DD5LP/P – November 2nd SOTA NA-EU S2S event – DL/AM-176 Rentschen.

Posted on by

Preparation:

The annual North America to Europe S2S event day had arrived again and (as usual), the weather forecast looked good until the day before when it changed from foggy in the morning and sunny in the afternoon (when the event is), to being cold, damp and foggy all day. Despite that, I decided to go ahead with the activation with the hope of getting some easy S2S contacts from this 1-pointer plateau summit. 

Rentschen is the summit I choose for testing new antennas on as it is a flat plateau and so provides plenty of space.

I decided to play it safe for this afternoon’s activation. I packed not only the electrically switchable trapped tri-bander beam but also the manually switched 5-bander and my linked dipole, each with its own masts and supports.  To be safe I also packed the antenna analyser, a complete spare radio station (G106 plus 100w amp tower) and 4, 8 & 12 Ah batteries. (I was hoping that the weather may improve so I would have the opportunity to compare various combinations). The weather didn’t change and most of the equipment stayed in the car as it turned out. This is thankfully a drive-on summit.

The Activation

It is rare that I only head out in the afternoon for a SOTA activation – usually, I am eager to get to the summit just after daybreak to work VK via the long path but in this case, where North America was the target the clock difference made a morning activation the wrong options and all of the many SOTA activators who would be out had alerted to be on from around 1300 UTC (or 2 pm local time here) – so that was my target to get on site and set-up.

The run down to Rentschen, I know very well and it was good that I did as the fog came in reducing visibility along the roads for a fair distance. On arrival at the summit, visibility was around 30 metres and it was a very damp fog. As Rob DM1CM was also going to join me I got started straight away with setting up the antenna and station.

As usual, the 2 element wire beam antenna was installed using the screw-in base with the four wires going out at 90° to each other, the combined length of the element and its cord extender (also acting as the guy cords for the mast), formed a 60° angle with the vertical mast, this after looking at a model of the antenna appears to be a better value than the normally stated 56° (the mast is a 7-metre mast but with the top section removed so that the feed point board sits at 6 metres above ground level). 

As I was finishing up the set-up, Rob arrived and we took a listen around 10 metres (which I had expected to be the “money band” for this event going by recent radio conditions. Initially, the band was empty but then about 15 minutes later it filled up with stations from Russia and the US. It seems skip was not going to allow me to get any contacts inside Europe but the first in the log was Jörg signing as DL/HB9BIN/P from Laber DL/AM-060 – which, if there wasn’t a forest in the way, would have been line-of-sight from where we were. Watching the SOTA spots on my smartphone, I saw more & more European and UK stations spotting that they were out however when I tuned to their frequencies I could not hear them. I suspect the skip distance on the 10m band at the time was too long. This was in some ways confirmed by the strength of the US home stations. Unfortunately, the US SOTA activating stations all seem to have been using either CW or data so were not an option for me. I put out several CQ calls and was eventually rewarded by calls from three US SOTA chasers calling me.

The cold damp temperatures and the lack of contacts eventually decided me to cut the activation short and head home to the warmth. As I approached home, it was obvious that the weather at home had not been nearly as bad as where Rob and I were located.

There are positive points out of this action. The wire beam works well (even though I set it up 45° off the intended direction). It would have been nice to compare the linked-elements version against the trapped elements but the work involved in the wet and cold was not justified. The G90 radio with its 20 watts output on SSB, continues to “do the job” and the new 12 Ah LifePO4 battery also got another test.

Photos:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Equipment taken:

  • Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
  • Raddy rucksack. (not used)
  • Xiegu G90 radio.
  • Xiegu G106 radio plus RMItaly amplifier, LPF box and ATU-100. (not used)
  • Screw-in mast base.
  • 7 metre fibreglass mast.
  • Surveyors tripod and 10m mast. (not used)
  • 10/15/20-metre band 2-element trapped wire beam.
  • 10/12/15/17/20-metre band 2-element linked elements wire beam.
  • SOTA/HEMA logbook & pens.
  • Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna and tripod (not used)
  • 6m mini-mast (not used).
  • SotaBeams linked dipole (not used).
  • 4 Ah Eremit LifePO4 battery (not used).
  • 8 Ah LiFePO4 battery (not used).
  • 12 Ah LifePO4 battery.
  • Painter’s thick plastic sheet.
  • Gardener’s kneeling pad (not used).
  • 2 x Lightweight headphones (one pair not used).
  • Smartphone for SOTA/HEMA spotting.

Log:

Conclusions:

  • The NA-EU SOTA S2S event is “jinxed” every year it is accompanied by bad terrestrial weather (at least here in Southern Germany).

  • The equipment used worked well and it was a nice “social” meet-up with Rob.

73 ’til the next summit.

DD5LP/P – October 21st 2024 – Activation of POTA DE-0663 Lechpark Pössinger Au.

Posted on by

Preparation:

This activation was planned for Sunday the 20th of October to coincide with the “Support your parks” weekend and to test out my 2-element wire beam with its elements now extended to cover 40 metres.

The weather was not as forecast, in fact, Sunday was a cold and wet day where the grass never dried out from the heavy morning dew in it.

Monday’s weather however looked better, so the cancelled activation became a postponed one and took place on Monday the 21st of October.

