DH8BQA

T3Ø – Western Kiribati #296

Posted on October 4, 2014 by dh8bqa

After hearing them weakly on 12 m yesterday (using the 10 m yagi ) I was lucky enough to catch them this morning on 15 m CW for another all time new one, now being up to #296. The pileups are huge, CW split goes over 6 kHz, not too bad. 😉 It’s a German team of well known DXers & DXpeditioneers (click picture above to visit their website) so allow me to switch once to German on this otherwise English language blog: Viel Spaß und viel Glück weiterhin, Jungs! Herzlichen Dank! 🙂

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CQ WWDX RTTY 2014

Posted on October 1, 2014 by dh8bqa

As I just recently discovered I might like RTTY contesting I thought it would be a good idea to enter (for the first time ever) the CQ WW RTTY held last weekend. I already did a few smaller RTTY contests during the last few month’ and really liked it. Well, the CQ WW RTTY felt a bit different. First of all conditions were quite distorted due to a recent flare. SFI up into the 200’s but that does not help anything at all if Aurora is going on so no good 10 m condx overhere up north. 🙁 Second I really felt like QRP although I’ve been pushing the KPA500 to it’s limits, i.e. 600-650 watts depending on band. And our antennas are really not the smallest ones but I always had the feeling of always being the last in the queue of callers. Well, activity might have been a reason, bands were really full, i.e. up to 60 kHz on 40 m, 70 kHz on 20 m and even with not optimum condx up to 60 kHz on 10 m …

Usually CQ WW RTTY is *the* RTTY contest for Uwe, DL3BQA. He’s a big fan of RTTY contesting so he regularly participates in that one, of course. Naturally he had the choice of band and decided for 15 m. I had some other obligations during the weekend, too, so decided to spend a few hours every now and then and do an allband entry just for fun. Well, “allband” was rather 4 bands as 15 m could not be used, of course. 😉 Good thing about it was I could systematically test out all the measures taken during the last few month’ to get rid of inter-station interference. Seems it really paid off as we did not have any serious problems at all with parallel station usage. Even 40 / 15 which is usually a really hard combination worked flawlessly except when the 15 m yagi was pointing directly to the 40 m dipole. But that seldomly happens so no issue either. 😉

Sunday late evening condx improved again and I could even copy most of the U.S. West Coast states on 10 m. Sorrily I could not raise a single soul at all. Although signals were up to 539 they just CQ’ed into my face. 🙁 Really wondering if I might have too hot an RX overhere or if those guys are running lots of kilowatts or simply have bad receivers. Quite a frustrating situation … Anyway, here’s my tiny result:

                  CQ Worldwide DX Contest, RTTY

Call: DH8BQA

Class: SOAB(A) HP
QTH: JO73ce
Operating Time (hrs): 21

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  State/Prov  DX   Zones
------------------------------------
   80:  180       0       43     9
   40:  187      19       63    16
   20:  225      29       56    19
   15:    1       0        1     1
   10:  141       8       60    29
------------------------------------
Total:  734      56      223    47  Total Score = 599,747

Club: Bavarian Contest Club

Detailed SH5 analysis is available here.

Next up are WAG and WWDX-SSB for me. I will have a week of holidays in-between. So we’ll try to install some beverages and gain some experience with RX antennas for the low bands. Never done it before so eager to learn … 😉

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Trophy with a difference :-)

Posted on September 25, 2014 by dh8bqa

I had an information in my post box yesterday that a parcel was waiting for me at the local post office. I was very curious what it was as I could not remember having ordered something. 😉 So I went there after QRL today to pick it up. Surprise was big and pleasant when opening the parcel: It’s been a nice set of fine French wine, olives, chocolate, etc. I quickly remembered that we had won the MMMonVHF voting for the “Best VHF MS-expedition of 2013” for our maritime mobile tour across the Baltic Sea activating some of the rare wet squares on 6 m (LY2AAM/mm) as well as 2 m (DH8BQA/mm) using Tropo and Meteor Scatter propagation modes. Frank, DL8YHR, was the voting’s trophy sponsor and kind enough to send this surprise parcel with a trophy with a difference. 🙂 Many thanks! We will enjoy it for sure. 😉

