Recent PAFF activities

Covid-19 has motivated me to go out portable again after months of little to no activity. Apart from some field tests I went out for two PAFF activations. One to PAFF-0016 (Sallandse Heuvelrug) that I visited once before in 2012 and one to PAFF-0055 (Deelerwoud) that I had visited four times already as it is near to my QTH.

The PAFF-0016 activity was on the Saturday afternoon during WPX SSB. There was no choice in the matter as I was out with my family and there was only that particular afternoon available. I was doubtful about my chances to work a nice number of stations (my target is a minimum of 100), but it was even worse than I feared. In 2,5 hours I only logged 26 QSOs from 13 DXCC. That is by far the lowest number I have logged during a WWFF activity.

It started out alright with K2VV (Missouri) as the first chaser coming back on 20m but then the contest QRM became stronger and stronger. The higher bands were closed (4 QSOs on 17m in 30 minutes), so I tried some (fake) CW on 20m. That gave me a few new chasers but that was slow with 10 chasers in 30 minutes. In the end I went down to 60m to add another 7 QSOs before calling it a day.

QSOs from PAFF-0016 - nicely spread out but only a handful

My visit to PAFF-0055 was the next Saturday and was completely the opposite. There was a contest that weekend but it would only start at 16h UTC. That gave me some time to use 20m and 40m before QRM started. 
The 6th chaser to return my call was Norm N9MM from Texas. That was good propagation news as TX is not regularly in my /P logs. Two more DX surprises were a new JA chaser and Paul VK5PAS who I had not heard for 3 years. 
Europe was well awake and the skip zones of 20m and 40m overlapped nicely. It was busy throughout. I logged 156 QSOs from 32 DXCC in just under 2 hours even though I had to change antennas for 40m as I seemed to have burnt the common mode choke of my C-pole...

QSOs from PAFF-0055 - activity level that makes an activator smile

That last activity was motivating which is good because I have a busy month of May ahead. I will be active with a special call - PH75FREE - commemorating 75 years of freedom (after the end of WW2). I hope to do most of the activity /P.

Wet but still great activity from Ameland

In the afternoon of Friday Sept 27 I arrived on Ameland Island (part of EU-038) for a weekend with my in-laws, celebrating their 50y honeymoon anniversary. Knowing I would be on an island that also contains PAFF-0073 - the last unactivated PAFF - I was keen to take my radio with me.

We would travel to the island without a car so I prepared my bicycle so it could transport a lot of stuff.

Mountain bike customized into trekking bike with a lot of extra weight

Getting nearer to the weekend two forecasts were worrying - a geomagnetic storm with Kp up to 6 and rain with strong winds were both on the agenda for the weekend.

I chose to take a smaller pole (12m) than I usually deploy and decided I would take my mobile amp and a stack of LiPo's as they would give me just a bit more chance if conditions would be poor even though it meant my bags would be heavy.  

Strong wind on the island

When I was on the island checking the rain radar I knew I would not stay dry however I would plan my activity. So I took my rain clothes and a lot of plastic to cover my gear and went out.

Ominous clouds over the dunes at Ameland

I found a nice place in the dunes overlooking the sea. It started out nicely with some sun. There was an almost immediate pile-up on 20m that seemed to continue forever. 

12m Spiderbeam pole in the dunes fighting the wind

Conditions seemed good enough with some particular strong skips - with the benefit of sea water nearby surely. Quite a few NA stations came by some with signals up to s9 like Tom KG8P from MI and Norman N9MM from TX (a rare KFF p2p for me).

Unfortunately the rain came as expected and two times I had to "sit it out" for half an hour by just covering all the gear and myself (quite a challenge for an impatient guy like me to just sit there for 30 minutes waiting). 

I was out in the dunes for some 3 hours with 2 hours of effective radio time on 20m and 40m. By the time the third rain shower appeared I'd had enough and went back to the cottage to get dry and warm.

Later that evening - I was at the yellow circle

In the 2 hours it was busy enough. Being just before or at the start of a solar storm seems to be a lucky timing after all. I logged 238 QSOs (34 DX) from 38 DXCC, including 13 W states and 3 VE provinces. Odx was 9700km to PY1.

