Activating Terletse Heide - PAFF-042

With another small gap in my agenda  I was able to head over to the WFF park Terletse Heide on Tuesday late afternoon. The area comprises of an airfield (mainly used by glider planes) and surrounding fields. It is a rather small nature park in between Veluwezoom (PAFF-019) and De Hoge Veluwe (PAFF-005). The area is surrounded by a low fence and trees with the official entrance on the east side of the park via the airfield main building (Terlet entrance).

With the limited time I had available I decided to enter the area from the west and look for a low profile corner of the park. I found a spot that was reasonably free of trees within the park's perimeter.
I took a chair this time, which made the operation a lot more comfortable than previous operations where I was on foot and sat on a rock or fallen tree.

There was no activity at the airfield that day (as far as I could see) and I was able to operate for 2,5 hours without seeing another soul. The weather started out rather grey but soon improved with quite some sunshine until the sun set around 17h CET.

Conditions on 20m were good this day. The advantage clearly being good signal reports on both ends (frequently 9+10dB or more) and a few DX contacts. The disadvantage was the amount of QRM from neighbouring stations.

I started out on a frequency that turned out to be near to a DXpedition RX frequency (I learned this later from I5FLN, Luciano, who was so kind to post a spot on the cluster already at the beginning of my activation). When I moved up 10kHz the amount of QRM was manageable.

My power cable was not functioning properly due to a loose fuse contact. This caused the radio to shut down a number of times at the start of the activation. Somehow I managed to fix this after half an hour or so.

During the 2,5 hours of operation there were quite a number of stations visiting (227 in total), from 35 DXCC entities with DX from the US and Canada as well as quite surprisingly (to me) one ham from the east coast of China (8800km) - my first contact with a Chinese station!

All in all it was a pleasant experience once again. Thanks to all the hunters for calling in.
Lars, PH0NO/P 

Activating Utrechtse Heuvelrug - PAFF-018

Yesterday I had some spare time (abt 2 hours) while passing the PAFF-018 area ("Utrechtse Heuvelrug"). I could not find a perfect spot quickly, so settled for a quiet spot in between some trees (refer to picture). I was able to keep the antenna free from the leaves.

Using my FT-897d at 70w output I started on 20m just after 15h CET. Thankfully I was put on the cluster soon after I started (thanks Rocco, IK6GQC!). This saves a lot of breath repeating callsign and location information.

Conditions were okay with distances limited to the usual 4000km. After less than an hour signals started to drop.

As I was using a multiband end fed wire, I decided to go down to 40m. It turned out to be a zoo from 7050-7200. I found a relatively quiet spot but still had to deal with massive QRM.

Bill, M0DXT, was so kind to put my new frequency on the cluster (tnx Bill!). This lead to a handful of contacts but the QRM made me decide to call it a day after a total operation of 90 minutes. In this time I was greeted by 92 operators of 21 DXCC entities. The maximum distance was 3800km into Asiatic Russia.

Tnx all for passsing by.
Lars, PH0NO/P

Activating De Hoge Veluwe - PAFF-005

Pleasant weather, beautiful parc and mediocre radio conditions

On Friday I went over to national park De Hoge Veluwe (PAFF-005). This park is the most "formal" of all parks I know in the PA region. It is fenced off and has three access gates where you have to pay an entrance fee to get into the park. If you want to take your car with you (like me) the entrance is 14 Euro.

Knowing this formal setting I was curious how my radio station would be greeted. The weather wasn't exactly great (a few showers) so I counted on a low number of visitors. However this park is popular even in bad weather - which I could have known - as it hosts a famous museum. I did find a rather quiet spot with open space stretching in all directions where I could park my car.

View from my operating position....

 
My setup was the familiar Spieth mast attached to the car holding a 20m end fed dipole (HyEndFed). This time I was using my FT-897 allowing for a bit more power than with the FT-817. This did cause some RFI problems that were reported to affect my modulation. I kept the power around 75 watts as that seemed to be a level at which my modulation was still easy to copy.

In the first two hours there was no time to be bored at all. My voice was coarse greeting and exchanging reports with all the OMs who took the time to work my station (I wonder how other OMs cope with that after a few hours of radio time...). The last hour the amount of contacts slowed down. QSB and QRM were getting stronger.

There were a couple of park visitors that looked quizzically at my setup but I was able to work for three hours without any problems.

All in all I think the activation was a success as I was able to hand out the park reference to 168 stations located in 35 different DXCC entities. Most of the stations that contacted me were from Europe (Russia, Ukraine and Italy taking a large share) and from Assiatic Russia. To my surprise two Israelian stations joined the list as well as one VE1, making the maximum distance covered 5000km.

View to the other side of my portable station - not a bad spot at all...

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

Activities from a camping in the Provence, France

From July 17 until August 3 I was enjoying generally pleasant weather in the very nice surroundings of the Haute Provence. Of course I took some gear with me for radio-activity from France.

After trying the AlexLoop I decided to install a fishing line in one of the trees near my tent around a branch at abt 10m (30ft) height. Using this wire I could quickly install different End Fed wire antennas to work on different bands with a bit more power than the AlexLoop allows (the loop allows only 10w PEP).

The setup was far from ideal with a high mountain to the north of my location but still I was able to work a number of new DXCC entities - including ZL4 @ 18000km - as well as a number of new US states.
In total I worked 125 different stations from 41 DXCC entities.

The antenna was rather stealth - look at the pictures below to get an idea.

Tent also know as shack of F/PH0NO/P

Now zoom in on the white towel...

End fed wire antenna by PA3EKE

PAFF-019 for the second time

Yesterday I was back at PAFF-019 for one and a half hour of air time. I brought my FT-817 (5W output), an end fed wire for 20m and my Spieth mast. Conditions were not very good, I think even a bit worse than last time. I did work 107 different stations from 24 different DXCC entities in 100 minutes, so I was not bored at all.

The maximum distance was this time around 3500km in the direction of Ekatarinaburg in Asiatic Russia. Apart from a few stations from Asiatic Russia I logged only European stations. Most replies came from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Italy and Germany.

The weather was very pleasant with temperatures around 23 degrees and the view nice as always. The only downside was a strong and gusty wind. One gust of wind took down the antenna after 10 minutes of operation. Luckily everything was still in one piece, so I was back on the air in no time.

Thanks to all OM's who took the time to work my small portable station.

73 44,

Lars.

Activating near home: PAFF-019

Veluwezoom - PAFF-019

After the experience at PAFF-014 I decided to try and activate Veluwezoom, PAFF-019. I took my FT-817 and a LiFePo battery with me. First I tried my new AlexLoop but did not get any response on my calls. Then I put up my Spieth mast with an end fed wire (by HyEndFed) for 20m. This gave me a couple of replies at first with a lot of QSB. It turned out conditions were rather poor. 

After a few minutes however more and more OM's found their way to my calling frequency. This time a milder pile up than @ PAFF-014 but still a nice steady stream of contacts. Conditions seemed to decline so I quit after only 45 minutes of activity. Total amount of logged contacts is 48 from 20 different DXCC entities this time. There was one VE station that made it through the European pile up.

Although I did not have my log with me (only took a few blank sheets to log new calls) I recognized a number of callsigns from the activation of PAFF-014 last Monday.

I will return to the Veluwezoom when I find the time and conditions are a bit better.

73, 44

Lars.