The Activation

POTA DE-0663

This is my closest park, a 15-minute drive away from home and while the park covers a large area along the side of the River Lech and encompasses an animal park, there are many locations where an activation is possible. I have found a field within the park, where deer often graze and is close to the road named “Pössinger Au”. As you can see from the picture below, (indicated by the red arrow) the area is bounded by trees but there is more than enough room for my antenna and is rarely visited by the general public. The Brown arrow is, in fact, part of the POTA nature trail DE-0791 LechErlebnisWeg, so operating from where the brown arrow points would be a POTA “2-Fer”. However, space there is restricted and in good weather a lot of people walk through there – so it is not a good spot to test a large antenna! 

After arriving and setting up the antenna on 40m, I put the Antenna analyser on the antenna to find there was no dip at the expected (and tested the week before) 7.1MHz. The antenna was switched to point West and I wondered if I had a bad connection in the manual switch, so I lowered the mast, switched from West to North and tried again – the same problem occurred. Repeat and try – North to east – and now there was the expected dip near 7.1 MHz – perhaps it’s just one connection on the switch that has a problem? I lowered the mast again, switched to South, raised and tested, no dip. Odd, but East works so I lowered and tested again and this time even East did not have the expected dip. This has to be a common component that has failed, perhaps intermittently. I realised I had another feeder coax with me so I changed that out and “Bingo” all directions were now showing resonance around 7.1MHz. My conclusion – it must be the RG-174 coax cable that has failed in either the BNC or PL-259 plug, but in fact, when tested after returning home, the cable was fine and it was the BNC socket that had a bad centre connection  – possibly as a 75 Ohm BNC plug had been pushed into the 50 Ohm socket, widening the grips on the centre pin. I re-tensioned those and the complete run checked out.

But, back to the activation. I had previously seen in a model that with my wire beam at only 7 metres AGL, the radiation pattern is close to omnidirectional rather than beam-like and that proved to be the case with my six 40-metre contacts coming from all points of the compass from where I was located. At least the antenna works on 40m, even if it brings no advantage over a dipole.   

It was time to test the antenna on 10 metres, so I lowered the antenna and removed the link at the end of the 10m section on all 4 elements, switched the antenna direction to West and started calling CQ.

My first caller was VE3RNH from Canada and then in quick succession another ten calls from the US or Canada, including one Park-to-Park. There was also a call from Mike R2BRJ in Moscow off the back of the beam. Ten metres was certainly “open” and with a mixture of 59, 58 and 55 reports the wire antenna with 20 watts was certainly working well.

Looking at the POTA cluster, there were several operators out in Europe on 20m – so I again lowered the mast, reset the 10m links and removed the 20m ones.  While tuning around, I came across YB7ONC from Indonesia, but even with my antenna switched in his direction I could not get a response from him. I was not alone however, he only seemed to return to very strong stations, so perhaps he has a high local QRM? In any case, it was nice to at least receive a signal from Indonesia. After this, I found a free frequency, spotted myself on the POTA cluster and waited for any calls. Unfortunately, I suspect the number of stations on the band was the problem and no one could hear me for the noise. I then saw a recent post on the cluster for another POTA operator IT9KHP in Sicily, whom I called and we had a 59 / 59 Park-to-Park QSO with no problem whatsoever.

Time was passing and while the 12Ah LifePO4 battery showed no signs of reducing its voltage I decided that I had done enough testing and given a lot of North American POTA chasers a new park and it was time to pack up and head home for tea.

Photos:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Equipment taken:

  • Xiegu G-90 radio.
  • 7-metre mast and screw-in sun umbrella base.
  • 2-element wire beam.
  • 12 Ah LifePO4 battery.
  • 4Ah Eremit LifePO4 battery (not used).
  • 4 Ah 3S LiHV battery (not used).
  • Plastic painter’s sheet (used) and seat pad (not used).
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone for spotting.

Log:

DE-0663 Lechpark Pössinger Au

 

Conclusions:

  • The activation went well. It served the purpose of testing the antenna and its expansion to cover 40 metres however, my conclusion is to remove the 40m extensions and keep this as a 5-Band 10-20m antenna.

73 ’til the next activation!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

G8GLM/P – September 24th & 26th 2024 – First ever activation of POTA GB-2021 Cotgrove Country Park and UKBOTA B/G-0655 Burton Joyce ROC Bunker.

Posted on by

Preparation:

Linked with my visit to the UK to visit my brother & sister and to attend the national Hamfest in Newark, I wanted to do some radio activations using my new Xiegu X6200 transceiver. As I left Germany, it was not clear which SOTA, HEMA, POTA, COTA or UKBOTA sites I might get to activate. I had planned to activate Bardon Hill – a SOTA summit (G/CE-004) on the way from the airport to where I would be staying but the weather was terrible with many roads in the UK closed because of flooding and as the access to Bardon Hill starts with a trek over a field, on the way driving there, I decided to cancel and concentrate on getting safely to my destination.

The Activations

POTA GB-2021 Cotgrove Park  & UKBOTA bunker B/G-0655 Burton Joyce ROC

I had the opportunity on Tuesday to combine the activation of a POTA park near Nottingham, which for some reason, no one had yet activated, with taking my sister to visit a friend. Cotgrove Park has a housing estate in the middle of it but also some tributaries of the River Trent, near to one of those I found an area of grass large enough to set up the linked dipole and operated on 20 & 40m from a bench. There was some interest from passersby – mainly from their dogs – this seems to be a favourite dog walking park. Initially, I was only able to get contacts by search and pounce of strong stations but then after calling CQ for some time, I managed to get a flow of contacts ending up with 11 (one more than needed for a POTA activation). I then had to curtail operations as I needed to pick up my sister from a friend’s house where I had dropped her off earlier. The drive back to the other side of Nottingham was horrible. flowing traffic had changed into crawling traffic around the Nottingham ring road but at least I could chalk up an activation. I had started to think that my bringing the radio gear had been a waste of time. 

