PF5X HamBlog

Seasonal change of antennas

pf5x — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 10:40:57 +0000

Saturday was a nice day in The Netherlands (sunny and warm), so I decided to change antennas again: 6m yagi out and 30/40m dipole in. After 4 hours work, in relatively high temperatures and losing a lot of sweat, the switch was complete.

Tower folded over during antenna work. The 30/40m dipole is already mounted above the 3 ele SteppIR.

Crete & SV9CVY

pf5x — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:02:50 +0000

I just returned from a very relaxing holiday on Crete with my wife and my two youngest kids. The picture below is taken in the beautiful Samaria gorge close to the South-West coast of Crete.

Enno, Marenne, Marja and Jard taking a break in the shade in the Samaria gorge

During the time we had a car I tried to visit Mike, SV9CVY. As I had no phone number of him available I located his QTH with the naked eye and drove to him. This is not difficult as he has a very impressive antenna set-up. In the next pictures you can see his 2 Opti-Beam antennas and a 4 ele Ultrabeam antenna with extra 6m elements.

SV9CVY's OB17-4 (foreground) and OB804020 (background)

SV9CVY's OB804020 and 4ele Ultrabeam

BA8AG QSL

pf5x — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:41:52 +0000

After returning from a marvelous holiday in Crete, I found the QSL card from BA8AG on my doormat. After missing this country several times in the good old days of F2 propagation, I managed to work China this Es season in a fantastic opening on June 20th, 2010.

BA8AG qsl

No code ? – No way !

pf5x — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 09:07:58 +0000

Browsing a bit to look what new equipment was presented in Dayton this year, I found this picture in a forum about the Dayton Hamvention.

How can you be proud of ignorance ?

And the back of this T-shirt looks like this:

Wrong text ... ?

Obviously this text should have read: ”No code – No way !” …

CW rulez, gentlemen. Try to snatch that weak DX signal in a spotty Es opening on 6m in CB. No way you can do that, there is only one solution: CW. (Unless you are going for those inaudible screen modes of course, but that’s a different story).

VP2EMR active now on 6m

pf5x — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 15:47:02 +0000

Andrea, IK1PMR, and Claudia, PA3LEO, are now active as VP2EMR and VP2ECF from Anguilla. They sent me an e-mail today stating that the 4 ele 6m yagi, which I sponsored them, is 2 meters above the wooden terrace. Take-off to Europe is relatively clear. Andrea has a K3 with 100W. Given the fact that he worked into Europe on 6m from St. Maarten with only a vertical, this set-up should certainly make it possible to cross the Atlantic. Check out their exact location at Google Maps.

Meanwhile in the Eskip season .

pf5x — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 10:27:53 +0000

Life has been good for 6m operators. Although a substantial investment timewise is needed, 6m is currently offering a lot of goodies. A nice opening to Japan occured on June 9th with SSSP propagation and great openings to the Caribbean on June 10, 11 and 12th.

On Thursday June 9 I could log 5 Japanese stations:

JE1BMJ, JL8GFB, JA5AUC, JA6GCE and JA6WFM

The last few days saw nice openings to the Caribbean. E.g. Andrea, FJ7/IK1PMR, who I am sponsoring with a 4 ele 6m yagi, could work into South Europe on June 10. He was only using a vertical and ~80W. Meanwhile Andrea is on Anguilla as VP2EMR and there the yagi will be set up, likely today June 13th or tomorrow.

June 12 yielded an afternoon and evening opening. Countries heard: FG, FS, KP2, KP4, HI, PJ2, 5J0BV (!) and VP2M.

Here are recordings of FS/K9EL (13:13u utc) and NP2B (21:00 utc). Later that night, 21.47utc, I could make a (difficult) QSO with VP2MRT for DXCC #206.

So now I can start looking for VP9GE and V3. If SSSP openings are going to happen again towards the North-East then BY and HL would be nice new ones. Only time wil tell …

Coax Cat

pf5x — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 10:55:09 +0000

This is our cat ‘Friemel’ (translates to ‘Fidget’). She loves to sleep and apparently the role of coax on “her” chair is not withholding her from taking a nap.

Friemel loves coax

6 m season taking off in a big way !

pf5x — Fri, 28 May 2010 11:26:33 +0000

It has been a while since my last blog posting. Read my tweets for more frequent small items.

Meanwhile I have put the 6m yagi back in the mast (May 19) for the 2010 season and took out my 30/40m dipole which needs some serious maintenance anyway …

As a matter of fact I should have made that switch earlier because the Eskip season is really starting early and in an impressive way. A92IO (#204) on May 25th and today E4X (#205) are exciting new ones for a start. Yesterday we had a nice opening to the Caribbean (KP2, KP4, YV and FY worked, FM heard). Other nice ones in recent days were SU, JY, A7 and TN.

If this all is just a teaser of things to come then the Es seasons looks very promising indeed.

Here is a soundclip of E4X (starts at May 28, 09:03z. My QSO is at 1:06 from the start ). Recording courtesy of Peter, PA2V.

8R1DB QSL (my 6m-DXCC #200 country)

pf5x — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:32:48 +0000

Today the 8R1DB QSL came with the mail. What a great 6m DXpedition that was, huge sigs for many days in a row. Thanks again !!

8R was my 200th country worked on 6m and it is the last QSL I was waiting for to get all worked countries confirmed, 203 in total. So, this certainly gives a very satisfying feeling. Just get them accepted with the ARRL, but that is a task I will shift into the new year as I already filed a major DXCC application this year, and I hate to pay an extra application fee …

8R1DB fold-out QSL, front and back

8R1DB fold-out QSL, inside

XR0Y on 40m

pf5x — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:00:14 +0000

This morning I finally succeeded to get XR0Y in the log on 40m / CW. An e-mail from Aart, PA3C, told me that they have a serious problem hearing stations after 20hrs local. Some sort of switching device is causing QRN but thay are unable to trace it.

Here is a long MP3 with my QSO at the end. XR0Y 40m CW 13-nov-2009 0701utc