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Nice 10 m opening this afternoon

Posted on September 21, 2014 by dh8bqa

Wow, 10 m is back! 🙂 We had a very nice opening into North America this afternoon & early evening lasting for about 5 hours! Propagation forecast looked rather bad for today but luckily it was entirely wrong. 😉 Ten opened up nicely as far as to the mid-west with Colorado being the western-most state I heard. Signals were very strong, i.e. 100 watts plus dipole stations from Michigan and all along the East Coast were easily hitting the S9 mark on my K3’s calibrated s-meter. Our big 6 ele OWA Yagi up 18 m high certainly helped a bit but anyway, always nice to reach across the pond on 10 m. Now let’s all keep our fingers crossed for conditions to hold thru the season. Next weekend has the WWDX-RTTY contest where we all could use some nice condx, right? Having the West Coast open up would of course be even better. 😉 By the way, 15 m was still open around local mid-night here … all very promising!

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SAC-CW

Posted on September 21, 2014 by dh8bqa

Did a few QSOs in the Scandinavian Activity Contest last night on 80 & 40 m. The contest has a nice LowBand class that fits perfectly for us here in northern Germany as the distance into Scandivia is rather short. Made a few more QSOs via backscatter this morning on the high bands just for fun and to hand out some more points although they didn’t count for me in the LowBand class. Activity by the Scandinavian countries was very good. Maybe I should block some more time next year (or even this year in the SSB part in October) to do a more serious effort …

                   Scandinavian Activity Contest, CW

Call: DH8BQA

Class: SO-LoBands HP
QTH: JO73ce
Operating Time (hrs): 5

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   80:  80     29
   40:  90     34
   20: (17)      
   15: (15)      
   10: (20)      
-------------------
Total: 170     63  Total Score = 10,710

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VK9N – Norfolk #295 … but bad luck on 6 m

Posted on September 20, 2014 by dh8bqa

Worked VK9NT on 20 m SSB via long path this morning for another ATNO. 🙂 6 m saw a nice Sporadic E opening late afternoon into France and southern Spain. Additionally there was some TEP so TJ3SN & TY1AA who would both have been new ones for me worked with 59+ signals into southern Europe. Unfortunately the ES was not right to link into the TEP so I had no luck again. 🙁 I heard both just above the noise for a few minutes each but no chance, of course. It didn’t help much that C5YK was 599+ for about an hour later on (there the ES + TEP link worked alright). Didn’t even call as I worked him before already, left the chance to others …

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WAE-SSB 2014

Posted on September 18, 2014 by dh8bqa

Played a bit in this year’s WAE-SSB last weekend. Getting used to the new QTC mode in N1MMLogger+ was really easy and I have to admit it’s great although I found a few small bugs. They got corrected already during the contest after reporting them on the NL+ mailing list. The developer team around Tom, N1MM, is really doing a great job on the new logger. Although still in Beta I cannot imagine ever going back to N1MMLogger “Classic”. 😉

Did just a few QSOs now and then (100% S&P) and concentrated on working QTCs for beta testing the logger. So the result is not too big but was fun anyway. Also had a nice 2 h opening on 10 m into the U.S. on Sunday afternoon. It’s only been the East Coast, only the big guns and only very selective but nevertheless good to see the band opening up. Listened a while to the guys in Southern Germany – you really do get jealous here in the North! Heard just about 10% of the stations they worked on 10 m! Yes, location, location, location … Anyway, still keeping fingers crossed for another good season on 10 m this autumn! Here’s my tiny result:

                    WAE DX Contest, SSB

Call: DH8BQA

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: JO73ce
Operating Time (hrs): 18

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  QTCs  Mults
-------------------------
   80:    2     0     8
   40:   30    56    51
   20:   52   125    52
   15:  123   366   104
   10:   75   237    82
-------------------------
Total:  282   784   297  Total Score = 316,602

Club: Bavarian Contest Club

Also took some time to do some audio recordings again. Thought it might be interesting to record a few QTCs for those of you who never heard of or know about that specialty in the WAE contests …