On Thursday I went to a point within a kilometre of a UKBunkers site about 20 minutes away from where we were staying. My originally planned set-up point was in a car park shown on Google Maps, which turned out to be a private one with locked gates at a (closed) sports centre, so I went further down the riverside and found a parking spot just before the Ferry Boat Inn at Stoke Bardolph. During my visit to the UK a year ago, I tried to get to one of two bunkers near where we were staying in the Lake District. The first was inaccessible as the fields were both overgrown and flooded, the second I managed to get to and operated from the top of the entrance but conditions were not kind to me and I got no contacts from there. This year, I checked the rules more carefully to find that I only needed to be within one kilometre of the bunker and could therefore activate from the road, from inside the car. The result however was not a lot better than the year before, with only two completed contacts.

Photos:

POTA GB-2021 – Cotgrave Country Park

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

UKBOTA B/G-0655 Burton Joyce ROC

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Equipment taken:

  • Xiegu X-6200 radio.
  • Linked Dipole (used for POTA activation)
  • Six-metre mast (used for POTA activation).
  • Komunica Power HF-PRO2-PLUS-T loaded multiband vertical, tripod and radials (Used for UKBOTA activation).
  • 4Ah Eremit LifePO4 battery.
  • Plastic painter’s sheet and seat pad.
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone for spotting.

Logs:

POTA GB-2021 Cotgrove Country Park.

 

UKBOTA B/G-0655 Burton Joyce ROC

 

Conclusions:

  • The activations could have gone better – whether that was conditions, lack of chasers or just not a big enough signal from the 8w X6200 (my normal G90 is a 20w radio) I am not sure. I question whether the extra effort of taking the radio gear was worthwhile (especially with the recent cases in the Middle East of exploding amateur radio transceivers making airport security more careful). I was the first activator of the POTA park, just beating another ham who activated the following day. 

73 until the next activation!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DD5LP/P – August 17th 2024 ILLW DE0138 Westmole & DE00140 Mangturm Lighthouses.

Posted on by

Preparation:

This was the activation that I had been preparing for over the previous few weeks. Once a year the International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend has lighthouses and lightships around the world tied to amateur radio stations which are located near them with the purpose of informing the public about the lighthouse(s) and about amateur radio. The event runs for 48 hours but the length of activation is completely left up to the amateur, group of amateurs or club making the activation. Full details about ILLW can be found at illw.net

The only German lighthouses within sensible driving range are in Lindau on Lake Constance but for that drive, there are two lights, the southernmost in Germany – Westmole DE0138 and the oldest in Germany Mangturm DE0140. Unfortunately, it is not possible to operate from inside of either of the lighthouses however there is an area available at Lindau to set up in a public park (Römerschanze) in sight of both lighthouses. This is fairly small and has very little topsoil, so antenna options are limited, hence the shopping trolley supported, 6-metre telescopic mast and dipole solution I chose.

My experience in previous years has been that just running the 20 watts from the G90 with a dipole was not a strong enough signal to avoid being “stomped on” by other home station “crocodiles” (big mouth, little ears) so I built my “G106 Stack” with around 70-80w PEP output (at least on 20 & 40m). Given the limited space, I chose an OCF dipole, the aerial-51 404-UL off-centre-fed dipole which gives me multiple HF bands.

The week running up to this event, the terrestrial weather was not looking inviting. We had been having a heatwave but the weekend was promising rain and thunderstorms. On Friday however, the forecast said there should be a window of opportunity of a few hours of dry weather on Saturday afternoon so the gear was packed and ready to head off around midday to Lindau (about a 90-minute drive down the autobahn from where I live).

The Activation

The drive down was fine until entering Lindau where there is still traffic chaos which there has been for years. This is in the part of the town that is on the mainland, not on the island with its narrow streets, where congestion is normal. There has been a push to restrict cars driving onto the Island over the last 2 years with the one large open-air car park being closed and the land being redeveloped for expensive upper-market housing. The multi-story car park on the island is nowhere near large enough to cater for the extra load and is always full. So most visitors are forced to park on the mainland and walk across the bridge onto the island (where the two lighthouses and the tourist highlights are). In my case with the amount of equipment I have to take for the activation, I have found a hidden away car park behind the railway station – with most of its parking slots marked as reserved for the tour ship workers, so slots are limited but both last year and this year I was able to find a slot. This is a parking area where you need to use an App to pay for your time parked but that has the advantage that as the time there runs out you are warned and can extend to time without having to return to your car. with the uncertainty of the weather, this parking area has the added advantage that you can view both lighthouses from there, so if the weather was so bad that I could not go to the park, I could also operate from the car but most likely with less public interaction – which is the main point of the event.

Luckily as I arrived at the parking spot, the weather was OK and while I packed a waterproof jacket into the top of my shipping trolley, thankfully I was not going to need it.

On arriving at Römerschanze Park, I was glad to see that while people were standing around the side of the park taking in the views, no one was present on the grassy area, and it looked like two new drain inspection covers had been installed, so these would make a fine base for the trolley supported mast and antenna. Once I had unloaded the contents of the trolley, I proceeded to install the antenna. at this point – while the antenna was still on the ground a group came across and one person got tabled in the wire. I shouted to be careful that he did not fall and not only did he apologise, he also put the wire back where I had laid it out, ready for when I raised the mast. After raising the mast and pegging out the antenna elements, I tried to hang the bright orange wire winder on the wire so that no one would run into it. I should have used the electrical tape that I had forgotten I had with me to keep the winder in the air as just tying it on, did not work and over time it slid down to the ground peg. 

