Monthly Archives: November 2017

DD5LP/P – November 18th. 2017 3rd. annual EU-NA S2S event – DL/AL-167 Falkenstein.

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Preparation:

The third annual, NA – EU/UK S2S event, was set for this date a couple of months ago, before we could know how either weather or radio conditions would be. My initial plan was to make this interesting for chasers by activating DM/BW-064 Heersberg, a 10 pointer south of Stuttgart and towards the French border. When it became obvious that the weather may be fairly bad and that with my nearly 3 hour drive each way, I could not be on the summit at the same time as the North American activators, I decided to change the summit and after looking around for one with at least a few points which didn’t need a lift for access (all mountain lifts in southern Germany close around November 5th. until just before Christmas for maintenance, upgrades and repairs before the Ski season starts) I settled on the 4 pointer DL/AL-167 Falkenstein which I have activated twice before, but not yet in 2017.

After my tests with new antennas over the last few activations, I decided to take the new Lambdahalbe J-pole antenna for 20m with the 10m mast and the Komunica Bazoka Pro mobile whip on my tripod for 40 metres. The rest of the set-up would be my FT-817, and home-modified 25w amplifier.

The Location:

Falkenstein has the highest castle ruin in Germany on top of it at 1267m ASL summit. This castle was intended to become another of King Ludwig’s residences but his death under suspicious circumstances drowning in the Starnberg Lake occurred before the work on Falkenstein could commence. The mountain lies above the town of Pfronten, close to the Germany/Austria border. Access to the summit car park from where it’s about a 15 minute walk to the castle ruins and summit is via a one-way toll road. This road really is one-way with no passing points and sheer drops off the side of the road in places. Road use is controlled with lights and cars are allowed up the road (fee € 4) between quarter past the hour and 5 minutes before the full hour. Cars coming down are allowed on the road between the full hour and 10 minutes past. It takes about 5 minutes to drive up the windy narrow road. An expensive hotel is located about 30 vertical metres below the summit but access to that car park is restricted to hotel guests and the public car park is a further 40 vertical metres below that. So after parking, there is a relatively steep climb both up to the hotel car park and then on up a set of stone steps to the summit. Located near the hotel is a communications tower – which made itself know during the activation!

The Activation:

Once I arrived at the summit, or more accurately at the top platform within the ruins on the summit, I found the table still present that I remember from last time although moved into a corner (which was fine). There was still some packed snow on the wooden floor of the platform and ice on the table and it was… COLD!

I first of all set up the 20m J-pole, winding it around the 10m mast as I raised it – the counterbalance 1/4 wavelength stub and feed coax ran nicely across to the table. Once that was up, putting up the tripod was simple and quick, the most time being needed to run out the counterpoise wire so that it wouldn’t be in the way of visitors who came up occasionally. The Komunica Bazoka Pro was then unpacked and the top element connected and the complete antenna screwed on to the SO-239 socket on the tripod.

Once the rig and amplifier were unpacked and cabled up, the station was ready to go. I took my usual set of photos to document the (somewhat overcast) conditions.

I started on 20 metres as this was the intention of the activation. Tuning around the band sounded good and not too busy. It was 11:53 UTC a little early for the other activators so I decided to make sure everything was working by making some chaser contacts and I was rewarded with contacts from the UK and Spain. When these calls ran out I decided to give 40m a try. As soon as I switched over antennas and band – I realised I was going to be in for a difficult time. The last time I activated Falkenstein I noted QRM from the radio tower at the side of the hotel. I had thought that had been VHF interference – wrong! This tower produces S8-S9 noise all across the whole of 40 metres (and presumably beyond). This of course meant any chasers calling me on 40m would need to be at least S8 and better S9+ before I could easily hear them. I pulled my headphones out of my rucksack and concentrated to pull the stations through the noise. I was very surprised that 11 contacts from some very patient chasers came in from all around Europe!

