Category Archives: VHF

Second 2 m ES for me this year & a new one on 4 m

After getting up this morning I saw things evolving on dxmaps.com and LiveMUF so decided to drive from my girlfriend’s place to my home and get the station ready. 2 m opened about half an hour after my arrival but … Continue reading

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VP5 – Turks & Caicos Islands #143 on 6 m

After the VHF contest was finished this afternoon I still monitored 6 m for another while while starting to disassemble all the equipment. There was another multihop ES opening into North America extending as far south-west as W5 with EM50, … Continue reading

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DARC July VHF Contest ’18

Well, I’m not sure what to think of this one. Equipment played very well. I didn’t sleep more than 2 hours so plenty of BIC time (“butt in chair”), too. Conditions were quite okay also but still only a bit … Continue reading

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Good 4 m ES and a bit of 6 m DX, too

Arrived at the station early afternoon today. Unpacked the IC-7300 to set up with the transverter for the 2 m contest this weekend when seeing 70 MHz was open! Had a great time working the band. Especially enjoy the openings … Continue reading

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Small tropo opening into the U.K. tonight

Tonight was the usual first Tuesday every month 2 m NAC (Nordic Activity Contest) which is accompanied by the UKAC (UK Activity Contest) as well as the IAC (Italian Activity Contest) as well as the SPAC (SP = Polish Activity … Continue reading

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A transverter interface for the ‘7300

After the quite good experience with the Icom IC-7300 during WPX-CW I thought it might be a nice idea to also try it out with a transverter on 2 m in the big VHF contest in two weeks. When searching … Continue reading

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PJ4 – Bonaire #142 on 6 m

Returning from QRL today 6 m was closed. I left the RX on 50.313 MHz FT8 in monitoring mode while doing different things around the shack. Every now and then some signals from EI popped up and vanished again. Then … Continue reading

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Weekend VHF activities

Unfortunately not that much to report. I had blocked the weekend for the IARU Region 1 50 MHz contest but conditions were basically non-existent. A few Meteor Scatter contacts every now and then, nothing else worth mentioning on Saturday. 🙁 … Continue reading

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ESØUG & ESØUG/8 – IOTA & VHF DXpedition

Uwe, DL3BQA, co-owner of our station, is currently on an IOTA & VHF DXpedition to Estonia. He was joined by some guys from Dresden (DM7A contest club), i.e. Fred, DH5FS, Steffen, DH1DM, and Henrik, DGØLFF. You can see their schedule … Continue reading

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New ones on 6 & 4 m today

Not much to report from the rest of the week. Had another small 4 m opening Tuesday evening but just two QSOs worked. Today was plenty of ES again on 6 & 4 m but most of it was more … Continue reading

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Sporadic-E & Tropo on one day! :-)

Wow … that’s been a great evening on VHF again! 6, 4 & 2 m were hot all day long but unfortunately I had to spend the day in QRL. There were some massive 2 m ES openings but I … Continue reading

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Small 4 m opening

Today saw a small 4 m opening. The band was open for almost an hour to Portugal around 14z. I could hear the beacons CS5BFM/B from IM59 and CS5BAM/B from IN51 quite well but unfortunately no stations QRV. 🙁 Also … Continue reading

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First Sporadic-E this season :-)

Well, writing two blog posts on the same day must mean something special! Indeed, it does! 😉 We had the first real Sporadic-E opening here up Northeast. 😎 I’ve been hogging the station for over a week now but VHF … Continue reading

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A bit of 4 m MS this morning

Played around on 4 m Meteor Scatter this morning (stayed overnight at the station). Conditions were quite nice with lots of reflections from my QSO partners but the low ERP on my side still ment QSOs took very long, in … Continue reading

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IC-7300 – first impressions

Now having played with the radio for a few days it’s maybe time to give some feedback on my first impressions. Setup was a breeze! Be it all the menu settings, recording voice files for the internal voicekeyer, programming the … Continue reading

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Z3 – Macedonia, DXCC #36 on 4 m

Sporadic-E still isn’t kicking off on 4 m. 🙁 There are some slight attempts of the MUF to make it over 70 MHz but so far it’s just scratching it. Under these circumstances FT8 really seems to help, at least … Continue reading

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Antenna work & VHF May Contest

Finally I had some time to go visit the guys and our station again last weekend. A distance of 2 x 700 km means I need to take Friday and Monday off for traveling and that is rather luxery in … Continue reading

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Major X9 solar flare – Aurora all around!

Wednesday saw a massive sun eruption not expected (especially that strong) being so far down the solar cycle already. In fact it has been the strongest solar flare in Cycle 24! spaceweatherlive.com has an interesting article about it. After hearing … Continue reading

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Perseids Meteor Shower

Unfortunately I didn’t have much time this year so most of my Perseids activities concentrated on the weekend when the peak was forseen to happen the night from 12th to 13th of August. But I didn’t recognize any distinct peak … Continue reading

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July VHF contest – claimed scores

Seems I do not need to grieve too much over my oversleeping Sunday morning in the July VHF contest. 😉 The points missed would not have changed anything in the standings. It’s just not possible to win from our northeastern-most location … Continue reading

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