been sent to the new CTFF log coordinator, Slavomira, CT7ARW. Look out for the next activations from CTFF-0886 (new one) and CTFF-0077.

Algarve 2022, CT7/PF5X/P – Herdade da Parra, CTFF-0233

Like last year, I am staying in the Algarve, Portugal, for the month of October. The first week I spent with my wife and some very good friends. Now that they have gone (my wife needed to work), I have time “to play radio” and activate some of the nice nature reserves in the region. So, today I drove a little north of Silves and activated Herdade da Parra, CTFF-0233. This is a beautiful hilly region. In order to get a good take-off towards Europe and maybe some other continents you have to choose your location carefully. My initial choice was on the hilltop, but it appeared to be accessible by 4×4 drive only (very steep, rough gravel road). So my second choice was just along the M502 road on a gravel parking area. It was a rather high location with a clear view from West to East over North, so ideal for my target “audience”.

Looking North. 10m Spiderbeam mini-pole, MAT-40 tuner and 12m wire + 2 elevated counterpoises

Conditions were quite different from last year. Now, 10 to 15m were wide open. On 10m the European signals were really loud. Short skip F2, wow ! The required 44 QSOs for a valid activation were quickly made. On 12m and 15m the European signals were also very good. Strangely enough DX signals were not that loud and very few inter-continental QSOs ended in the log. The weather was fantastic and my powerstation + solar panel were a happy twin. At the end of my activity I still had almost 75% of the energy available … and I used 100W output all the time.

Ecoflow R600 powerstation (576 Wh) and Eco-worthy 100 Wp foldable solar panel

Here are the stats after 3 hours of air time:

As you can see I even tried some SSB on 10m. Some loud Germans made it into the log, but it is not really my thing (CW rules …). And CT7/PF5X/P is just terrible in phone (in CW too, but N1MM does the hard work).

With this kind of weather and propagation, activating a WWFF reference is just sheer pleasure …

Outdoor radio in the Algarve … Big fun !

In the coming 10 days I plan to activate at least the following references:
CTFF-0076, -0077 and -0007. CUL !

DL/PF5X/P, DLFF-0567, NSG Dueffel – Kellener Altrhein und Flussmarschen, 3 Aug 2022

With a weather forecast of high temperatures and sunshine all day, I decided to activate one of the relatively close German nature reserves. DLFF-0567 is a large area so there are plenty of spots to be found. I chose a spot a little north-east of Wyler along a small country road. There were quite a few cyclists in the area enjoying the weather and beautiful landscape. As a matter of fact when I arrived I saw a deer crossing the field into the bushes. You do not see the very often on mid day …

Location on NSG map (http://nsg.naturschutzinformationen.nrw.de/nsg/de/karten/nsg)

I stopped a little further down the road from the chosen spot because I could park my car in the meadow just off the road.

Location (blue dot) on Google Maps. Yellow star is the originally chosen spot.

Set-up in the field. Pole holder made by PD8RW.

Overview from the road into the field

After setting up the antenna, a 17-40m wire vertical, and station, IC-7300 + peripherals, I started on 40m at around 10:30utc. Many chasers got attracted by the WWFF spot robot, so the first 25 QSOs or so went in the log rather quickly. Next band was 30m but it was really low on activity despite the fact that condition were quite OK. KD1CT was one of the firsts on that band ! Then 20m … Conditions were not very good when I started there. Quite some chasers including a few from NA, but the rate was not very high. On 17m the activity was really low, only a handful of QSOs there. My final run was on 20m which gradually became a bit better during the last period of my activity. So, I ended up with 110 QSOs in the log after about 2:30hrs of air time. Not bad, given the a fact that it was an ordinary working day and with the very mediocre conditions.

My solar panel yielded quite good in the full sunshine (~60W average). At the end of my activity I still had 77% of the energy (100% = 576Wh) available in my power station !

CT9/PF5X, Madeira Island

May 25th to June 5th, 2022, I stayed with my wife and youngest son on the island of Madeira. The exact location was Ponta Delgada, on the north shore of the island. Because of this location and the high probability of a good take-off to the north-east to north-west, I decided to take some radio equipment with me. So there I was with an IC-7300, End-fed Half-wave antenna for 10-40m (which also appeared to tune on 17 and 12m) and an inverted Delta loop for 6m.

Panoramic view: take-off as seen from the apartment. Roughly N-W (extreme left of picture) to due East (cliff in the distance).

Inv. Delta loop for 6m on the left, EFHW 10-40m on the right. Apartment to the right of the masts was ours.

I set up the station right after we arrived, so first QSOs hit the log at 15:31utc on Wednesday May 25th. Conditions were good and it soon became clear to me why so many contest expeditions are so successful from this island. You do not need much to generate a good signal. 100W and the half wave wire did the job for sure !