To activate or not to activate

Next weekend I will be on the island of Ameland (EU-038). As a radio amateur there is one central concept that concerns the mind with such a prospect: sea water!

As an IOTA reference Ameland and the neighboring islands have been activated a zillion times but there is a nature reserve on the island that has not been activated before. Another good reason to be radio-active there.

So, no discussion then: pack the radio gear and have radio fun!

Not so fast.. 

1. I will be on the island invited by my in-laws to celebrate their 50th honeymoon anniversary - they will have put together a 24h program for the weekend with a full-time role for me.
2. I will be on the island without my car but need to move around with my gear to be able to activate the nature reserve.

Okay, so I could probably squeeze in a few hours at the start of this social event. Any disappointment about that can be smoothed out during the rest of the weekend.
Regarding transport: I can take a bicycle with me on the island. So I am currently refurbishing my mountain bike so that it can carry all my radio gear (with bike rack and proper transport bags).

That is that sorted then?

Well, recently two other obstacles raised their ugly heads:

1. NOAA expects we will have a geomagnetic storm this weekend with Kp values up to 6.
2. The weather forecast shows rain throughout the weekend.

At Kp=6 there is not much radio fun to expect and being at the sea side in the dunes with wind and rain is not an option either. 

So I will be closely monitoring both forecasts to see how they will play out. I need 2-3 hours of dry spells before the geomagnetic storm starts raging. Fingers crossed.

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.

Preparing for a dxpedition to HB0

Last year May I went to LX with PD7YY and PG8M for a weekend to activate 7 different LXFF nature reserves. With the help of the LXFF coordinator we managed to get hold of a nice special call LX44FF.

Perfect conditions @LX in 2017

We were blessed with perfect weather and some Es conditions on 20m. We had a great time that weekend and managed to log far more contacts than we anticipated. We were thinking along the lines of the PACC contest (24h) - 1700 QSO or so - but we ended up with over 2100 QSOs. 

With this experience we of course discussed going on tour again this year. Moving up the DXCC wanted list we considered Bouvet for a moment and had a good look at Scarborough Reef but settled for Liechtenstein.

Picture of the hotel in HB0 - I hope the weather will be like that for us

We will be staying up in the mountains in a nice looking hotel - an upgrade from the caravan we occupied last year - and we will have a bit more time as we are traveling on Friday and Monday. The weather is a big unknown as are the conditions. In general the conditions on HF are poor but that was the case last year as well. We can only hope we will have some Es conditions (bringing a 2m and 6m antenna just in case). Then there is the influence of the mountains that will be a new one for us. Some of the locations we will be active from are on a mountain side. That will undoubtedly influence the signals in some directions.

HB0 is very strict in giving out callsigns so we will not have the benefit we had in LX of a nice short special call. Instead we will be using HB0/PG8M and HB0/PH0NO (switching between those when we move from park to park). Like last time we will be making special awards available for our chasers (details here: http://www.ynomy.nl/2018/03/ynomy-goes-hb0-wwff-expedition.html)

Preparations are ongoing. Several ham radio news sites / letters have been informed and we are checking and completing our gear. We will be taking three radios (one specifically for VHF) with batteries for one day and a whole bunch of different antennas including end fed wires, dipoles, a hexbeam and a VHF yagi with the necessary masts. We will have one mobile amplifier for the HF phone station with its own fat battery.

Now we will have to figure out how to fit all of that and three operators in one car...

Portable at PAFF-0117

Last week I had a rare opportunity to go out again /P for a longer stretch of time. I decided to head to the south of the country to activate a nature reserve I had not visited yet: Weerter- en Budelerbergen & Ringselven.

Because I had some time on my hands and I had not been on the radio for weeks, I went for the "full monty" - taking a hexbeam for the higher bands and a delta loop for 40m. I was not going to let the conditions ruin my day.

When I arrived at a lake in the nature reserve I was suprised to find a nice sturdy gate - placed by a local fishing organisation to corner off a piece of the lake. This made setting up the hexbeam a bit easier.

Alu mast nicely supported by a fence

There was some old metal pole a bit further away that was helpful for keeping my Spiderbeam 18m mast up. This mast was holding the full size delta loop for 40m. I had not used that in the field apart from some initial testing.