It was now 12:30 (UTC) and as I had to be back at my car in time to drive down in the time window when the road was open, I would need to start packing up at 13:30 at the very latest. I switched back to the 20m antenna and looked for some of the now spotted other activators. There was no way that I would hear any of these it seemed as the LZ DX contest had started and the band was full of loud (and hence wide) stations – trying to hear a portable station through that noise would be difficult at the best of times but there was now another factor – QSB. Stations that came back to my CQ SOTA call were varying in strength 3-4 S-points (and I presume they were hearing the same thing with my signal). After a while I took a break and took down and packed away the 40m antenna to reduce the time I would need later to pack up. I also realised that the battery in the amplifier was almost drained and so attached my external battery ready for some more 20m contacts. Eight more contacts followed including one S2S with Ralf HB9GKR on HB/AI-010 – I believe  this must have been a ground wave contact. My several attempts to call Sylvia OE5YYN/P came to nought, I was obviously too weak a signal – Sylvia was at best 3-3 with me so I was not surprised that my signal (which would have been a ground wave contact again) didn’t get through. At 13:30 UTC it was time to pull down and pack up the 20m antenna and mast and pack all equipment away into my small rucksack and photo bag and head down to the car – where I arrived about 5 minutes before the hour and was the first through the lights to head down the mountain and then knock 15 minutes off the time I had needed driving there, arriving home just before a heavy storm came over.

Photos:

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Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND.

LambdaHalbe 20m J-Pole antenna.

Komunica Bazoka Pro loaded Mobile antenna (40m).

DX-wire 10m fibreglass mast.

Hama camera tripod (modified with SO-239 socket) and counterpoise.

Modified QAMP amplifier (30-35W on 40m, 20-25W on 20m).

Log:

Conclusions:

Band conditions were marginal at best on 20m and when the contest stations came on they flattened what SOTA stations that were on. I think I was lucky to get the number of contacts that I did on the day. On 40 metres that S8-S9 interference from the communications tower right across the band made things REALLY difficult and the headphones certainly came into their own on this activation!  Both antennas worked well in the conditions and the Bazoka Pro certainly sets up very quickly. It’s a shame it doesn’t perform as well on 20m as it does on 40m (it’s supposed to be a wideband 40-10m antenna). The schedule of the one-way road closing meant that I had to leave quite early to get home before it got too dark. If I had been able to stay longer I still don’t think I would have achieved a North American S2S this year in any case.

73 ’til the next Summit!

DD5LP/P – November 15th. 2017 – DM/BM-135 Hesselberg.

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Preparation:

With the big EU-NA S2S event approaching on the 18th. I had been trying to get out to a summit to do some more preparation and testing for the last week but weather and other commitments had stopped me up until this Wednesday opportunity. I could have gone to one of my semi-local summits but as well as testing a new antenna (more later on that), I also wanted to get at least 6 activator points, so that the activation on Saturday the 18th. with its 10 activator points, would break the 500 level as an activator (half a goat if you wish). All of the semi-local summits that could supply the needed 6 points or more were now off-limits as a part of the trip up these mountains needed the use of a lift and in Bavaria all Alpen lifts go out of service around November the 5th. until just before Christmas for maintenance and inspection work prior to the Ski season and their heavy usage.

Looking around, I realised I hadn’t activated either Duerremberg or Hesselberg this year, each of which are about 2 hours drive away from my home QTH and both are worth 6 points. Initially I thought I might activate both but later decided to concentrate on the easier access Hesselberg and get to see the views from the summit. Duerremberg is a forested summit and hence has limited views and also impacts the use of vertical antennas – which is what I wanted to test.

From previous blog entries and construction pages on this vk2ji.com website, you’ll know that I built a combined 20m, 17m and 15m J-pole antenna by using a loading coil at the bottom for 17m and 20m. This was the antenna that I tried to use as a sloper antenna on my last antenna testing activation at Peissenberg. Using that antenna as a sloper, especially relatively close to the church building did not work out very well. In the meantime, Christos SV2OXS tipped me off about a commercially built vertical antenna, from LambdaHalbe (the same company who supply the lightweight 6m portable masts). Although sold as an end-fed halfwave it is indeed a J-pole of the same design as I had used for my home-made antennas. I bought the 20m QRP version of this antenna and I decided to test that against the home-made tri-band one at Hesselberg to decide what to use for the NA-EU S2S event on the 18th.