I also entered the WPX-cw contest which was held in the last weekend of May. I participated for about 6 hours in between trips with my family. 504 QSOs was the result. I was likely the only CT9 (other contestants were CR3DX, CQ3J and CT3KN), because I could generate little pile-ups. Great fun and I was happy to give away another multiplier.

By the end of my stay, 6m finally opened up on June 3rd. BUT …. why does everybody keep looking at their screens for that boring FT8 contact ? Signals were loud at times to central and West-Europe, so those who cared had a nice audible contact with Madeira … Saturday June 4th was not as good and despite the UKSMG contest, which clearly did not attract much activity, maybe due to the horrendous IARU R1 exchange format (why did they ever change the old format, RST+4 digit WW locator + possibly UKSMG member#, for this …?), I could only work a handful of stations, but including 2 5B4 and a 4X station. Not a bad distance. I also heard 9K2 but he did not hear me unfortunately. 47 QSOs in total on 6m, but it could have been so much more if people would just care and QSY down from 50.313 …

Here are the stats for the normal QSOs and the two contests:

Non-contest QSOs

WPX-cw contest QSOs

UKSMG 6m Summer contest QSOs

The WPX results are actually quite good. It appeared I was the only Low Power Single Op entry and the score was good for a #1 place in Africa in this category.

I can recommend anyone going to Madeira to take along a radio and have some fun on the airwaves. And besides of that, Madeira is a beautiful lush and green island. Beautiful flowers, stunning views and scenery. Take a rain coat with you, because this island is green for a reason …

Operating position @ CT9/PF5X

My first WWFF activity from Germany: DLFF-0870, 6 May 2022

Today I decided to activate a German nature reserve close to my home. The one I chose was DLFF-0870, Fleuthkuhlen, which was never activated before, I thought (but today, May 7th, I saw on the WWFF website it has been activated by top activator Flo, DL8ECA, already on May 2nd) … The area is close to Kapellen, about a 40 minute drive from my home. The German DLFF branch does not supply a Google maps overlay with the area boundaries, but there is a nice governmental website which shows the boundaries of nature reserves in Nordrhein Westfalen.

I had spotted two location at home on Google maps as possible candidates for an activation. However, on arrival these appeared not to be handy locations to park the car. Fortunately I found a perfect spot by driving around a bit. It was next to one of the ponds (“kuhle”) of the former riverbed of the Issumer Fleuth with quite a bit of open space for the car and antenna.

Location on NSG map

On Google maps it looks like this:

And here is the set-up in the field. The station consists of an ICOM IC-7300, microHam microKeyer, Ecoflow River power station with Eco-Worthy foldable solar panel and an 17-40m vertical wire antenna with 2 elevated radials per band. Logging with N1MM Logger+ on a cheap Lenovo laptop.

Set-up with 40-17m wire vertical antenna

Conditions were reasonable, in particular on 40m European signals were strong, even from station relatively nearby. On 30m I worked KD1CT (full daylight path …) as usual although his signal was not as strong as in the past (but the season is not favorable for 30m). Later I worked him again on 17m with better signals. DX in general was low, only a few chasers from NA on 20 or 17m. The money band appeared to be 40m with almost half of my total of 109 QSOs. I also worked a few Park2Park stations, including Tonnie, PA9CW, who was active as PA44WFF/P from PAFF-0211.

With the nice sunny weather it was an enjoyable day in a beautiful surrounding.

Lookout over a “kuhle”

Logs are available in LotW, ClubLog and in the WWFF database (via the DLFF organization).

PAFF-weekend 9&10 April 2022 / More capacity from the Ecoflow River

The Dutch WWFF branch, PAFF, will organize a PAFF weekend on April 9th and 10th, 2022. At the beginning of this weekend (00:00utc, April 9th) a new set of Dutch nature parks will be added to the list (PAFF-0198 to PAFF-0226), and there will be a substantial activity in general from many Dutch nature parks (new and old). I myself will be in PAFF-0225 and -0226 on April 9th as operator of PA225FF and PA226FF together with the YNOMY group. On April 10th I will activate PAFF-0222 and -0223, and maybe PAFF-0224 (if time permits), as PF44F.
Exact park names and details will be listed here in the week preceding the event.

In order to be ready to activate multiple parks in one day, I decided to expand the capacity of my Ecoflow River R600 powerstation. This is done very easily by adding an additional battery pack (288Wh) which neatly fits under the existing basic system. I now have a very capable system of 576Wh, which will give me approx. 4 hours of operating time @ 100W output. If the weather cooperates and the sun shines, my solar panel will extend this period further.