When the antennas were up I first collected J5 on two bands (atno for me) and TO2 on a new band. Then it was time to wake up the WWFF chasers.

Hexbeam at about 10m/30ft

I started on 40m as the higher bands were still rather quiet. QRM was manageable and the flow of chasers was quite constant - logging 116 calls in the first hour.

Then it was time to try 20m with the hexbeam pointing east. The first contact was a nice surprise: a VU2 who commented on my signal level - being 9+10dB at his end. I worked VU only a couple of times before so I was thrilled that he came to say hello and even more so that signals were that good. He was followed by a number of EU chasers. As the earth kept turning North America woke up. K1RO was the first one to make it across. It was time to turn the hex that way. Signals were never very strong but QRM was low on 20m, allowing me to work 23 stations from 15 US states and 4 VE provinces. Not bad at all.

In the meantime I was visited by a member of the local fishing club who wanted to know what I was doing. He made a minor point about me using their gate as a support but was satisfied after a short explanation of my intentions.

After a while I did not get any response on my CQs anymore and dusk was setting in. So I decided to take down the hex while I could still see what I was doing and continue on 40m until I had to leave. Before doing that, I called TI2 and logged him on a new band (17m).

Taking down the hex at dusk

Sadly 40m had turned into a very noisy band. It was hard to copy anyone at signal levels under s9. I did seem to put out a nice signal though as I saw a spot on the cluster from W3 and an OM from A7 (Qatar) came by to ask me what the heck my setup was, as I was that strong. The delta loop has made it into my favourite set of antennas. I logged another 60 chasers through the QRM.

In just under 4h radio time I logged 254 calls from 44 DXCC, 15 US states and 4 VE provinces. ODX was TI2 at 9100km.

Tnx to all the chasers that came by.

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.

First DL activation - Geldenberg DLFF-0213

On last notice an appointment was canceled leaving me with time off on Friday afternoon. This gave me the opportunity to go /P again after some time of radio-inactivity.

I live close to the border with DL and there are a number of DLFF references nearby but for some reason I never activated any of them. I decided this needed to change - so I headed out to Kleve to activate Geldenberg DLFF-0213.

As conditions have been horrible I took my amplifier with me, to enhance the chances of being heard. I decided against taking a beam as that would mean bringing a lot of heavy stuff and losing more time setting up and breaking down the station.

After a detour because of a blocked main road I quickly found a good operating spot. I started around 12:45 UTC on 20m. The band was already open to east coast US to my surprise. I stayed on 20m for an hour logging 78 chasers. Not too bad.

18m pole with EFHW antenna

Somewhere in this first hour a car pulled into the parking space I was in and someone walked up to my station. I guessed right when I asked him if he was Axel DL1EBR. I just spoke to him before (as I did many times before from various nature reserves), and he lives a few kilometers from the nature reserve I was in now. It was nice to be able to connect a face to the voice I already knew.

After 20m slowed down I set up my inverted V and tried 40m. It was already very lively and in over an hour I logged another 99 chasers. Then I tried 15m before heading home. It was barely open but I did log a few stations including a ZS4 - the odx this time.

In total I logged 180 chasers from 34 DXCC with 3 P2P contacts.
It was fun, thanks to all the chasers that called in & Axel who came by in person.

VEFF experiences

From the end of July up till August 14 I traveled through VE3 (and a small part of VE2) with my family. I visited family in Toronto and made a round trip from there up to Manitoulin Island, Algonquin Provincial Park and into Montreal. From there we went back to Toronto via the 1000 Islands area.

My idea was to take my radio with me and to activate one or more nature reserves.

Before heading over to VE3 I contacted the VEFF coordinator - Dave VA3RJ - to find out what nature parks would be on my route. Dave took the opportunity to revise the VEFF list, adding a number of provincial parks in VE3.

He also helped me a great deal by highlighting all nature reserves close to the route I would be travelling.

Although customs was suspicious, I was able to bring my radio on the plane. I took my Yaesu FT857d, a HyEndFed transformer and a collection of wires for all HF bands. As I could not bring a pole I relied on my hockey ball and nylon wire to get my antenna up in a tree.