Carol, N2MM, with QTCs and small pileup on 10 m:

VE3AT (15 m):

VY2ZM (15 m):

WX3B (15 m):

Posted in Audio recordings, Contesting, Propagation | Comments Off

Another small Aurora opening

Posted on September 12, 2014 by dh8bqa

We had another small Aurora opening tonight. Was really waiting for it after the big solar flare 2 days ago. Unfortunately it arrived a little bit too late on earth so the major “impact” was over the Atlantic Ocean. Must have been fantastic to view if one were on a ship or certainly even better onboard a plane flying from Europe to North America. 😉 Would it have arrived maybe 4-5 hours earlier we would have had a super Aurora here in Europe. So it became only a small one that did not reach much south. Anyway, always fun to hear those raspy signals, see below. The following nice QSOs were worked:

------------------------------------------------------------------
TIME    CALLSIGN LOCATOR     TX    RX    BAND   MODE  PRO.     QRB
------------------------------------------------------------------
21:32   LA8AV    JO59CS      57A   55A   2 m.   CW    AUR      772
21:43   LA3BO    JO59CD      55A   54A   2 m.   CW    AUR      707
21:51   SM4AIQ   JO79FS      57A   57A   2 m.   CW    AUR      732
22:04   SM5EPO   JP8ØMC      55A   55A   2 m.   CW    AUR      788
22:25   SMØWXV   JO89VL      52A   55A   2 m.   CW    AUR      733
22:28   SM5DWF   JO99BW      55A   57A   2 m.   CW    AUR      787
22:30   YL2FZ    KO37QI      53A   57A   2 m.   CW    AUR      952
22:34   SM6CEN   JO67AJ      53A   57A   2 m.   CW    AUR      487
22:46   OZ1FDH   JO65CS      55A   55A   2 m.   CW    AUR      315
22:48   OZ6OL    JO65DJ      54A   55A   2 m.   CW    AUR      275
------------------------------------------------------------------

Signals were very much in & out. Did not have a very stable opening at all. Anyway, here are a few audio recordings again:

LA3BO:

LA8AV:

OZ1FDH:

YL2FZ:

Posted in Audio recordings, Aurora, Propagation, VHF | Comments Off

DFØFA – IARU Region 1 VHF Contest September 2014

Posted on September 8, 2014 by dh8bqa

Another contest is done, this time on VHF. 😉 It’s been time for this year’s IARU Region 1 VHF Contest. So we went up our local hilltop again to participate. “We” that were Heiko – DG1BHA and Uwe – DL3BQA as locals, Knut – DGØZB and Paul – DL5CW from Berlin (about an 100 km drive), Andy – DL9USA from Spremberg (about 300 km to go) and last not least 😉 myself, Olli – DH8BQA (with about 700 km one tour). Besides those fine VHF operators the guys from one of the local radio clubs made a small field day before the contest, too, so we had even more visitors up on the hill: XYL Doris – the “better half” of DL3BQA, YL Gitta – DL3BYA, Horst – DL3BVA, Ronny – DL3BUA, Micha – DM7MRE, Ferdi – DL4FWP, Uwe – DG1BRB, Horst – DC7NEU and SWL Horst – DE3HLA. Lots of nice talks, good food and beer and best of all – a really nice sunny and warm weekend after quite some ugly weather during the last few weeks! 🙂

Big big thanks are due for Heiko who worked hard during the last few days before the contest to finish our new 4 x 6 ele LFA Yagi antenna group. So for the first time ever we were able to use 2 antenna groups in parallel (our good old trusty 2 x 8 ele DK7ZB being the other one). It really paid off to be able to beam into 2 different directions at the same time. We often had big smiles on our faces when getting called by people from those different directions at once knowing we would certainly have missed a few of them without that possibility. Of course we already made plans for further improvements. Hope to find some time during the winter to realize a few of our ideas. 😉

Bild7

Condx were quite good. Before the contest there were some tropo enhancements enabling the OK guys on the high hills to work into OH. Nothing overhere, though. Nevertheless condx seemed stable at least, not too much QSB and also some nice DX worked although all stations that are usually workable every time. But at least I had the impression it was easier this time … who knows, maybe still a little tropo enhancement after all. 😉