Added battery pack (the part under the nice, but rather useless red LED bar)

The whole thing weighs in at 7.7 kg now, so that is still very portable. The superfluous LED bar (“ambient light”) can be switched off fortunately (but only via the Ecoflow app on your phone).

If the sun keeps going like it does right now, conditions will be great and we can use the higher bands for some WWFF DX contacts!!

Wetting current and my Begali paddle with microKeyer II

Already for quite some years I was not happy with my Begali / microKeyer II combo. Sometimes the paddle action just does not yield the right output from the microKeyer. The microKeyer employs the WinKeyer v.1. Back in 2006 there were already reports that this chip does not deal very well with certain contact alloys (e.g. aluminium) due to oxide layer build-up on the contact surface (re-iterated by Joe Subich in 2021, here). Begali has changed their contact material after that. Now, I ordered my Begali around 2005, so I might have the initial contact material, explaining this issue. A debouncer was made available by microHam which was supposed to cure this issue, however, after using it for a while I concluded it did not solve the issue entirely.

It was only until last week when my friend Jo, PG4I, pointed me to an article by a Danish amateur, OZ1JHM, describing the so-called minimum “wetting current” of an electric contact. This seems to be applicable to the issue at hand !! So, I measured the current through the paddle contacts and it appeared to be only about 0.5 mA. That is definitely not enough for a reliable contact action according to the article. If you look at the schematics of the WinKeyer 1 (which is undoubtedly copied by microHam), you see that the paddle input circuitry comprises a high impedance voltage divider (R6, R9, R10) to establish the right voltage to the Paddle Input pin of the WinKeyer chip (see specs, p.4). Rather than changing this to a low impedance voltage divider (divide all R6/9/10 resistor values by 20) to increase the current through the paddle contacts, you can simply add a lower value pull-up resistor in parallel to the voltage divider. So I soldered two 680 ohm resistors from each paddle contact input to the 5V supply rail. Pictures below explain it all …

Relevant part of WinKeyer 1 schematics

2 x 680 ohm from paddle contact jack (upper left) to 7805 regulator 5V output leg (right, via brown wire)

There is now about 8 mA flowing through the paddle contacts, which seems to be enough. Problem solved ! I am now a happy camper and keying smoothly on my Begali Signature Ed.

BTW. Just read on the groups.io forum that the microKeyer II has a build-in debouncer already. This just shows that bouncing of paddle contacts is not the actual issue. With the debouncing circuitry the current through the paddle contacts is still too low (0.5 mA, see above) and you need the pull-up resistors to increase the contact current.

BTW 2. I tried to post this improvement on the microHAM groups.io forum, but my posting was not approved. The reason given was: “Unauthorized modifications to microHAM product”. I do not know who the moderator is, but I assume it is Joe, W4TV, who apparently is afraid to loose his face … The uKeyer II is out of production and therefore all existing ones are out of warranty for a long time. So, why a super simple improvement like this can be an “unauthorized modification” keeps me puzzled. It is certainly not in the spirit of ham radio. Shame on the moderator of the microHAM groups.io !!

Curaçao, PJ2/PF5X, 28 january – 5 February 2022

I was active from Curaçao from January 28 until February 5, 2022. Holiday style, just as a side-kick. During most of the day we were site seeing, or just chilling on one of the lovely beaches which you can find along the south-west coast. We were staying at Flamingo Park in the middle of the island a few kilometres north of St. Willibrordus. The park is in a little valley unfortunately, but well, you cannot have it all …

I brought my IC-7100, LDG iT-100 tuner and microHam CW keyer along. For antennas I had 2 Spiderbeam 10m minipoles and EFHW wire antennas for 40-10m and 30/17m. The station was set-up in about 1 hour, so first QSOs went into the log on Friday morning local time (28 Jan.).

Operating position

Left 30/17m EFHW, right 10-40m EFHW. Bushes are about 5m …

I typically spent one hour of operating per day. Conditions were not super the first few days, but later in the week even 10 and 12 meters opened up and that was fun !!

The first weekend the CQ160m was happening. So I knew the PJ2T guys would be physically present. I decided to pay them a visit and drove to the station on Monday, a 15 minutes drive from the park. Geoff, W0CG, saw me looking around and quickly came to the gate to welcome me. We had a very pleasant conversation, together with the 160m operators, Jeff, K8ND, and Jim, W8WTS (who did extremely well in the contest, see 3830scores.com).

L-to-R: Geoff, W0CG; Enno, PF5X; Jeff, K8ND. And I dig that T-shirt, Geoff !

Enno, PF5X, at the gate of PJ2T

Geoff, W0CG, in front of the PJ2T antenna park

During my hours of operation, I noticed that I could hear quite well (very low noise level at the premises). Unfortunately that was not entirely reciprocal … Stations had great difficulty at times to pick my signals up and raising a pile-up was difficult. As a matter of fact I operated most of the time simplex just because there were not enough stations calling. The reason must have been that my signal was not getting out very well. My friends in EU reported that my signals were puny indeed … The picture below shows the reason: a pretty high mountain ridge in the direction EU (and ditto to US, but not in the picture).