The Location:

Hesselberg is located north of Augsberg and about half way between Ingolstadt and Stuttgart. It has the advantage that having a Radio transmitter mast on top of it, there’s a road almost all the way to the top. this is also a health resort area and hence access to the summit for walkers is well-defined. There are even disabled persons spots in the car park, making this summit a possible for disabled operators although some help getting up the last few metres to the summit would be needed as it’s a rough track.

At the summit, as well as the standard cross, there is also a mini-cross and a trig point stone along with an information board and a table with bench seats at each side of it.

The Activation:

The drive across was uneventful and the weather was clear. That was until,   …. I go to about 500 metres down the road from the summit. At this point visibility dropped drastically and I was in a combination of freezing fog and low cloud. Guess what – I couldn’t see any of the views from the summit AGAIN – like my last visit! What is it with this mountain?

In any case, once I arrived at the car park and unpacked, I was about 30 minutes ahead of schedule, which is always good and in this case, as I was setting up two masts rather than the usual one, the extra time was useful to have. Initially it didn’t feel so cold but as time went on during the activation, I started to feel the cold more and more and when I eventually packed up and took down the antennas, ice had actually formed on the top og the J-pole wire!

Anyway back to the tests and the contacts …

I set up the lambdaHalbe 20m J-pole on my DX-Wire 10m mast at the end of one of the bench seats (which of course collapsed into itself for two sections at the top just as I was pushing the last section from the bottom out and so had to be lowered and re-erected). I actually wound the mast as I put it up, so as to have enough space for the driven element to be still on the pole. I have tried this method before and having a J-pole’s driven (half wave) element in a spiral rather than true vertical configuration appears to make no difference to the antennas performance.

The home-made (loaded) J-pole antenna went onto my LambdaHalbe 6 metre mast at the opposite end of the other seating bank and both coaxes came back to the centre of the table, allowing a switch of antenna to be a simple unplug of the BNC connector from the amplifiers output socket and plug the other one on.

On 20 metres the amplifier outputs between 20 and 25 watts dependant upon the state of the battery.

Even just on receive, I could notice an immediate difference between the commercially made, single band 20m jpole on the 10m mast and my home-made, loaded version on the 6m mast of around 3-4 S-points. Transmission tests with Lars SA4BLM and Cam G0CAM confirmed a similar difference on transmit. Later contacts who had been listening gave reports of similar levels. After the two very clear tests however, it was obvious, that a combination of being a single band antenna, not having a loading coil in circuit and being a little higher (although I don’t think the height was critical) makes the LambdaHalbe, the clear choice for use in the S2S attempts between the US and EU.

As you’ll see from the log below, I did manage several contacts on 20 metres and despite some very deep QSB, I was happy with the performance of the set-up completing 20m operations with a nice S2S with Antonio EC2AG. As I saw some other activators on 40 metres where an S2S contact may be possible, I took down the home-made antenna from the 6m mast and put up the SOTABeams linked dipole. Interestingly, this usually very effective and reliable antenna didn’t seem to perform as well as normal as I had some difficulty getting the S2S contact with Csaba HA5BV. While I worked several other stations on 40m before packing up, there were no more S2S contacts.

All in all, the activation completed the planned tasks of testing the new LambdaHalbe antenna and gaining 6 activator points but I was a little disappointed at the low visibility from the summit again. As I drove down the road, the air cleared, so I suspect this was possibly low cloud cover on the summit rather than fog or mist.

Photos:

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Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND.

SOTABeams Bandhopper linked dipole plus home-made loaded J-Pole for 20m and LambdaHalbe “End Fed Half wave” (J-pole) for 20m.

Lambdahalbe 6m fibreglass mast. DX-Wire 10m portable mast.

Modified QAMP amplifier (30-35W on 40m, 20-25W on 20m).

Log:

Conclusions:

The new LambdaHabe 20m J-pole is a success and will be the antenna I will use on the NA-EU S2S event. The DX-Wire 10m pole continues to give me problems but I will have to manage those as I need the full 10 metres for the antenna.

Lets hope band conditions improve by Saturday for the EU-NA S2S event!

73 ’til the next Summit!