Activating PAFF-016 - Sallandse Heuvelrug

Weak conditions on higher bands, good conditions and QRM on 40m

A gap in my schedule allowed for a short detour into PAFF-016. The weather was not too good for a field day with drizzle throughout the afternoon but there was no wind - a good thing for my fiber glass antenna pole.

PAFF-016 is a reasonably large park with a lot of trees but also some clear areas. I found a suitable site quite quickly in the southern part of the park. Looking at the cluster I saw that the higher bands were very quiet so I installed my 12m long multi band end fed wire on my 15m pole focusing on 20m and 40m.

Drizzle @ PAFF-016

Starting on 20m it turned out that conditions were indeed quite poor. I spoke to 40 OMs in 45 minutes.
On 40m the situation was quite familiar: good conditions but lots of QRM and QRN. I worked 80 stations in just over one hour. At the end the interference was so strong I had to change frequency a number of times.
When the QRN started to annoy me just a bit too much I went back to 20m to work another 20 stations in the last 20 minutes of my activation.

All in all a nice activation that only lacked a bit of sunshine. I worked 140 stations from 29 DXCCs in just under 2,5 hours. The DX traffic was limited to 6 stations outside of EU. Maximum QRB was into W1.

Both Luciano I5FLN and Carlo IZ0IJC came by on both bands.

One little problem surfaced during this activation: my logging software did not record the time stamps. I only found this out one hour from that start. In the mean time I have been able to update the log through email or eqsl.

Thanks all for giving ur reports.
Lars, PH0NO/P 

Revisiting PAFF-032

With some unexpected time on my hands and near Lelystad (just a few kilometers away from the Oostvaardersplassen) I decided to do a re-activation. I found an open spot just next to the stretch of water of the IJsselmeer. My idea was to use this ideal operating position to do some DX-ing. However conditions were rather poor on the higher bands.

Looking over a lake

Starting on 15m I made 20 contacts in 30 minutes. As the band was rather quiet I went down to 20m. This band was not as busy as it usually is. I made 47 contacts in 40 minutes. Then I went over to 40m and found a reasonably quiet spot but was seriously hampered by QRN that came by every few minutes and gave me an S8-9 wall of sound. In 90 minutes I made 105 contacts. Max QRB this time 7000km into South Carolina.


Near the end of the activation I was visited by the Dutch police. It turned out that the guy checking me out was a local ham operator curious about what I was doing there in the middle of nowhere with a 12m high antenna...

Attracted some attention

Even though I had activated this area only a month earlier I made in total 170 contacts. This included some 65 OMs I have not contacted before on any WFF activation. Of course Luciano I5FLN came by on all three bands. He was the only one this time.

Tnx to all passing by.
Lars, PH0NO/P