At this point, a young girl (perhaps 10 years old) came over and (watched by her father) asked me what I was doing and I explained to her about amateur radio and about lighthouse preservation before giving her some brochures and QSL cards. I believe she was interested especially as I said “without the Internet or your smartphone” – perhaps a seed for the future was laid there. I then connected up the radio, ready to start operations when a younger (perhaps 7-year-old) girl came across (afterwards, I wondered if this was the first girl’s sister), she was also very üpolite and interested and also received the brochures and cards.   

Now it was time to get some calls into the log, So I found a free frequency on 20m, put a spot on the DX Cluster with my two lighthouse references and called CQ. I did this for probably 15 minutes without a reply, so I tried 40 metres, also without success. Everything seemed to be working so why no calls. I decided to tune around and I found Alex DL1KAS calling CQ with a strong signal on 40m. I called him and he came back to me. So I was getting out fine. Alex did say he thought he could hear siome RF Ingres on my microphone audio, so we did some tests and found that removing the speech processor from the “radio stack” and putting it as far as possible away from the amplifier, things were a lot better, so that is how I operated for the rest of my time in the park.

As you can see from the log, I did not manage that many contacts. radio conditions were OK, with 15m perhaps being the best band at the time but also the one where I was only getting about 30w PEP output, not the 70 or 80w that I was seeing on 20 & 40m. Between the logged contacts I also spotted and called CQ many times but never got even one call back. This is strange. I was definitely being heard from Ireland to Spain to France. It’s hard to believe that all of the frequencies that I chose to call CQ on were actually in use by a station that I could not hear (and they could not hear me). This remains a mystery.

What is not a mystery is that it was the correct decision to activate again these two lighthouses in Lindau as part of ILLW as I had inquiries from two possible new hams (who knows) and I completed my activation before the rain arrived and before the G3 level solar storm also hit.

When I woke on Sunday, there was constant rain that started around 2 am and went through until noon. Even if I had gone down on Sunday afternoon, the park would have been totally waterlogged and unusable.    

Photos:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Equipment taken:

  • Backup system (not used – left in the car) Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack with Xiegu G90 radio, batteries, 6m mast, screw-in base, linked dipole antenna, HF-PRO2 antenna and photo tripod.
  • Three-magnet antenna base for car roof (not used).
  • “G-106 Stack” G106 radio, RMItaly amplifier, switch LPF box and ATU-100.
  • Shopping trolley.
  • Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast.
  • Aerial-51 UL-404 OCF dipole.
  • 8 Ah LifePO4 battery (plus 4 & 2Ah backups – not used).
  • Painter’s thick plastic sheet.
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone for SOTA spotting.

Log:

12:05  DL1KAS    7.165MHz SSB    5-9  5-9  (Axel reported hearing RF Ingres in my audio)
12:15  EA5JZ    21.258MHz SSB    5-9  5-9
12:49  EI0CAR   14.265MHz SSB    5-9  5-5   LH-2-LH Will at IE0016
13:05  CT2JBD/P 21.272MHz SSB    5-4  5-5   LH-2-LH PT-0005
13:10  TM22LH   14.294MHz SSB    5-3  5-6   LH-2-LH Hartwig DL7BC operating from FR-0027

Conclusions:

  • The shopping trolley antenna support worked well and given the weather conditions, I did not need to put up the shade tent.

  • Band conditions seemed best on 15m. A band that when I checked later, I was only putting out about 30w PEP not the 70-80 that I had on 20 & 40m.

  • I will need to do further work on the Speech processor relocating it and perhaps adding some ferrites to the audio cables.

  • I did hear some RF-VOX relay chatter a couple of times, so it seems the dry solder joint that I thought was the cause of the problem following the activation on Weichberg, wasn’t and this time I will look at putting a large-value capacitor straight across the relay coil to hopefully reduce this chattering.

73 ’til the next Summit / Lighthouse / Park or whatever.

DD5LP/P – August 12th 2024 DL/AL-179 Weichberg.

Posted on by

Preparation:

This was a test of equipment to be used the following weekend for the International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend, where I planned to head down to my only lighthouses within driving range in Lindau on Lake Constance.

The area available at Lindau to set up in a public park in sight of both lighthouses is fairly small and with very little topsoil, the same in many ways as Kappelhohe at Weichberg.

My experience in previous years has been that just running the 20 watts from the G90 with a dipole was not a strong enough signal to avoid being “stomped on” by other home station “crocodiles” (big mouth, little ears) so I will be using my “G106 Stack” with around 70-80w PEP output. I had considered also taking the wire beam however the space needed would block too much of the park area in Lindau, so I chose a dipole for simplicity (as I will be operating alone), the aerial-51 404-UL off-centre-fed dipole gives me multiple HF bands.

This activation was to check the planned set-up for use in Lindau. I would also have a backup station with me at Weichberg in case there was a single item that needed attention and could be worked around to complete the main tests.

The most critical test was the use of a small shopping trolley, not only to transport the equipment (radio and shade tent) but also to act as the base support for the 6-metre mast.

As usual, the car had the equipment packed into it the day before the activation to allow for an early start as Ernie VK3DET had once again offered to listen out for me from Victoria in Australia.  

The Activation

The drive down was uneventful and the weather was perfect – clear and warm however there was a “dangerous heat” warning out from 11 am local time, so I would need to be home and inside before that. The space weather was not so nice … a pair of CMEs hit the Ionosphere and shot the Kp Index up to 5 (a G1 storm), the disturbance storm index was into the moderate storm level, heading towards the major storm level and the maximum usable frequency was struggling to get up to 14MHz. If I had been heading to this summit just to accrue points I may have called off the activation, however as this action was more to test the mechanical status of my solution for the ILLW, I chose to go ahead with it. As I had already activated this summit in February, I would get no activator points for activating it in any case.

