Preparation:

This was another “fill-in” activation after dropping my wife off at her Physio rehab centre. A week earlier, I had tried to activate Haspelmoor, made one contact and then the radio failed on me, first with high VSWR on speech peaks and then with a “COMMUNICATION LOST” error between the head unit and body of the radio, even though they are bolted together, and no firmware upgrade has been performed on one half and not the other.

On getting home, the radio worked perfectly, and I was unable to recreate the issues. This activation, therefore, was to see if I could find the fault under EXACTLY the same circumstances (I packed a second radio as backup in case the problems reoccurred).

I had several hours for the activation and a chance to get lunch at the only open restaurant in the area (Tuesday’s most restaurants are closed). As it turned out, I had plenty of time to also activate the “4-fer” that I had activated in December, as it was on the route back to my wife’s physical rehabilitation centre. We have just come out of 2 weeks of sub-zero temperatures, but the ground is still frozen and partially ice-covered, so this meant that the activations would again be “PLOTA” activations from within the car, only stepping out to attach or adjust the HF-PRO2 antenna.

As usual, all radio gear was put ready in the car the day before, for this PLOTA.

The Activations

POTA DE-1136 Haspelmoor Flora and Fauna reserve

After dropping my wife off, having driven the route the previous week, it was a clear run down to the same parking spot next to a strange metal (artistic sculpture?) construction as last time in the forested Haspelmoor.

I started on 20 metres, catching one P2P contact into Wales where the activator was in a 3-fer POTA location. Following this a spot in POTA and calling CQ brought in 7 strong calls but thene the well known military digital QRM (OTHR) started wiping out the top of the band. Trying to find a clear frequency on 20m to QSY to was impossible as there was a contest on (normally contests are only allowed on weekends and this was a Wednesday). It turned out later that the increased contest activity were participants in the WWA “World Wide Award” which was running every day in January. It seems that by calling it an “award” rather than a contest, the organisers decided they could run it on weekdays aswell. It certainly has increased activity on the HF bands, but of course, for low-power portable stations, this is very bad news.

So to get away from both of these types of interference, I decided to move to 40 metres. Up to this point, the radio had operated perfectly, so I was starting to think the testing purpose of the activation might come to nothing. Conditions on 40 metres were not good; in this case, the atmospheric noise was high, and it took over ten minutes to just get 2 contacts. However, at this point, I started to see the High SWR on speech peaks problem again and had an idea. I changed the setting on the loading coil on the antenna just a little, to move it away from my calibrated position and then, while the base SWR after running the AATU sat a little higher, I no longer got the sudden high SWR peaks that I had been seeing.

I decided to switch back to 20 metres to get a few more contacts before driving to the restaurant for lunch. Dour more contacts followed in the next 10 minutes before I went QRT.

Regarding the high SWR on 40 metres, at the time, I wasn’t sure why this was happening. Perhaps the antenna’s adjustable coil was wearing out (I have had the antenna at least 8 years) – Perhaps the 3-magnet base?? At least I had a temporary fix for the time being. Later, at home, I think I may have the answer … The calibrations that I made with the antenna were with it on top of our Peugeot car. In the meantime, we have changed to a similarly sized Citroen car, and the actual “ground plane area” and type of steel, the magnetic mount is sat on, could easily give a different ground plane to the antenna. On the higher bands, the ground plane has a lesser effect than on the lower bands, such as 40 metres. It could be that I just need to recalibrate the antenna scale settings on the new car’s roof!

POTA DE-0466 Augsburg Statswald/DE-0942 Via Julia NHT/DE-0968 Romantische strasse/DE-1056 Lechauen

After lunch at a really old-fashioned German restaurant, I saw that I still had nearly three hours of free time before I would need to pick up my wife, so I decided to activate this convenient “4-fer” location on my way back in the direction of the Reha.

This activation took place early afternoon, not usually a good time for 20 metres contacts but I managed quite a few with the contact of the day being with VA1SEA in Nova scotia, Canada. Apart from that, all contacts were around Europe. The biggest problem with this location was that, being directly on a main road, the ignition and engine controller interference from passing cars and trucks on the wet road was horrendous, but as you’ll see from the map extract below, this “had” to be the location to get all 4 parks in one:

After 14 contacts on 20 metres, I switched to 40 metres, remembering to offset the setting on the loading coil. However, the QRM on 40 metres was even worse than on 20 metres, and I managed only three more contacts, all German stations. The main thing was that my quick fix of off-tuning the antenna worked again.

Once the QRM got too much, I decided to pack up and even had time to do some food shopping before picking up my wife and driving home.

Photos:

DE-1136

DE-0466, 0942, 0968, 1056

Equipment taken:

• Xiegu G-90 radio.
• Xiegu X6200 radio (not used)
• Komunica Power HF-PRO2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna.
• 3-magnet car roof mount and single magnet mount (single not used).
• 8 Ah LifePO4 battery.
• 2 x 4Ah Eremit LifePO4 batteries (not used).
• Lightweight headphones.
• Smartphone for spotting.