First activity: VEFF-0158 Blue Jay Creek Provincial Park 

The first place where I was near a nature reserve and was able to plan a time slot for radio-activity was on Manitoulin Island. This enormous island is very sparsely populated and would be a nice IOTA candidate if only the lakes surrounding it would have contained salt water - they don't.

The island is on the Canadian islands award list however and features three VEFF nature reserves. Two of those were 1.5h to 2h drive away (yes, it is a large island) and one - Blue Jay Creek Provincial Park - was less than 30 minutes away. So I chose Blue Jay Creek, even though it was impossible to enter this park by car.

I suspected I might end up in a reserve I would have to enter on foot, so I bought two lawn mower batteries (12v and not too heavy) before we headed to the island.

Entrance road leading to the edge of Blue Jay Creek (4x4 advisable..)

The Blue Jay himself

Set-up reasonably comfortable - end fed wire up in the tree  

I did check the propagation predictions so I had a vague idea of when the bands would be open to EU but I had no idea what kind of activity levels to expect. I was not disappointed. EU was open from the start for more than 3 hours. What did surprise me was the low activity level from NA. I tried 40m for a while but logged only 2 stations.

In 4 hours I logged exactly 100 calls - 56 EU, 38 NA, 4 SA en 2 AF. ODX was 8200km into RA6.

Second activity: VEFF-0334 Oxtongue River & Ragged Falls Provincial Park 

The second opportunity arrived when we were staying in a cabin just outside Algonquin Provincial Park. That is by far the largest park in Ontario. As it is huge I expect it stands a good chance to be activated by someone else in the future, so I chose a smaller park that borders Algonquin: Oxtongue River. 

Working from an airconditioned shack

Oxtongue river (worth a canoe trip)

and the Ragged Falls

As you can see I was in a beautiful area but radio-wise it was a disaster. In Blue Jay Creek I was near a large body of water (Lake Huron) and that must have played a role. Or radio conditions were just really bad this time. EU was really weak. After 4 hours I had logged a whopping 27 contacts. I feared I would not be able to reach the WWFF minimum of 44 contacts (let alone the 100 I always aim for). After 4h I found that 40m picked up with stations from the US. In another 2h I logged 26 more stations, bringing the total to 53 (in 6! hours) - 21 EU, 30 NA, 1 SA and 1 AF. ODX was S5 at 6800km.

This was by far the slowest activity I experienced ever. I think it is even worse than running the PACC contest in the early morning hours.

Third activity: VEFF-0023 Frontenac Biosphere

On our way back towards Toronto we stopped in a very nice house not far from the 1000 Islands national park (St Lawrence NP). I was thinking of activating that one, when I found out the house itself was located in a VEFF nature reserve: Frontenac Biosphere.

That was as conveniently as it can get. I had bought a power supply locally and found a 110V outlet at the back of the house, where there were a number of suitable trees for the end fed wires. This allowed me to operate until late without disturbing the family.

I planned to have a longer activity starting around the time 20m would open to EU and continuing until 40m would open to EU. I learned from the first two activities that there was a gap when 20m would close to EU, and before 40m would pick up in NA. This time I would not waste an hour logging close to nothing, but I joined my family for dinner instead. The luxury of operating from the place you are staying.. a whole new concept I enjoyed a lot.

I used my HyEndFed trafo with the original "multiband" wire - 12m of wire with a coil at 10m. Resonant on 10, 20 and 40m. It is not very long on 40m but a very practical solution in between trees.

View from the EFHW trafo up in the trees

Enjoying a beer while the ants enjoyed my nachos

This fellow was climbing up my leg before inspecting the radio - a walking stick. Dave VA3RJ told me you hardly see them as they only come out at night. 

I started on 20m and found that conditions were far better than at Oxtongue River. I could copy EU much stronger - though not as strong as at Blue Jay Creek. 20m was open to EU until around 23h UTC. I logged a number of NA stations and when 20m became slow I went for dinner to come back to 40m when it was lively in NA. I continued and started to hear EU stations from around 4am UTC.