I had already strapped the 6-metre mast to the side of my little shopping trolley before putting it into the car, so once I arrived at the summit, I simply chose a point away from the trees in the middle of the lawn on the summit by the chapel, took out the radio gear from the trolley added the antenna Balun to the mast, raised it and ran out the two elements (which also act as the guy ropes). The “G106-Stack”  comes out of the small rucksack (which sits inside the trolley bag) and once the groundsheet was down on the ground it went onto it and the antenna coax connected to it. 

As I was ready 10 minutes earlier than expected, I sent Ernie a quick message via my phone and a few minutes later the 20m SSB DL – VK3 contact was in the log. Although Ernie was about 5-8 peaking 5-9, even my 70w PEP could only get a 4-4 signal into Victoria. I am not complaining – with all the “action” going on in the Ionosphere, I was happy to have got the contact at all. indeed tuning around, spotting and calling on 20m after the contact with Ernie got zero responses. All I could hear on 20m were some of the usual Russian super-stations. Not even any Italian stations – that showed me how terrible the radio conditions were.

Another component of the set-up for ILLW is an angler’s shade tent, which also packs nicely into the trolley, so I took that out and assembled it – all went well. Rather than finishing with just one contact in the log, I decided to try 40 metres which of course with higher bands being dead was full of stations but I found a spot put out a “CQ SOTA” and bagged 4 contacts in a few minutes. Even those (European) contacts were not as clear as they would normally be as the noise level was 2-Spoints higher than normal on 40m due to the increased atmospheric activity.

  So all in all a successful test of the equipment – I now need both good terrestrial and radio weather for the Lighthouse weekend.

Photos:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

Equipment taken:

  • Backup-system (not used) Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack with Xiegu G90 radio, batteries, 6m mast, screw-in base, linked dipole antenna, HF-PRO2 antenna and photo tripod.
  • “G-106 Stack” G106 radio, RMItaly amplifier, switch LPF box and ATU-100.
  • Shopping trolley.
  • Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast.
  • Aerial-51 UL-404 OCF dipole.
  • 8 Ah LifePO4 battery.
  • Painter’s thick plastic sheet.
  • Gardener’s kneeling pad (not used).
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone for SOTA spotting.

Log:

Contacts map

Conclusions:

  • The antenna support worked well and indeed apart from one sudden loss of power to the G106 (cabling) everything worked, even the shade tent went up without problems.

  • Band conditions were not good but as the target of this activation was primarily to test out the physical assembly of all equipment that was less of a problem.

  • I did have one ham come on the frequency and say that my (processed) audio sounded bad but never gave his call sign and did not come back to my request for help in trying different settings. all the stations I worked did not comment on the audio except that when I switched off the speech processor Ernie could no longer hear me. So I will leave that set as is for the ILLW event.

  • I did hear some RF-VOX relay chatter a couple of times, so I will increase the value of the capacitor in the amplifier to hopefully reduce this.

73 ’til the next summit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DD5LP/P – August 6th 5th 2024 SOTA DL/AM-176 / HEMA DL/HBY-052 Rentschen.

Posted on by

Preparation:

With progress made on the 2-element wire beam by adding a trap for 15m operation and reconfiguration of the speech processor that I use with my G106 radio, I needed to test both out on a summit. The results of these tests would also help me define what equipment I would take to Lindau, two weeks later for the International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend.

Unfortunately, the sun is not on my side again, with a very active sun sending flares and CMEs which suppress the maximum usable frequency (MUF) since the weekend. I was hoping that things would be relatively back to normal on Tuesday (the activation had initially been planned for Monday).

As Rentschen is a drive-on one-pointer summit, I packed the “G106 Pack” and the normal G90 radio and accessories into the car the day before. Looking at the previous week, 21 MHz was unlikely to open before 0700 UTC (9 am local time), so it would be a 7:45 am departure from home to allow for the 45-minute drive and set-up time on the summit. The alarm was set …

The Activation

The morning of the activation arrived and the terrestrial weather looked nice. The trip down took a little longer than expected as I hit some of the morning commuter traffic but I arrived at around 8:30 am as planned and found a spot right next to the trig-point stone – the marker of the absolute summit point and set-up. I had a sked with Ernie VK3DET and we would try 20m and then move to 15m.

The antenna was installed using the screw-in base with the four wires going out at 90° to each other, the combined length of the element and its cord extender (also acting as the guy cords for the mast), form a 56° angle with the vertical mast (the mast is a 7-metre mast but with the top section removed so that the feed point board sits at 6 metres above ground level). 

I had two aims with this activation – one was to check that the speech compressor which I use with the G106 and amplifier, now sounds better. I know the built-in one in the g90 is fine. The second aim was to make a contact on 15m with the wire beam, now that I had added the 15m traps to it.

I hadn’t expected problems with the “G106 Stack” ( G106 radio – CB amplifier – LPF filter box – ATU-100 ) as it had worked fine the last time that I used it, but OF COURSE – something went wrong there and instead of over 100w PEP that I got last time (70w RMS) – I got 20w RMS at best. I could hear the VOX relay in the amplifier chattering, suggesting it was not getting enough drive. This is at least something that I can test at home without needing to go /P again. Depending upon what I find, I could match the amplifier+LPF+Tuner up with the g90 on low power for ILLW. We’ll see.