Log:

DE-1136

POTA DE-0466/DE-0942/DE-0968/DE-1056

Conclusions:

Overall, these two activations went well, and if I have indeed now found the reason for the earlier problems, it was worth doing the activations. That contact into Canada out of nowhere was the “icing on the cake” and VA1SEA must have a fantastic station set-up!

73 ’til the next activation!

Preparation:

This was another “fill-in” activation after dropping my wife off at her Physio rehab centre. I had several hours for these activations, even with a chance to get lunch in between the two locations, so I was to take them at a slow pace. The sub-zero temperatures meant that they would be “PLOTA” activations from within the car, only stepping out to attach or adjust the HF-PRO2 antenna.

As usual, all radio gear was put ready in the car for this PLOTA.

The Activations

POTA DE-0466 Augsburg Statswald/DE-0942 Via Julia NHT/DE-0968 Romantische strasse/DE-1056 Lechauen

After dropping the wife off, this first location was only about a 10-minute drive. Having checked maps, I had found this POTA 4-fer, although the parking was a little restricted (more a pull-in than an actual parking area, but used by locals to start jogging from, take their dogs for a walk, etc.).

The setup time was short as usual, and since it was around 10 am local (0900 UTC), I expected the long path on 20m to have closed, which turned out to be the case. My best DX was probably Mike in the UK with his new M9MMM/P call sign. I did, however, manage to establish two P2P contacts in this first session, so that was a plus. Indeed, one station (M8VZT) was in three UK POTA entities, so this was a 4-fer to 3-fer P2P contact.

Mike told me he had worked DX on 15 metres, so once the calls dried up on 20 metres, I moved to 15 metres, where indeed I heard VU2DKI at over S9, but despite trying several times to call him, I could not break the major pile-up that he had going. I also heard a VK6 station on 15m, but too weak to really be able to work. after spotting anf calling on 15m for a while, I decided I was wasting my time as no one was coming back and stations that I could hear on the band were dealing with kw plus stations calling them, so my little 20w signal with a loaded whip as antenna, while certainly arriving at the other station, it was being crushed by the high power stations.

I switched to 40 metres at around 1015 UTC, but my spot on POTA and CQ call only returned two callers. Wanting to try 10 metres before I packed up, I switched bands and, as luck would have it, heard Daryl M3ZDZ on 17m as I switched through. I stopped, changed the antenna setting and then we had an enjoyable chat for 10 minutes. On eventually getting onto 10 metres, I had the same result as on 15 metres – so much DQRM and pile-ups on the band meant that the DX stations I could hear, I could not work.

By this time, I decided it was time to pack up and head for lunch. On checking the map, the restaurant that I had chosen (one of the few in the area who are open on a Tuesday) was closed for the Christmas break, but it seems Google Maps had just been updated the day before. Searching for another restaurant that was shown as open, that turned out to be a kiosk that was only open in summer! In the end, I always had the fallback of the local McDonald’s, which, while difficult to reach in the middle of the industrial area in Mering, was at least open. After a “meal” there, I headed to my second POTA location at the other end of the town.

POTA DE-0905 Paar und Ecknach Natura 2000 park

The access to the parking spot located in Mering in this park needed to drive through a residential area between two main railway lines (I would not like to live in those apartments but I suspect they were at the lower-priced living grade).

I was lucky, one spot was available in the parking area, and I was set up in no time. I started again on 20 metres, and again my first entry in the log was when I called M8VZT as he was still in his 3-fer POTA location. 55 rather than the earlier 59 signal could mean my new location was not as good as the earlier one, or simply that band conditions on 20m had changed. The band suffered QSB on signals from both locations. After 60 quickly obtained contacts on 20m, I switched to 40m to pick up two more P2P contacts, but my spotted CQ call on 40m brought no calls. So I decided to pack up and head back to pick up my wife, arriving 15 minutes early, but after two good activations, reducing the number of parks I have not activated in the area yet.

Photos:

DE-0466, 0942, 0968, 1056

DE-0905

Equipment taken:

• Xiegu G-90 radio.
• Komunica Power HF-PRO2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna.
• 3-magnet car roof mount and single magnet mount (single not used).
• 8 Ah LifePO4 battery.
• 2 x 4Ah Eremit LifePO4 batteries (not used).
• Lightweight headphones.
• Smartphone for spotting.

Log:

POTA DE-0466/DE-0942/DE-0968/DE-1056

POTA DE-0905

Conclusions:

The trouble getting contacts on 15 & 10 metres was disappointing, as the propagation was there. It was purely the disadvantage of only running enough power to make the contact (as required in all amateur radio licences) and the limited antenna, which stopped contacts. Even with a better antenna, I suspect those KW stations will remain a problem for everyone else. Crocodiles.

73 ’til the next activation!