Direction towards EU blocked by mountain ridge (the pool area is at least 2 m higher than the house we stayed in).

Despite all this, there was one big surprise QSO on February 1st, 01:50utc, when I saw on the cluster that 6m TEP QSOs were reported between the Caribbean and PY/LU. I somehow got my 10-40m EFHW tuned to 6m and gave CQ on 50.105 MHz. Almost immediately LU5FF came back for me with an S5 signal and we made the QSO !! Unfortunately I saw that my SWR was changing quickly indicating that the 1:49 BALUN was not up for the job on 6m, so I had to quit. Next time I’ll bring a simple 6m loop in order to be prepared for such openings …
With 9 days of operation, under these circumstances, I am happy with my 458 QSOs. Next time a better location maybe … Thanks to all of you who took the time to contact me. Thanks also to my wife Marja who tolerated that I played radio every now and then.

Results (excl. dupes), and that’s all CW (what else ?)

Cheers, from sunny Curaçao

Some more antenna work …

With my upcoming trip to Curacao in mind, I wanted to make 17m available in my set of end-fed antennas. The 10-40m end-fed does not work on 17m nor does the 30m version. So I decided to build a 17m trap and put that in the 30m EFHW. I will then have 2 antennas covering 10-40m (the 40m version kind of works on 12m …).
The 17m trap was build by winding 11 turns on a piece 32mm PVC pipe with a Aircell7 coax capacitor in parallel. Using a miniVNA this trap was quickly brought on frequency by cutting the coax to the right length.
I tuned the antenna in the field. I do not know the exact lengths I ended up with, but the 17m piece is about 7.6m and the end piece of wire is about 4.3 m. Using a 10m Spiderbeam mini pole, the trap is about 1.3m below the top. See picture below on the right.

Testing antennas in the field. 1/4 wave whip on the car (@5m length for 20m), spider pole with 17/30m EFHW on the right.

On the picture above you also see a 1/4 wave whip on my car. This is the Moonraker MRQ213. It is a stainless steel telescoping whip like the MFJ-1979, but slightly longer and presumably of better quality than the MFJ version. I mounted the whip with a CB antenna bracket (3/8-24 connection to PL) on my support bar. The support bar is insulated from the car body, so in order to get enough counterpoise I used a magnetic mat, the Diamond MAT-50, to capacitively couple the cable shield to the car body. This works great. With the whip almost fully extended (-5cm or so) the SWR is about 1.4 in the CW portion of the 20m band, which is easily tuned to 1 with the transceiver’s internal tuner or the LDG IT-100 in my case. Despite mediocre band conditions I worked a few NA station with about 90W. I believe this type of whip is a lot better than the common coil loaded short whips. With those antennas you are just pumping a large portion of your power into the coil (in other words: these coil loaded whips have a fairly low efficiency). Disadvantage of this big whip is that you cannot use it in higher winds, at least not on 17 or 20m when you have a lot of lengths swinging around … It will definitely bend.

All in all a successful field trip and these antennas are definitely a useful addition to my /P station.

Very last CTFF activity: CTFF-0185, Ribeira de Quarteira, 21-Oct-2021

After my successful activities in the Portuguese/Algarve FF areas, I could not resist to activate a very last one on my way to Faro Airport to pick up my wife in the early evening. Ribeira de Quarteira is more or less along the A22, so it was only a small diversion from my route anyway.
I spotted a nice hill-top location on Google Maps, near some high-end rental villas. The spot I was aiming for appeared to be fenced off, but I found another location a little down the North slope of the hill which still gave me a good take-off. It was just inside the park boundaries according to the ICNF website. I could set-up my station under a tree, which was very convenient because of the burning sun. I put my Spiderbeam mini pole simply against the tree. Some rocks kept the base in place. My power station and solar panel did a good job again. Still 39% charge available after 2:20hrs of fairly intense activity @100W output.

Despite that it was a working day, there were quite some chasers around, and I had numerous little pile-ups. 20 and 17m were the money bands again. Here are the stats:

QSO map from CTFF-0185

The one spot on the West Coast is W6LEN, Jess, well known among WWFF aficionados, who I worked on 17m. High-light of this activation !!

Time flies when you’re having fun, so I had to pack my station around 17:15hrs local time in order to be in time at the airport. But with this number of QSOs in my log I was very satisfied.

Station under a tree (antenna/pole just visible on the other side of the tree)

Location (blue dot) just South-East of Paderna (37.149813 N, 8.183537 W)