As for the antenna test on 15m, my test with Ernie VK3DET was too early and we gave up because the band was empty of DX. I said 73 to Ernie, switched to the G90 20w radio and went back to bag some contacts on 20m to get the necessary 4 contacts to “qualify” the summit (which, as I have already activated this summit this year for both SOTA and HEMA brought me no points). Rather than the usual quick signal report exchange, I managed a few chats with hams who were interesting and a couple were interested in the wire beam I was using, so we exchanged website URLs and agreed to check out each other’s work. That was a nice interlude in the warm weather on the summit but I still wanted to know whether the beam would actually work on 15m so when I got no further replies to my CQs I went back to 15m

To my surprise there were stations now on the band and from 08:15 – 08:25 I happily listened in to a 15m net on 21.270 with Dave VK6IE, Steve E51CZZ on Aitutaki Isl (South Cook), Paul EA5JZ and a VK3 – It could have been VK3MH Brendan but I think I heard the others call him Andrew, so I may have that call wrong – he was the weakest of them all. The South Cook station was easier to listen to and that was SHORT PATH! I did “turn” the beam (via relays) and there was a difference, this was definitely short path VK-EU from 0800 UTC onwards. After trying to call into the net unsuccessfully – although Dave said he heard “someone” after I called – I gave up on the effort as one of those things, found another frequency, spotted myself on SOTA and called CQ for 5 minutes with no replies.
One thing is clear – the beam receives on 15 metres OK, whether it works also on transmit will have to wait until another day.

Photos:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Equipment taken:

  • Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
  • Raddy rucksack.
  • Xiegu G90 radio.
  • Xiegu G106 radio plus RMItaly amplifier, LPF box and ATU-100.
  • Screw-in mast base.
  • 7 metre fibreglass mast.
  • 10/15/20-metre band 2-element trapped wire beam.
  • Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna and tripod (not used)
  • 2 x 6m mini-mast (not used).
  • SotaBeams linked dipole (not used).
  • 4 Ah Eremit LifePO4 battery.
  • 8 Ah LiFePO4 battery.
  • Painter’s thick plastic sheet.
  • Gardener’s kneeling pad (not used).
  • 2 x Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone for SOTA/HEMA spotting.

Log:

HEMA

SOTA

CONTACTS MAP

Conclusions:

  • The antenna worked well on 20 metres and received fine on 15 metres (with directivity). I hope transmit on 15m will work fine as well but the conditions on 15m were so variable with the MUF bouncing below and above 21 MHz, it wasn’t a good day for the test.

  • The problem with the “G106 Stack” will need to be investigated – the fact that I could hear the input VOX relays “chattering” in the amplifier suggests to me that it wasn’t getting enough drive.

  • I will need to consider what I take for ILLW (International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend) on two counts – firstly the antenna – the beam needs more space than a simple dipole and it doesn’t cover 40m, which could end up being the band of choice depending upon radio conditions. As for which transmitter, I would like to have more than 20w to “fend off” those stations who simply sit on my frequency and start calling CQ because they are either deaf or rude B’s. I could use the G90 with the amplifier rather than the G106 with the knowledge that if there is a problem, I can fall back to using the G90 “barefoot”.

73 ’til the next summit.

DD5LP/P – July 24th 2024 – First ever activation of POTA DE-0797 König Ludwig Weg & SOTA DL/AM-001 Peißenberg.

Posted on by

Preparation:

This is the second preservation/nature trail I have submitted for inclusion in the POTA award system and it was also accepted.  This trail is very interesting, starting as it does at the spot where King Ludwig was found drowned on Lake Starnberg and finishing near his world-famous Neuschwanstein Castle (think of the well-known Disneyland castle – that was a copy of this real-life one). Along its route, it entails a ferry trip across Ammersee a visit to the UNESCO-listed Weichkirche church and at least one SOTA summit. The route runs right past the seat that I use to activate the DL/AM-001 SOTA summit.   

One reason for this activation was to be the first to activate from the trail and to do that one does not have to walk the 6-day long trail but rather just set up somewhere along its route. Although I have already activated the SOTA Peißenberg summit this year and hence won’t get any points for it, I chose to do the combined activation as then I could call on two groups of chasers for contacts and my second reason for the activation would benefit from having as many contacts as possible. The second reason was to test out equipment prior to its use during the International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend in August. I had found on previous ILLW activations, that the signal from my 20w radio was getting stomped on by other stations, so (as well as using the two-element wire beam this time), this year would have some more power on board, specifically 50-70w RMS (over 100w PEP) depending upon the band in use. I have worked at trying to get a Chinese amplifier to work reliably for a couple of months but with the MOSFETs blowing regularly it did not look promising and I decided to buy a commercial HF amplifier. Now those designed for ham bands are expensive, however, those designed for the CB bands are a lot cheaper and can be modified to work across the complete HF spectrum (3-30 MHz).  I bought an RM-Italy KL-203P unit. The missing component in a 27MHz amplifier is protection against harmonic emissions. In an amplifier designed for amateur radio use, switched low-pass filters are used to block any harmonic signals. As I had, from my work with the Chinese amplifier a switchable LPF board I cased this up and cabled it to follow the amplifier and precede the ATU-100 tuner. While the LPF box uses Butterworth filters, it can operate on transmit and receive.  So, as you can see, the station for the ILLW event is made of several, cabled together units and this combination needed to be tested in a portable operation before relying upon them for my ILLW station. This activation would be that equipment test.

Map where POTA nature trail and SOTA summit meet.

