FFFs during my summer holiday

During my summer holiday in France I was radio-active from various FFF locations - six in total. I usually visit four parks in two /P days out but conveniently this year both campsites we stayed on were inside nature reserves.

I have not made that many QSOs from the campsites as (1) it was by times too hot to do anything, (2) I was in a tent where my favorite mode phone gets annoying for the surrounding quickly and (3) my family expects me to socialise with them in stead of other hams.
We stayed a bit longer in the Dordogne region so I was on the air from that campsite a few times.

In total I logged 805 QSOs from 43 DXCC on 20 and 40 meter:

• FFF-0031 Park National La Brenne (campsite) - 85 QSO FT8/CW/SSB
• FFF-1167 Natura 2000 La Brenne - 144 QSO SSB
• FFF-0057 Vallee de l'Anglin - 126 QSO SSB
• FFF-2352 Basin de la Dordogne (campsite) - 194 QSO FT8/CW/SSB
• FFF-2568 Vallée de la Vézère - 121 QSO CW/SSB
• FFF-2570 Vallées des Beunes - 135 QSO CW/SSB

Eight OMs made it to all the locations: EA3EVL, EA7YT, OM1AX, ON4ON, PD7YY, S58AL, SP8LEP, YL2TQ.

DX was hard to find. Dov 4Z4DX made it a couple of times but from the other end only KD1CT made it across once and only barely so. I tried to get Chuck KO4SB in the log but there was no way - not even a CW whisper heard on both ends. Summer season in a solar minimum is not my favorite time as ham (as holiday maker though..). Luckily there was some sporadic E to create a bit of local fun with signals popping up and strong skips to specific areas.

Convenient picknick table in FFF-0057

In the shadow at a lake in FFF-1167 

Bit of walking required to get into the woods at FFF-2568

FFF-2570 was easy to activate once I found this parking area 

Chilling in France

May and June have been rather busy. Apart from the normal daily routines there was an expedition weekend to GJ with my team in May and a special castle event I organised for the whole of June. Both brought a lot of radio fun and of course a lot of organizing and administration (logs, awards, QSLs, PR).

For a few days now I have been chilling on a campsite in France. The first stop is in the center of France and as it turns out (I did not plan this) the camping is inside the frequently activated nature reserve NP La Brenne (FFF-0031). I have put up a wire for 20m and did some data and CW yesterday. Conditions were not good judging from the activity level on CW. There was more activity on FT8 but that mode cannot capture my attention for too long.

Tomorrow I will go out portable to activate two nature reserves in the vicinity that have seen little activity: Natura 2000 area of Brenne (FFF-1167) and Vallée de l'Anglin et affluents (FFF-0057).

This weekend we will be moving further south to the Dordogne for 2 more weeks of camping. I will again be inside a nature reserve (again a nice surprise) and this time it is a new one: Bassin de Dordogne (FFF-2352).

I expect I will go out /P from there at least once, depending on how the weather develops. The first days look like it will be above 40C. This means sitting very still in the shadow and / or laying in the swimming pool the whole day.

FFF-081 Causses du Quercy (2)

Pleasant basic activity mainly on 20m

As planned I went out to a desolate hill, accessible by mountainbike, I found a week earlier in the nature park Causses du Quercy for the first activation on this park. The top of the hill is rather flat with good views to all directions - a perfect place for a /P operation. The only downside to the lack of higher trees was the direct sunlight. I picked this afternoon as they predicted some clouds and relative low temperatures (25 Celcius).

Transport vehicle

I took my mountainbike, loaded all the parts of the (extended) Spiderbeam mast on it with all the other items in a sturdy backpack. Try to imagine how to bike when you have 4 pieces of >1m fiberglass tube with you...

I set up my station quite quickly (too quick as it turned out later) with a 15m half wave end fed wire. As predicted (refer to my previous post) conditions on this band were horrible. After a few minutes of calling I worked only one station in HA with a 51 signal.

F/PH0NO/P setting up the station

I dismantled the antenna and set up the 20m end fed. The band was in a bad shape with very deep QSB (someone would call with S9 and within 30sec would go down to S1) but there were so many stations calling that I was busy for the next 2 hours - thanks to the cluster posts, they always bring a new boost to the amount of hunters.

During these 2 hours my antenna fell down three times. I had not set it up sturdy enough and with a gust of wind the antenna would be out of balance.

After the third time I redid the guy wires and did not have any trouble for the rest of the activity.

When 20m quieted down I extended my Spiderbeam mast to cater for the 40m end fed wire. 40m was not as busy as it usually is with only 17 contacts. 

In total I logged 187 contacts from 32 DXCCs. Only six of those were outside of EU (indication of the propagations). Maximum QRB was set to 4800km by a station from HZ (to my surprise). Lucian I5FLN, Massimo IK1GPG, Graziano IW2NXI and Narciso IZ1JMN came by on two bands. One third of the contacts were new to me.

Temperatures were bearable and the view was very good - this combined with a lot of stations calling - both familiar callsigns and new ones - made this a very pleasant activity.

Merci to all that called in!

73/44,

Lars, F/PH0NO/P

FFF-081 Causses du Quercy

This afternoon (around 16-18h CET) I will be active from Causses du Quercy, a large nature park in the south of France (departement Lot, 46).

Propagation predictions are very poor, I just hope it won't be as bad as it looks..

Activating Parc du Verdon - FFF-034

While in the Provence I went over to Parc du Verdon to activate another WFF location. I found a place near Peyroules that was on a hill and had generally a good view except for trees and hill top to one direction.

After calling CQ for a few times I found out my modulation was terrible. Somehow the combination FT897 and Heil microphone didn't work out. The FT897 was just repaired so all the settings were back to default.
I couldn't quickly figure out how to tweak the settings so I took my hand microphone (that I always take with me for emergencies..). With some tweaking I got this working to an acceptable level.

The next challenge was the weather. Apart from quite a bit of rain I was also visited by two thunderstorms. They brought a steady S9 level of QRN and the danger of lightning. This limited my air time to less than 90 minutes. The last challenge was the level of QSB that was very high during the activation.

During the 90 minutes I worked 64 stations from 15 DXCC entities. The maximum distance covered was 4700km into Asiatic Russia. Considering I was working with far more power than during other activations (I brought my FT897 in stead of the QRP rig FT817) I expected to work more stations.

I did not have an opportunity to go back to the Parc du Verdon during my stay in France so the next activation will be from somewhere else - probably a PA region once again.

Setup with end fed wire feed point @3m - clouds are ominously black