One of the first stations I logged on 20m was Danny ON4VT. When he came back to me on 40m more than 9 hours later and reminded me of the fact that he had already slept in between, I decided it was time to go QRT.

I logged 113 contacts this time - 49 EU, 60 NA, 3 SA and 1 AF. ODX was 8200km to PY1 with an interesting 7300km to YO on 40m.

This way the radio brought a nice little extra to a great holiday in VE. Thanks to Dave VA3RJ I had various options available for activations - making it possible to blend them in with all the other family activities.

Thanks to all chasers who came by and kept me busy out in the middle of nowhere.

Looking forward to VEFF

In 1,5 weeks I will be travelling to VE for the first time. I will be visiting my brother in Toronto and then travel around Ontario for 2 weeks with my family.

Discussing the various VEFF locations Dave VA3RJ (VEFF coordinator) decided to update the Ontario reference list and he helped me find a large number of provincial parks along my route.

After contacting several agencies (border police, customs, airline) it seems I am OK with bringing my radio. I am not comfortable with taking LiPo batteries as I expect I will run into problems checking them in. So I will have to either buy a power source in VE or use the car (which means I can only operate from a park if I can get in by car).

Checking the propagation forecasts it will be challenge to work EU with only 100w and a wire antenna. I hope I will attract some (new?) NA chasers as well.

There are VEFF locations near all the stops I have planned. However, there is a lot more to do and see and my travelling companions will not be particularly enthusiastic if I am away all the time. So I will have to see when I have the opportunity to go /P. 

If I have internet access I will post my plans to Twitter and the WWFF facebook page. 

Ynomy is born

So.. who is Ynomy?

Ynomy (pronounced something like Why Not Me?) is a new radio club consisting of PD7YY, PG8M and myself. 

For some 4 years now we regularly meet each other in the Region 6 (Arnhem) monthly club evening. We share a passion for ham radio (duh!) but also for /P activities from interesting locations, for DX chasing and for contesting.. well, at least participating in the PACC contest.

In 2013 the idea to participate in PACC with our region's club call (PI4ANH) was born. PD7YY and PG8M participated using the club station with very minimal means. I had social obligations and entered the contest only for a few hours on Saturday evening / night on 80m. 

This year we did a proper attempt to set a good score during the PACC contest with a full blown temporary contest station. We used the PI4ANH club call again this time.

Next year we will be back during PACC determined to improve on our score of this year. We have decided we need a better contest call and for that reason we have requested a temporary special call: PE55E. It is one that is easy to pronounce and it is a short call on CW (note that a special call in PA needs to have at least two numbers and can only be claimed for one month).

As we see ourselves organising more joint activities we decided we needed a name - a carrier for all the temporary calls we will be using. This of course has to be Ynomy.

Ynomy has a website of its own (still under construction at this moment) where I hope a lot of interesting experiences will accumulate - like our future DXpeditions to P5 and numerous highly wanted and at the same time very comfortable islands (sun, beach, cocktails and radio fun). 

Two IFF activities during my holiday

I am just back from a holiday well spent in southern Tuscany (the area is known as Maremma). The reason to mention my holiday here is that I took my radio with me and got to operate it as well.

I decided to keep my radio stuffed away on the camping and only operate it on two planned off-camping /P activities. This way I minimised the impact of my peculiar hobby on the time I had with my family. I have to add that I do not enjoy digital operation as much as voice (and when in a tent on a very quiet camping I am not comfortable working voice). This tips the scale even more in favour of limiting the radio-activity to off-camping /P trips.

The place I stayed was surrounded by no less than four IFF recognised nature reserves - all within 40 minutes drive. I was thinking of activating three but in the flow of my holiday ended up with two time slots large enough to go out /P.

IFF-660 Monte Labbro
The first activity was from nature reserve Monte Labbro (IFF-660). The mountain itself is know for its ruins of a tower built by Davide Lazzaretti, leader of the Giusdavidic Church.

Monte Labbro in view

Preparing my visit I had checked Google Maps and expected to be able to get to the top of the mountain. When I arrived there however (via a very rough cobble road) it turned out the last part of the route was a footpath. Without proper support I was not able to set up my station on the top and decided to stay with my car, just below the top of the mountain. This might have influenced my rx and tx as the mountain blocked approx 90 degrees (north to east).

