Second PA44FF activity (PAFF-0098)

This morning I was able to free up some time to go out for a nice /P activity. I have not been able to visit all the newer parks (added this year), so I chose one of those - PAFF-0098.

It took me about 1.5h to get there. I had studied the area via Google Maps and found an operating spot quickly. An old broken down gate was useful as a support for my pole. 

A vertical antenna reshaped by the wind

It was cold and foggy with a rather strong wind. The antenna withstood the elements and performed as it should.

I started on 40m using a 20m long end fed mostly vertical with the end sloping off the pole (still using the 18m pole, a longer one is in backorder). The band was quite OK. Signals overall not extraordinary but good copies. QRM was light at my location. I greeted 106 chasers in the first hour.

I then went on to 80m for some short skip contacts and 20 minutes later to 20m. I decided to keep the 40m antenna up and tune it slightly. This saved me some time.

In the next half hour I logged almost 40 chasers with average signals and some QSB. The big surprise was VK2ZH. Signals were not strong both ways but I really had not expected to work VK on this mediocre band.
Motivated by this contact I changed antennas to give 17m a try. That was a bit ambitious. There was not a whole lot going on. I went back to 20m just in time to try a QSO with fellow (and far more active) blogger PE4BAS. He was at work and used his lunch break to try to make a contact. It was difficult but we managed to make one on 20m. You can read about the experience from his end here: Blog PE4BAS 

PE4BAS further up north working QRP

I stayed on the band for the last 45 minutes of my activity. With another nice surprise when Paul VK5PAS called me. Again signals were weak both ways but it had been more than 3 years that I last spoke to Paul on the air.

Just before going QRT the band opened towards NA with WWFF veterans VO1SA and W1OW calling in.

All in all I was on the air for about 3 hours on 4 different bands. I logged 231 calls from 35 dxcc.
Strange conditions as I would classify the band as weaker than 2 weeks ago looking at the signals overall but then I did log 2 VKs this time.. go figure.

First PA44FF activity from Deelerwoud (PAFF-0055)

This morning I went out to activate PAFF-0055 Deelerwoud using my temporary callsign PA44FF.

Weather was okay with some drizzle but almost no wind. I arrived at the nature reserve rather early (for me anyway) at 8am UTC. To my surprise there were already quite a few people out in the reserve.

Spiderbeam 18m pole with EFHW for 40m

I started on 40m using a half wave end fed almost completely vertical (20m long on an 18m pole). I brought my Ameritron mobile amp as I was expecting bad conditions - forecast had been rather poor.
It turned out there was an Italian contest going on that completely filled 40m with s9 signals. Luckily I found a spot at the end of the band around 7.198.000 I stayed there for about 40 minutes logging almost 60 chasers, until I could not bear the QRM anymore. 

Running the FT857 with a Heil headset and an Ameritron mobile amp (approx 300w)

Higher bands seemed rather dead so I focused on 20m next. It was really lively on 20m but DX was sparse. The next 2 hours I did not have time to enjoy my sandwiches and just enough to sip my coffee once a while. I logged over 200 calls in under 2 hours on 20m.
DX included 4Z, R9, OD5 and to my surprise JA.

Before packing up I decided to give 40m one more try. It was even worse than earlier in the morning. The FT857's filtering is rather basic but with one big wall of sound all over the band I think there was not much to gain anyway. I gave up trying and went down to 80m. The antenna is not very effective on this band but I did log 4 chasers.

Weather improved during the activity

I went back to 40m, hopped over the band trying to find some gaps at the lower and upper end. Including the short diversion to 80m I lost about 45 minutes. When I found some usable spots in the end I logged another 30 chasers in the last half hour.

In total I was busy for about 4h. Subtracting time for antenna changes and finding spots on 40m I was really QRV for 3h. In that light the 296 calls from 39 DXCC I logged is quite a lot. If it weren't for the contest on 40m, I am sure I would have logged a lot more chasers on that band. The band actually seemed quite good (hence the strong contest signals).

Judging from the 2h continuous stream of chasers on 20m, it seems that the special call does attract some extra attention. The fact that it was Sunday morning might have contributed as well (I am not that often active /P during weekends).

Anders SA2CLU inquired about my set-up today. So I will just add two more pictures. The first one is just to show how effective something small can be. These are the two antennas I used: end fed half wave antennes for 40m (home brew) and 20m (commercial). 

End Fed Half Wave antennas for 40m and 20m

They are only small if you forget about the Spiderbeam pole I am using of course. The 18m pole does attract a lot of attention from passersby.