The Activation

POTA DE-0797 / SOTA DL/AM-001

Originally planned for Tuesday but rescheduled to Wednesday as some strapping components were delivered later than promised by Amazon and so I would have had no chance to do a dry run from the home station – that test took place on Tuesday with a contact with Leif LA9BM in Norway. He commented that the G106 with my RF Clipper speech processor and the amplifier and other components after if, while OK, the audio sounded a little deep and muffled. This report was also received later during the activation and the adjustment to the speech processor is an outstanding action to be completed.

As regards the activation itself, I had the alarm set for 6 am, was on the road by 7 am and set up and running at 8 am (all local times – UTC+2).

A quick tune of 20m showed a couple of US stations booming in. First in the log was Ernie VK3DET and we exchanged the same report on signal strength with Ernie running 100w, that seems a good start. It took a while to get the needed 4 contacts to qualify the summit. I put this down to the crowded part of the 20m band where I was operating. I could have moved to another frequency on 20 metres but rather I decided to change to 40 metres, as another test of the equipment. On 40 metres I had no problems finding the extra 6 contacts needed to qualify a POTA trail, indeed I had 18 contacts in 35 minutes and then, as the skies were darkening again, I decided to call it a day with the new combination of units working well together. Three further callers commented on the audio being a little difficult to read, so this confirmed what I already thought to be the case and that will get looked at while at home.

When I got home, I calculated that I had drained 2 Ah from the 8 Ah battery in just over 35 minutes so I will need to take a spare battery (or two) along for the (longer) ILLW activation next month.

Photos:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Equipment taken:

  • Xiegu G-106 radio.
  • DF4ZS Mini-RF-Clipper speech processor.
  • RM-Italy KL-203 P amplifier.
  • Switch LPF filters box.
  • ATU-100 tuner.
  • Aerial-59 OCF UL-404 dipole antenna.
  • Six metre mast.
  • Komunica Power HF-PRO2-PLUS-T loaded multiband vertical (not used).
  • 5-band linked dipole antenna (not used).
  • 8Ah LifePO4 battery.
  • 4Ah Eremit LifePO4 battery (not used).
  • 4 Ah 3S LiHV battery (not used).
  • Plastic painter’s sheet and seat pad.
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone for spotting.

Logs:

POTA DE-0797 König Ludwig Weg.

SOTA DL/AM-001 Peißenberg

Contacts Map

Conclusions:

  • The activation went well, I was the first activator of this POTA trail, and the radio equipment performed well. The battery drain level will need to be watched at the higher power levels and the speech processor needs to be adjusted.

73 until the next activation!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DD5LP/P – July 10th 2024 – First ever activation of POTA DE-0791 Lech Erlebenis Weg Plus DE-0641 Via Romea Germanica & HEMA DL/HBY-040 Rosenau Kreuz.

Posted on by

Preparation:

I had submitted a preservation trail for POTA consideration while others exist in the system.  This one runs along the banks of the River Lech from Landsberg am Lech down to Fussen on the Austrian border. There are lots of beautiful spots along its length and the initial section from Landsberg runs through the POTA DE-0663 Possinger Au nature reserve further along its length, close to Schwangau, it goes over the HEMA DL/HBY-040 Rosenau Kreuz summit making it a location where points can be earned for both systems. In addition, another longer trail “Via Romea Germanica” also passes through this point and is in the POTA system as Trail DE-0641. Today I decided to combine both trails’ activation with a HEMA activation close to the Rosenau Cross summit on both trails.

The Activation

POTA DE-0791&0641 (2-FER) / HEMA DL/HBY-040

With the threat of bad weather later in the week (indeed it actually arrived later in the day), I decided to perform this first activation of the new POTA entity early in the morning, hoping to make some long-path contacts into Australia. So an early start was planned and I arrived on the summit/trail around 0600 UTC. I sent a quick message to Ernie VK3DET in Australia and he was the first into the log. After Ernie however, contacts were more difficult to find despite being spotted on both the HEMA and POTA systems.

The contacts eventually came however with five stations from Spain, one from Portugal. One from Serbia, a second from Australia (VK2) (a missed contact into VK4 would have made 3 contacts into VK however the VK4 station was battling local S8 noise so my 20 watts was not enough for him to hear me. He could tell I was there but not strong enough to work). An Italian and a French station rounded out the 11 contacts.

I would have stayed longer but as I could see black clouds approaching and more and more flying bugs had found me in their field, I decided to pack up and head home.

Photos:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Equipment taken:

  • Xiegu G-90 radio.
  • Seven metre mast.
  • Screw-in-ground mast base.
  • 2-element switchable direction, wire beam.
  • Komunica Power HF-PRO2-PLUS-T loaded multiband vertical (not used).
  • 5-band linked dipole antenna (not used).
  • 4Ah Eremit LifePO4 battery.
  • 4 Ah 3S LiHV battery (not used).
  • Plastic painter’s sheet and seat pad.
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone for spotting.

Logs:

POTA DE-0791 Lech Erlebinis weg & DE-0641 Via Romea Germanica.

HEMA DL/HBY-040 Rosenau Kreuz

Conclusions:

  • The activation went fairly well although conditions were variable. It was good to be the first activator for another POTA entity (and a POTA 2-Fer as well!). I was hoping to take my 70-watt portable HF amplifier along to give a little more “UMPH” but it wasn’t ready – maybe next time.

73 until the next activation!

DD5LP/P – June 29th 2024 DM/BW-348 Gehrenberg.

Posted on by

Preparation:

This activation was scheduled as I would be in Friedrichshafen for the annual “HAM RADIO Friedrichshafen” event. There are two SOTA summits close to “FN” Höchsten” and “Gehrenberg” the latter being the closer but the former being a “drive-up” summit.

