Activities – Seite 29 – Adventure Radio

9. Januar 201111. Januar 2014

DARC 10m Contest 2011 from DM/NS-036 Dörenberg

: MP-1 Antenna on the „Hermannsturm“

Good Old Times: same location in 1985 10m Contest at -15°C. Left DC7CCC, right DL5BAD as DFØJU — Good Old Times: same location in 1985 10m Contest at -15°C. Left DL4BAH (now DC7CCC), right DL5BAD as DFØJU/p

No Conditions are Good Conditions

One of my favorite contests ever is the DARC 10m Contest. In the80’s several times per year it is reduced to only one date: The January DARC 10m Contest. Mostly there are bad conditions, two years ago I worked stations from Italy or Spain during the contest. But today the band was closed. This is a big advantage for the radio-hiker on the summit: No DX condition means, that the high-power stations with beams can work also over groundwave only.

My station today: about 20w output into my MP-1 antenna. Temperatures on the tower around 0°C, no rain or snow. So I decided to operate directly from the platform. I started 10 minutes too late, because the ascent on the „Dörenberg“ was very difficult. Crusted snow and ice-fields forced me to go very slow. A normal ascent takes 20-25 minutes, now I needed 1 hour. On the top of the summit were 30cm crusted snow, but the tower was luckily free of snow and ice.

Quick I installed the MP-1 and connected the

transceiver. Log ready, clock ready, free frequency and: CQ CONTEST DC7CCC/P CONTEST.

The first call was at 09:11 UTC and was followed by the first answer. Until 10:59 I logged 117 QSO. This year SSB only. CW is in this contest a waste of time except you are in the CW class only.

Only one group hikers visitied the tower today. After the first hour of the contest wind came up … the last 30 minutes the windchill gave me a -20°C feeling. I was glad when the contest ended and I left the tower quickly. I cancelled also the planned additional 40m SOTA operation.

Results: 117 QSO, 1 DXCC, 58 DOKs = claimed score 6903 points. I hope it won’t give too much deduction of the points. Some stations had problems with DC7CC and DL7CCC and DC7CCC 🙂

QTH: Hermanssturm, Dörenberg, JO42AE, 331m high plust 21m tower. Ref: DM/NS-036, WFF DLFF-125 (Terra Vita)

7. Dezember 2010

DM/NS-108 Piesberg … Activation #63 and #64

December "Westfalen Nord" Activity Evening

I continued operations from DM/NS-108 through November 2010 and continue during December 2010 … but now in snow. Last Saturday, 4th December, it was very cold. We wanted to make a handful QSO only but then a pile up started and after 30 minutes were 40 stations in the log. My first CW activation operating with gloves. ICECOLD! stn: 5w, MP-1, 7MHz only

Yesterday at WNA / SAC my ball pen failed … it was empty. I made only 5 qso, that was the maximum brain-storage yesterday 😉

20. November 2010

Summit to Summit

F5LKW/p and DC7CCC/p. I had 5w output into a MP-1 Antenna on 10MHz. Roger (F5LKW) had 10w and a MP-1, too. Here his video:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XN7NxnnKGg&fs=1&hl=de_DE]

7. November 2010

Marconi VHF Contest 2010 – new ODX from DM/NS-108

This weekend was the Marconi Memorial CW Contest on 144 MHz. I wanted to take the chance to work some stations in CW on 2m this morning. I was one hour qrv during a walk over NS-108 Piesberg. It was my first participation in this contest since I am licensed (1978). I heard a lot of stations but mostly with low signals. In spite of my qrp station ( 5 wtts / HB9CV) I worked new ODX from DM/NS-108:

TM0W in JN36BP 645km
OK2M in JN69UN 501km
OK1DC in JN69JJ 465km

I heard some stations far far away like OM7W (885 km), but no chance to work them (today).

See all QSOs on the QSO-Map

This is the QSO with OK2M:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm724j9XTQ8&fs=1&hl=de_DE&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999]

1. November 2010

October 2010 on DM/NS-108

These are the results for 10/2010 from the Piesberg, DM/NS-108 :

28. Oktober 2010

2nd SARL RaDAR (Field day) Contest, Sat 6 Nov 2010

(RaDAR = Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio)

This contest is for everyone, at home, in your car, in the field. Any mode , CW , SSB , FM or digital modes. Any band or Satellite. Support your friends in the field, you never know, you may work a really rare grid in the process!