The 40m antenna is just a bit too long for the 18m pole. So I slope the last bit of the wire away from the pole. It ends up where ever I can attach the transformer. This time just 30cm or so off the ground. In the first picture on this page you can just make out the transformer box in the bushes behind the car. Below a zoomed in picture of this simple set-up.

Some nostalgia - a new old microphone

Tidying up at my parents' place an old carton box turned up. In it was an old microphone, bought by my grandfather who was a professional pianist (picture below). He had the tendency of buying good quality "toys", so I was expecting this to be too good to just throw away. 

The tiny label on the microphone told me it was an MD421HN and the papers in the box told me it was made by Sennheiser. Time for a bit of research.

The microphone with german product leaflet

In the box there was an original product information leaflet and a separate leaflet showing accessories (both in German). There was also this intriguing little piece of paper showing - I reckon - the frequency response of this particular microphone.

Serial number, frequency response and production date: May 12, 1965

Googling the thing I found out this microphone is still in production albeit in version 2. I saw they are not the cheapest microphones around and considered a classic.

So.. what does one do with a 50 years old good quality microphone.. 
I am not much of a singer.. but maybe I can use it on my radio?

Googling a bit further I found that indeed people use this microphone on their radio set and with good results. Someone remarked it was a large improvement over the Heil headsets.

I have been using the Heil Elite Pro headset with HC-6 element for a long time now and I am more than pleased. There was absolutely no reason whatsoever to change this setup.. except for the appearance of the MD421.

I contacted a few HAMs that had mentioned using the MD421 here and there to figure out how they hooked this microphone up. With the information I got I decided to try and hook it up directly to my ICOM 756 Pro3, using the Heil plug.

Yesterday I was able to complete a cable and perform the first few tests. It seems to work. Comparing the audio via the monitor I have found that the microphone needs more drive than the Heil but it seems that with the volume on the set at 100% there is enough audio. 
There was no time to do on the air tests but I did log two WWFF activators - so people seem to be able to hear me.

The microphone has two settings ("music" and "speech") and the set has various settings as well, so I will need to experiment some more and then compare the results to the Heil mic.

Whatever the outcome, it is great to put my grandfather's microphone to use again.

My grandfather behind his piano

Special 44 calls for PAFF activities this year

In WWFF the number 44 has a special meaning and is used as exchange at the end of a QSO. There are different stories about what this number actually means but the widely accept version is that the first digit '4' represents the four elements: earth, water, air, and fire and the second digit '4' represents the four directions: north, south, west, and east.

When I turned 44 this year I decided to use that as an excuse to put some more time into PAFF activities again and use special calls with 44 in them. The first one will be PA44FF that will go live in December. 

Special calls are a bit of a nuisance over here as they can only be used for 4 weeks. This means you need to reapply if you want a longer period. However you cannot apply for a new period or new call as long as you hold one. Considering that it takes the authorities 3 weeks to process your request, you can effectively only use a special call every other month.

The QSL card I will use the coming year for PAFF activities

PH0NO goes vlogging

Setting up my /P station for CQWW this weekend I made some movies to give you an impression of what setting up that station entails. 

This one shows you how I set up my hexbeam. It is up on the mast (around 12m/40ft high) in 20 minutes.

CQWW 2016 experiences

Logging a lot of new (band) ones on the low bands

As planned I went out this weekend to try and catch some new band DXCC - so not necessarily atno although I would have enjoyed that bonus.

My focus was on the low bands this time. I did take my hexbeam just in case there were new ones for me to catch on any of the higher bands. In retrospect it was not really worth the effort though. I logged one new DXCC on 20m and three on 15m. I learned I was too late as I could have worked more new ones on 15m but soon after I started (around 15h UTC) the band started to fade.

Apart from the hexbeam I took my recently constructed vertical that acts as end fed half wave on 40m and as a quarter wave on 80m with elevated radials. It turned out the end fed was resonant in part of the 160m band as well. I brought my tuner so I was able to use the whole band with that antenna.

An evening out on a deserted industrial area - hexbeam and vertical

Scanning the low bands

The low bands were noisy. The geomagnetic storm I experienced last Wednesday had settled a bit but it was still noisy. Another thing is that with a contest as big as CQWW the rather narrow bands are one big splatter party. This is especially true on 40m.

After spending time on 15m and 20m, logging only a handful of contacts, I turned to 40m around 15:30 UTC. There was not a lot to chase there, so I went down to 160m. It was early for that band but it was easy as I did not have to change anything when switching between 40m and 160m. For 80m I had to change the antenna setup slightly so it took some time to switch to and from that band.

Using my laptop with HRD Logbook I was able to monitor the cluster and see where I could find new ones. HRD shows you whether a DXCC that is spotted is already in your log for that band. Based on that information I switched between the bands. Unfortunately my laptop battery died at some point. I did bring an external battery but forgot the cable. I then relied on just listening around and on the cluster app on my phone. The downside is that I just cannot remember what DXCC I worked on what band.

