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Author Archives: dh8bqa
Another nice ES day …
Have been watching cluster spots and MUF map all morning during QRL but couldn’t leave, things for a living first. 😉 As soon as I had a chance to leave early afternoon all the nice 4 m openings were already … Continue reading
Posted in DX, Propagation, Sporadic E, VHF
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First 2 m ES and new ones on 6 m
Finally the first 2 m Sporadic E this year that made it into JO73! 😎 Although we were almost too close to the clouds I managed to work a few QSOs. The opening started earlier to stations more west so … Continue reading
Posted in DX, Propagation, Sporadic E, VHF
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AGCW VHF June Contest ’19
When doing the AGCW VHF contest last year after stumbling across it by coincidence I had so much fun I put a marker on the calendar for this year’s date to participate again. Had a late start, i.e. 20 min … Continue reading
Posted in Contesting, Propagation, VHF
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New toys
Heiko, DG1BHA, and I decided to buy an Icom IC-9700 for the club QTH to replace our old venerable IC-7400 that served as our main 2 m radio for quite some years. We did some modifications to the latter for … Continue reading
Posted in Equipment
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A little VHF propagation and activity
Bands were rather quiet during the week and QRL kept me busy anyway. A little more propagation today but still all very selective. Anyway, nice to see 4 m opening to Greece at least (also heard/saw two Maltese for about … Continue reading
Posted in Propagation, Sporadic E, VHF
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My third world win this year? WPX-CW claimed scores :-)
Boy, that was fast! WPX-CW claimed scores have already been posted on the CQ WPX website. I never would have thought I could ever win the 10 m category from Germany! Usually it’s either the South American guys who take … Continue reading
Posted in Contesting
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Some normal VHF DX this weekend
Well, still no Sporadic-E on 4 & 2 m overhere. 🙁 Peter was quite active on 6 m but even there only very patchy openings. Luckily there were a few smaller VHF contests this weekend that allowed to work some … Continue reading
Posted in Contesting, Propagation, Tropo, VHF
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Cleaning activities and antenna alignments
Another day without any interesting VHF propagation so we used the time for some cleaning activities long overdue. Heiko (DG1BHA), Uwe (DL3BQA), Peter (DM5DX) and myself had blocked the days after Father’s Day for several small to medium things that … Continue reading
Posted in Antennas, General stuff
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Father’s Day / Ascension Day activities
Today was Father’s Day (Ascension Day) which is a nationwide holiday in Germany. We usually use it for some gathering of one of the local radio clubs here at our clubstation. Lots of discussions over coffee and cake in the … Continue reading
Posted in General stuff
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Rotator interface by remoteqth.com
No condx today so I used the time to finally cobble the rotator interface together that I bought from remoteqth.com last December together with the Band Decoder II. It’s a neat kit not too expensive including a nice enclosure. I … Continue reading
Posted in Equipment, PIC projects
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Sporadic-E is in da house …
Well, sort of. 4 m was open almost all day long and 2 m saw a nice opening in the afternoon, too … just not here. I was at the very edge and only every now and then signals on … Continue reading
Posted in Audio recordings, Propagation, Sporadic E, VHF
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Some patchy 4 m openings
Not much to report today. 4 m was nicely open between Western Europe and the Balkans in the morning but only very patchy over here. 9A4ZM got stronger and stronger during that particular small opening so I sent him “PSE … Continue reading
Posted in Propagation, Sporadic E, VHF
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CQ WPX CW 2019
Boy, THAT was fun, what a weekend! We had continous Sporadic-E on Saturday for over 16 hours straight, very wide-spread, open to almost everywhere all the time, no matter where the antenna was pointing to! I had set a new … Continue reading
Posted in Contesting, Propagation, Sporadic E
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Old & new, strange QRM plus some 4 m contacts
Arrived at the station early this afternoon. Brought the IC-7300 along for WPX-CW this weekend as well as (hopefully!) some fun on 4 m during the next few days (a week of holidays next week). Second radio I took with … Continue reading
Posted in Equipment, Propagation, QRP, Sporadic E, VHF
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Some youth work
Well, I didn’t post much personal information in this blog yet. After all it’s about amateur radio and related activities and not my personal life. But with this blog entry both combine perfectly so let’s get a little more personal. … Continue reading
Posted in Equipment, General stuff
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No VHF May contest this year … at least for me
Unfortunately I couldn’t make it to the guys last weekend as I was bound in QRL. Must have been a first in over 20 years. 🙁 Thus no story nor results from me this time but Uwe, DL3BQA, wrote a … Continue reading
Posted in Contesting, VHF
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CQ WPX SSB 2019
Travelled the 2 x 700 km to and from our contest station last weekend again to take part in this year’s CQ WPX SSB contest. Uwe/DL3BQA and Peter/DM5DX had done a small multi OP activity during Russian DX two weeks … Continue reading
Posted in Audio recordings, Contesting
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BCC QSO Party
This year the Bavarian Contest Club (BCC) which I’m a member of wants to activate more than 80% of its members in the main contests with club competitions. One part of this year’s program was/is also two BCC QSO parties. … Continue reading
Posted in Contesting
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V31FO/V37DX QSL designs finished & first cards sent
Finished designing the QSLs for our recent trip to Belize and got the first batch of cards from the printer. Made a few adjustments and out of the 5 different motives test-printed decided to use these two for all the … Continue reading
Posted in Contesting, DX, Expeditions, QSLs
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March VHF Contest ’19
Trying to escape the Cologne carnival activities 😉 the VHF contest this weekend was a welcome opportunity to drive the 700 km to our JO73 QTH once more and meet with our local guys Heiko, DG1BHA, Uwe, DL3BQA, and Peter, … Continue reading
Posted in Contesting, VHF
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