As I wanted to plan this as an early morning activation with the chance of some contacts into VK, Gehrenberg is closer to where I would be staying so it was chosen over Höchsten.

I had my standard rucksack packed with the G90, squid poles, screw-in base etc. in the back of the car, so the plan was for this to be a relatively quick activation on Saturday morning before heading into “HAM RADIO” which opened at 9 am.

The evening before however, I met Glenn VK3YY and Andrew VK3JBL who were over from Australia and said that they had tried to get to Gehrenberg and failed because of road closures due to recent flooding. When they described their route, I was of the opinion that they had used a different approach to the one that I have settled upon over the last few years and to be sure, after the SOTA dinner, I drove my route up to the place I normally park for the summit and the route was open however there were some confusing signs related to the route to a different town and these were not relevant but for non-German readers such as Glenn and Andrew, these might seem like road closed warnings.

That evening I documented the route with pictures and sent this all Glenn and he said that they might try to get to the summit the next morning and we could activate together. There was another reason that Andrew VK3JBL wanted to qualify the 8 point summit and that was because his current SOTA activator points total was at 997 and this would take him over the 1000 points making him a “Mountain Goat”.

The Activation

DM/BW-348 Gehrenberg

On Saturday morning I was awake early and decided to head straight up to Gehrenberg to get set up and if Glenn and Andrew came along, I would have made my 4 contacts and be out of their way. The run-up was the same as the previous evening so I sent a short email to Glenn confirming the road was still open.

Luckily the tracks were not as muddy as I had feared they might be and I was set up and running by a quarter to 7 am using the usual Xiegu G90 and the linked dipole with the 20m link open supported by a 6m telescopic pole in the screw-in sun umbrella base with the ends tied off to some tree trunks.  

The first contact in the log was a sked with Ernie VK3DET in Victoria, Australia, after that it was signals from the north – Poland and Finland before another Australian Peter VK3ZPF, who I haven’t talked with for several years and another Polish station and an Italian one finished up the contacts for a valid activation. As I was taking the mast down and packing the radio away, I heard voices and it was Glenn and Andrew coming up the hill, to start their activation and soon after another ham came from another direction to the summit, so this can be a busy summit during the HAM RADIO Friedrichshafen event.

I stayed long enough to see that Andrew qualified the summit and hence earned his Mountain Goat, before heading back into Friedrichshafen to the show.  

Photos:

 

Equipment taken:

  • Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
  • Xiegu G90 radio.
  • Screw-in sun umbrella base.
  • 6 Metre Lambdahalbe mast.
  • Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna and tripod (not used)
  • Modified SOTABeams band-hopper, linked dipole covering 80m-15m.
  • 4 Ah Eremit LifePO4 battery.
  • 4 Ah LiHV battery(not used).
  • Painter’s thick plastic sheet (not used).
  • Gardener’s kneeling pad (not used).
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone for SOTA spotting.

Log:

DM/BW-348 Gehrenberg

 

Contacts map:

 

Conclusions:

  • Something seemed wrong with the 20m section of the linked dipole. It could be that I had it too close to the trees and they were de-tuning it but it will need to be tested before the next usage.

  • It’s a nice feeling to be there when someone achieves Mountain Goat status (I took videos).

73 ’til the next summit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DD5LP/P – June 28th 2024 – First ever activation of POTA DE-0766 Seewald Landscape Reserve.

Posted on by

Preparation:

While preparing my trip to Ham Radio Friedrichshafen this year I saw a second POTA park defined in Friedrichshafen, other than the one I activated in 2023. As I normally activate both SOTA summits near “FN” when I am there, I decided instead to activate this new POTA and the closest SOTA location over the weekend. The weather forecast was for mixed sunny and rainy weather, so I could fit these activations in around the weather and the actions that I had planned at the HAM RADIO event. I added the location of one of the park’s car parking areas into my GPS in the car to simplify finding the location.

The Activation

POTA DE-0766

After arriving at Ham Radio and completing my first trip around the halls, I decided on a morning activation before lunch. The radio gear was already in the back of the car so it was a short 10 minute drive from HAM RADIO at the Neue Messe to this new park.  

I was hoping for a quick activation and operation from the car using a loaded vertical on a magnetic mount on the roof. The band of choice was 20m as higher bands had not been working well. Mode would be SSB as usual and with 20w from the G90 radio, I found a frequency and started calling and then spotted myself on the POTA spots list. The band was a little noisy atmospherically and as time went on, noisy from other stations. Add into this QSB and this was not the simplest of activations especially when in a rush. The chasers thankfully were there and after 11 contacts and when the QRM from a station that had fired up 1 KHz away from where I was got unbearable, I closed down, packed up and headed back to the show.

Photos:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Equipment taken:

  • Xiegu G-90 radio.
  • Three magnet car roof mount.
  • Komunica Power HF-PRO2-PLUS-T loaded multiband vertical.
  • 4Ah Eremit LifePO4 battery.
  • 4 Ah 3S LiHV battery (not used).
  • Plastic painters sheet and seat pad (not used).
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone for spotting.

Log:

DE-0766 Seewald Landscape Reserve

 

 

Conclusions:

  • The activation went well for a rushed activation of a park. Initially, I was not sure if indeed I was the first to activate as one of the other 13,000 hams at the show could have activated first however as it turned out I was.
  • I would have preferred to have done a “proper” portable activation well inside the park however a PLOTA was all that was possible in the available time.

73 ’til the next activation!