Time: 12:00 UTC – 18:00 UTC

Please see the „Blue book“ , SARL Forum or on www.nwinternet.za.org/zs6bne/RaDAR for contest details. Please use the logbook format available as links on the websites.

The true RaDAR station must have carried the entire station including antennas for at least 1 km prior to setting up, without relying on existing man made infrastructures i.e. antennas, masts or towers.

To be considered as a RaDAR station, the entire station; radios, batteries, mast and antennas must be easily portable and hence the need to carry the equipment for at least 1 km

24. Oktober 2010

RaDAR Love

Saturday and Sunday I tried true RaDAR (Radpid Deployment Amateur Radio) activation. That means: Setup the station in 5 minutes or less and use qrp output. Yaesu says, that the internal batteries of the FT-817 produce 2.5w. I used this weekend first time the internal batteries only, the MP-1 antenna, 10m RG-58 and the PalmRadio Keyer. All very easy in the rucksack 😉

For the first activation I decided Saturday morning. That’s the easiest (subjective) time to qualify a summit. I made in 9 minutes 12 QSO. For Sunday I decided the late afternoon. Not the best time for SOTA. I stopped the time:

arrived on the summit until qrv: 4 min 14 sec
qualified the summit (4 QSO made) : 3 min 42 sec
(made 8 QSO in 8 min 1 sec)
from qrt to setdown the station and leave the summit: 3 min 41 sec

the setup could be faster … 😉

10. Oktober 2010

Activity Day DARC District Northsea

with MP1 antenna and DK7ZB 144/432 yagi on the walking stick antenna pole

On Sunday, 10.10.2010, was the DARC District Northsea (I) Activity day. I decided to look into the 28MHz and the 144MHz part. The weather was great, temp. about 16°C and windy. I heard and worked some stations on 10m and called a long period CQ in CW. But no answer. The 144MHz part should start at 1300 local, so I qsyed on 40m where I made a nice s2s QSO with HA4FY/p on Hálás-tetö (HA/KD-042) and another 27 QSO in the following 20 minutes until 1300 local. Meanwhile the summit was full of trippers. When I tuned over 2m I heard a lot of SM6s and OZs with S9 and stronger. But no chance to break the pile up with QRP. I worked some local DLs for the Activity Day and heard >S9 G-Stations. I tuned into the CW band and called „CQ CQ CQ …“. No answer again. But a selfspot on SOTAwatch brought G0BPU with 468km from JO02OB into the log.

After that QSO I wanted to go home and tuned to our local channel 145.450MHz FM. Just wanted to say Tina (XYL), DC1BF, that I will return now. But there were two SM6-stations talking – with S9++ 😉

Result from weekend activation 09./10.10.2010

6. Oktober 2010

WNA and NAC again from DM/NS-108

FT-817ND with SLAB, in the background the lights of Osnabrück

The first tuesday in a month: WNA (Westphalia North Activity Evening) and NAC (Nordic Activity Contest) on 144 MHz. After surprising QSOs to Denmark in September I decided to take part in this evening again. Uncommon warm weather for October. 21°C. As antenna mast I used this evening only a hiking stick … plus my barefoot FT-817ND (5w).

First I worked some „local“ stations within a radius of 100km, only DK5QN in telegrafy. Then I heard a lot of OZs, OZ1ALS had true S9 on the Piesberg and it was easy to work with him. 322km. OZ9KY was not so loud, but for 423km surprising easy QSO. Then I heard S9 / S7 SK7MW. Is it possible to reach this station near Malmö with 5watt and HB9CV? A lot of DLs called him. After some QSO SK7MW returned with „The DELTA CHARLY SEVEN …“ Of course in this moment the signals dropped down to S1. But the operator at SK7MW was very patient. Tack så mycket! The QSO was complete and my QRP VHF ODX from a SOTA summit.

If the wx allows – cu in November 2010.

2. Oktober 2010

Welcome Back NS-108

This year the DM/NS-108 got a new „Windpark“ (Power-Turbines) The new turbines are about 150m high. The summit was remeasured and the summit got a new shape. Official height is 196m. Later the summit will get an outlook tower on a height over 200m asl. Since yesterday is NS-108 in the SOTA program returned. That confused some chasers today who looked only on SOTAwatch (This is no longer a valid summit after 31/12/2008) and not into the Database. But I hope we will have some nice QSO in future … today I had to close the operation. Rain started and too much confusion on 40m 😉