Setup on Monte Labbro IFF-660

Weather was okay with cloudy skies at the start of my activity around 16h local time and the sun appearing later in the afternoon. Radio conditions were far from okay however. IFF requires that you log 100 chasers to make an activity valid. In my experience this is very do-able as there is a large chaser community out there. This time however I struggled and only logged my 100th contact after almost 4h, changing bands (and antennas) six times in the mean time looking for an opening. I stayed for another 1,5 hours logging 58 contacts when 40m picked up. I even got to work some stations on 6m, amongst them my fellow club member PG8M - which I found the most remarkable event as 6m is not known for its reliability (understatement). I logged two other fellow club members on holiday: PD7YY in OZ and PE1WBU in LA.

I worked on 6 different bands using end feds and my c-pole for 40m on my 17m mast. I logged 158 contacts (146 different stations) from 35 DXCC. DX included W1, A7, EA9, R9 and PT7.
 

Monte Labbro - view to the top - weather improved substantially during my activity

IFF 702 - Bosco SS Trinità
My second activity was one week later from IFF-702 - a relatively new reference. When I was checking it out before my holiday it had actually not been activated according to the WWFF database. By the time I got there a log had been uploaded - so it had been activated once. 
Conditions were still far from good (being in between trees might have played a part) but this time I logged 199 contacts. This was in a 6h period, so a low number in my experience. I have to add that I lost 90 minutes setting up and later breaking down my inverted V for 40m and 80m. I decided to use them after my somewhat disappointing results at IFF-660. Setting these two inverted V's up in between the trees turned out to be a challenge. I did log 68 contacts on these two bands (exceptional if you consider that QRM was S9 on 40m and S9+ on 80m) - so it was worth the effort.

I worked on 5 different bands using end feds and my inverted V's for 40m and 80m on my 17m mast. I logged 199 contacts (182 different stations) from 38 DXCC. DX included W1, VE1, 4Z and PY1.

View to the Convento Trinita from my operating position

Thanks to Max IK1GPG and Steve IZ5GST for their information about IFF / activating in Italy.

A long activity from PAFF-056

Last Friday afternoon I went to PAFF-056 as planned. Weather turned out okay so I brought a couple of antennas, including my hexbeam. The plan was to activate the park and catch some DX in the process.

Long setup time
Setting up took more time than usual. This was caused by a bit of damage control I still had to do after the mast crashed down during the PACC contest.  Of course there was a new mast support to install and I brought my C-Pole for 40m for the first time.

I arrived in the reserve at 15h local time but logged the first contact only at 16h - J8 on 20m for a new band DXCC. After listening around for other DX I only encountered VU4 but the zoo was enormous - not something I was going to waste my time on.

Just before 16:30 I started calling CQ on 20m using my mono band End Fed (vertically on a fibreglass pole) and my Hexbeam pointing towards NA. After about one hour things started to quiet down and I scanned the bands for new DX to catch. I found 3B8 on 10m and added that one to the log to reach 200 DXCCs. One of the targets for this year but clearly not very a very ambitious one.

Setup with hexbeam @10m and end fed

Weather was improving during the afternoon

Tuning my new C-Pole for 40m
Then it was time to go down to 40m. This was a time consuming switch as the new C-Pole antenna I brought turned out to be a bit too short. I tried it above my roof at home one night after constructing it and there it was okay, but having it in the field and on a different height clearly has a lot of effect on the resonance frequency. I do not take any tuning devices with me when I go /P as I am careful to always take resonant antennas (I do not like the idea of wasting valuable radiation energy when /P) so I had to fix this - it was resonant around 7.4Mhz, "slightly" off.
Fortunately I brought extra wire and randomly added some lengths to both legs of the folded dipole. With some luck I got it to resonate in the relevant portion of the band.

With a resonant antenna I was ready for some serious WWFF activity again - 40m is always a popular band for WWFF chasers in EU. However it turned out the band was a terrible mess. It was crowded and QRM was S8-9 all over the band with a spiking signal (electric fence?) every second of 9+10. Great!
I logged 5 contacts before giving up and returning to a higher band - 15m this time using only the hexbeam.