Moving around across the bands I logged 69 contacts in 12 hours. Not particularly impressive during a contest (I suspect some stations managed more contacts in that period). However they contribute 44 new band DXCC to my collection.

Experiences per band

My 40m antenna was working as I expected. It is not a miracle antenna but I could work what I could copy. This included PY, a new one and the ODX on this band this weekend. I logged him when I had taken down the hexbeam and just wanted to check the low bands for the last time before taking down the vertical. I was happy with that catch. There is however a lot I cannot hear that others apparently can hear - judging from QSOs where I can only copy one side. This vertical end fed is clearly not a match for a beam. Conditions weren't particularly good and QRM was incredible, so I only logged 4 new DXCC on this band. I had hoped to log more new ones to move towards my 5th 100+ DXCC. I was counting on skip to the Caribbean but I only worked 8P.

My 80m antenna was better than I expected. The quarter wave relies on the ground system to work and with only 4 rather short elevated radials I was not expecting a lot. But again I could work almost everything I could hear. ODX this weekend was A6 at more than 5000km and I logged 12 new DXCC on this band. Note that I don't use this band at home and I had only logged 37 DXCC before (mainly on one evening and night in the snow when I joined the PACC for the first time).

On 160m I had only worked one station so far since I got my full license - some nearby german super contest station on CW on a shortened 40m wire antenna. This of course meant that almost all stations I heard were new DXCC on that band. The antenna was resonant but very short for this band (20m). I could work more than I expected but could not work everything I could hear. I noticed some stations had difficulty copying me while I could copy them without a problem. So there is still a lot to improve for this band. Starting with only 1 DXCC this was of course the best scoring band. I added a whopping 28 new DXCC here. ODX on this band was a respectable 2900km into 5B4.

Preparing low band verticals for CQWW

Conditions on HF have been better than they are the last few months. I find this a good reason to spend more time on the lower bands. 

Another good reason is that I completed my 100 DXCC on the fourth band just last week or so. It was on 17m. I am not counting on reaching that number on 12m any time soon - as I have failed to use that band when conditions were more favourable. So the next candidates are 40m and 80m. I could also go for 30m of course but phone remains my favourite mode.

With the limited space I have at home I will need to go out /P to work new DXCC on those bands. At home I use a shortened end fed wire for 40m (just 12m long) and that will not really bring me any further than I have reached so far. 80m is even more challenging. I have not worked out an effective solution for that band yet. The other obstacle is that the areas I need to work are generally workable late at night or very early in the morning. Using phone at these hours in a room that is not sound proof will get me into trouble with the rest of the family.

All of this made me decide to focus on the low bands during CQWW this month. A couple of times before I have used this contest to hunt DX by reserving a considerable (to my standards) amount of time during the contest weekend going out /P with the best antennas I have. In the past I have used a 4 element mono band yagi for 10m that created an unforgettable experience where I just worked atno's like there was no tomorrow and I have used my hexbeam with success as well.

On the low bands I used inverted V dipoles before. They work, and have provided me with new band DXCC but they have a (mainly) high angle radiation pattern. It would be nice to try something with a better DX profile. So that is why I went out today to test two verticals I prepared at home: a quarter wave with 4 elevated radials for 80m and an end fed half wave for 40m (this time full size instead of the shortened version I used before). 
To be able to switch them easily - without taking down the mast - I use the same radiator for most of the length. The 80m antenna is a bit longer so I have an extension wire I can add / remove that connects to an SO259 socket with the four radials. When I use the antenna on 40m I disconnect the last bit with the radials and add my end fed transformer.

18m pole holding a stretch of wire

Today was also a test to see if I could set up my 18m mast by myself in the field. Normally I use a support like my car or any sign post or fixed pole I can find. The contest location I use is just open field. After some trying I found a procedure that worked well.

I used my VNA and my radio to see if the antennas worked and they indeed seemed OK. There was no enough time to do serious testing on the air and the bands were in terrible shape (s8-9 qrn/qrm). The plots and TX tests showed me that the 80m antenna is easily usable from 3.6 to well over 3.8mc. It dips in the phone contest region of the band. The bandwidth of the 40m end fed was much wider than the trapped version I used before. I can use it across the whole band.
I also found that the radials of the 80m vertical really need to be off the ground some 10-15 centimeters. If they are too close to the ground the performance really deteriorates with SWR rising above 1:5 easily (1:1.4 when the radials are well off the ground).

It seems I am ready for some action this weekend. Now let's hope the earth magnetic field calms down in time.