Spending a lot of time at PAFF-0097

Just got home from a nice activity at PAFF-0097 as PC44FF. I brought my hexbeam but the parking I had in mind when planning the activity was too crowded. Driving around I was lucky to find a nice open space to set it up. There were some rain and hail clouds around and I was just in time setting up the beam to stay dry.

/P DX antenna

The skies cleared later on

I started out on 20m with the hexbeam pointing to NA. The band was not in a very good shape so the going was slow but I did copy a lot of NA stations (relatively). I tried a sked with VK4FW but the band was just not good enough. After 2 hours mostly on 20m - I tried 17m but that was no fun - I had logged 106 QSOs. 36 of those were with NA stations from 14 US states and 3 VE provinces. Quite a lot of familiar NA chasers in the meantime.

Personally I am OK with an activity once I reach 100 QSOs. However, as 20m was rather slow and I had not copied a lot of the familiar EU chasers, I decided to stay a little longer to try 40m. I took down the hexbeam and set up a 40m vertical (EFHW) on my 18m Spiderbeam pole. In about 45 minutes I was good to go again.

18m Spiderbeam pole with an EFHW for 40m

40m was very noisy where I was. It was due to splatter (a combination of a good rx antenna and poor filters in my FT857d) but also QRN. I changed frequencies a few times but then decided I would have to just bear the noise. It was really busy though. As signals were rather strong I could copy a lot of stations above all the noise. As chasers kept on calling there was no way for me to leave. It was getting dark and far past my negotiated return time but you can't just ignore a pile-up of chasers (well, I can't).

After 2 hours the pile up thinned and the signals dropped below the QRM level. By then I had logged 238 QSOs on 40m - apart from 4Z and SU all of them EU chasers. This makes for a total of 344 QSOs for this activity with 6 park to park contacts. A lot more than I had anticipated. 

Driving home in the dark I saw a lot of huge bonfires and remembered that in this part of the country it is tradition to make large Easter fires. It made it a magical drive home with my ears still buzzing from all the noise.

Magical views driving home

Celebrating 70 years of freedom with Special Event Stations

Within the YNOMY DX Group an idea was born at the beginning of this year to place special attention on this year's WW2 liberation celebrations as we have been living in peace here now for 70 years. 

70 years ago the allied forces liberated The Netherlands from Nazi rule, ending the second world war five years after it started. The southern part of The Netherlands was liberated in the autumn of 1944, while the northern part was only liberated in the spring of 1945.

On May 4, 1945 the German forces formally capitulated to the British Field Marshall Montgomery. The capitulation was effective the next day.

We therefore celebrate the end of WW2 for the whole of the country on May 5 every year ("bevrijdingsdag").

We were thinking of activating a range of special calls during the month of May with a group of operators. The range P*45FREE (PA-PH) was chosen after some debate. We also planned a group activity in the middle of the month with a special group call PA45FREEDOM.

We asked around and were able to organise a team of 9 operators that were supportive of the idea and willing to play a role in it by applying for and activating one of the special calls. The team consists of PA1WBU, PA3BAS, PA3FYG, PB7Z, PD7YY, PE1BVQ, PE4BAS, PG8M and myself.  

So we are moving from an idea to a whole range of special event stations that will be active during the month of May 2015.

In the mean time we have designed a special QSL card and are in the process of designing an award. This electronic award can be obtained free of charge when an OM or SWL has collected 45 points. Each P*45FREE counts for 9 points and the PA45FREEDOM call counts for 18 points towards the award.

Hope you will have a chance to work several of our stations.