15m was not particularly busy and was slowly closing while it was getting dark outside. I was planning to go back to 40m hoping the QRM would die out a bit. Before that however I packed up the hexbeam and all other stuff I was not going to use and definitely would have a hard time finding in the dark.

Trying 40m for a second time with a nice surprise
Around 20:20 local time I was back on 40m but to my disappointment it was still one big sea of QRM all over the place. However there were quite a number of strong signals (above QRM level) around so I gave it a try anyway and logged 56 contacts in the following 40 minutes.

Half way during this session on 40m a very peculiar thing happened. I got a call from a station that I heard to be something like ?K7AC. Now you have to imagine that it was a terrible QRM mess and that I had been logging EU contacts only. So I initially thought it was IK7AC - although the OM was definitely not Italian. When he repeated his call a couple of times I could only conclude that it was VK7AC - peaking S9 with me. He gave me 57.

Before this contact my ODX on 40m was TG - just a bit over half the distance - that I worked using my full size inverted V (my favourite DX antenna on 40m until this day) and more power - 300 in stead of the 90W I was using now. A nice surprise that completely wiped out my frustration about the band condition.

At 21h I called it a day - completely exhausted from pulling stations through the constant noise. I packed up the last bits and went back home.

All in all I logged 175 contacts from 40 DXCCs, including a lot of familiar call signs and some fellow FF national coordinators. Noteworthy DX included - VK7 (duh!), 3B8, 5R8, J8, ZS6 (on the side of the hexbeam) and a couple of stations in central USA. Not as much as I hoped to catch with the extra hassle of installing the hexbeam but enough highlights to travel home satisfied.

Time to go /P again - this Friday

Quite unexpectedly I am faced with a nice gap in my schedule this Friday afternoon that allows me to play radio again for a few hours. The gap is large enough to go out and combine a bit of DX fishing with the activation of a nature reserve in the area. 

Checking the activation list of PAFF I found that Haaksbergseveen (PAFF-056) is in need of activation as it has only been reached by just about 100 chasers. I have been there before - so it is not a new one for me as FF activator. The last time I was there I was only able to find an operating spot in between a lot of trees. Using Google Maps I have now spotted an open area that seems to be reachable.

I just managed to build a new mast support in time after losing the previous one in the storm during PACC (wood again, as I did not find the time to sit down and design a alu drive-on version yet), so I am thinking of taking my aluminium mast and folding hexbeam. It may give DX FF chasers a better chance to reach me and it should help me to maybe find some new DX.

PACC statistics

During PACC we used N1MM to log our contacts. Afterwards I imported the data into my HRD Logbook and added the QRZ data to get a better idea of our results.

The simple facts are as follows:

Band	Mode	#Contacts	#Multi	ODX
10	CW	0		0
10	SSB	63	23	11.930 (LU)
15	CW	28		8.000 (W5)
15	SSB	117	34	11.340 (YB)
20	CW	115		8.700 (W6)
20	SSB	91	40	16.600 (VK2)
40	CW	124		8.160 (W5)
40	SSB	42	36	7.200 (WP)
80	CW	83		6.260 (W3)
80	SSB	53	28	5.640 (W1)
160	CW	25		2.110 (R3)
160	SSB	62	17	2.120 (R3)

We logged 52 DXCCs and 12 US states.

As I am visually oriented I like to see what the data means. This is the total log plotted on our planet (click to enlarge):

• Red = 10m, Orange = 15m, Yellow = 20m, Green = 40m, Purple = 80m, Blue = 160m 
• Circle = SSB, Star = CW

10, 15 and 20m contacts are as expected scattered around the planet with 10m getting us in to South America (an easy route on 10m from our location) & South Africa (and Mayotte.. of all places); 15m into Japan and 20m into Australia. All quite familiar results from my earlier activities with the hexbeam. On 40m we got well into the US and Caribbean (PJ & WP). 

To get a better idea of what we did on the top bands I have a map showing only those contacts:

80m got us into the US - East Coast and Asiatic Russia. On 160m we did not get outside of Europe but we reached the Moscow region both in phone and CW, which is quite a bit further than we expected to get.