We had worked 300 QSOs after the first 8 hours. Of course you cannot apply simple math like 1/3 of the time thus take QSO number and triple it for the final results … this would be great, wouldn’t it? 🙂 No, of course not, but I really hoped we could do the 600 in total this time. Sorrily we didn’t, maybe next time. Not sure, will have to look it up again, but this might nevertheless be our best result points-wise so far. The average km/QSO should be an all time high, too. These were our most distant contacts:

------------------------------------------------------------------
 DATE       TIME    CALLSIGN     LOCATOR     BAND   MODE       QRB
------------------------------------------------------------------
07/09/2014  05:27   OH1ND        KPØØXL      2 m.   SSB        933
06/09/2014  16:54   G8T          JOØ1KJ      2 m.   SSB        928
06/09/2014  16:43   G8P          JOØ1QD      2 m.   SSB        904
07/09/2014  00:22   9A1N         JN85LI      2 m.   CW         898
07/09/2014  00:42   9A7W         JN85LI      2 m.   CW         898
07/09/2014  02:29   GØVHF/P      JOØ1PU      2 m.   CW         886
07/09/2014  00:48   S59DEM       JN75DS      2 m.   CW         830
06/09/2014  21:27   UT5W         KO2ØNC      2 m.   CW         829
07/09/2014  09:11   SK9ØZK       JP7ØTO      2 m.   SSB        825
06/09/2014  20:24   HB9GF        JN37WB      2 m.   SSB        821
06/09/2014  22:21   UW5Y         KN18OO      2 m.   CW         813
06/09/2014  23:56   S57Q         JN76PB      2 m.   CW         801
07/09/2014  06:02   SKØEN        JO99JX      2 m.   SSB        801
07/09/2014  06:07   SM4BDQ       JP8ØFG      2 m.   SSB        795
07/09/2014  05:35   LAØBY        JO59IX      2 m.   SSB        781
06/09/2014  21:43   ON4LDP       JO1ØUN      2 m.   CW         779
06/09/2014  22:56   UR7D         KN18JT      2 m.   CW         775
07/09/2014  00:10   S5ØC         JN76JG      2 m.   CW         775
06/09/2014  21:37   ON4KHG       JO1ØXO      2 m.   CW         761
06/09/2014  17:12   F8KID        JN38AT      2 m.   SSB        753
06/09/2014  20:29   S59R         JN76OM      2 m.   SSB        750
06/09/2014  17:10   S59P         JN86AO      2 m.   SSB        749
07/09/2014  04:58   HB9FAP       JN47PH      2 m.   SSB        745
07/09/2014  03:44   S59ABC       JN76TO      2 m.   CW         744
06/09/2014  23:36   S57M         JN76PO      2 m.   CW         741
07/09/2014  11:27   S56P         JN76PO      2 m.   SSB        741
07/09/2014  00:24   S51ZO        JN86DR      2 m.   CW         738
07/09/2014  08:28   LY2LE        KO24OQ      2 m.   SSB        737
07/09/2014  02:13   HG1Z         JN86KU      2 m.   CW         734
07/09/2014  13:27   PA3HFJ       JO11VL      2 m.   SSB        734
06/09/2014  21:54   OM3KDX       KN19DB      2 m.   CW         730
07/09/2014  05:50   SM5KWU       JO89IP      2 m.   SSB        730
06/09/2014  20:10   S57O         JN86DT      2 m.   SSB        729
06/09/2014  20:36   F6KQV/P      JN38OJ      2 m.   SSB        728
07/09/2014  09:26   PA5KM        JO11WM      2 m.   SSB        727
07/09/2014  00:34   S53O         JN86AT      2 m.   CW         726
07/09/2014  01:57   HA6W         KNØ8FB      2 m.   CW         724
07/09/2014  10:57   HB9CXK       JN47PM      2 m.   SSB        724
07/09/2014  01:07   HG6Z         JN97WV      2 m.   CW         716
06/09/2014  14:54   HA2U         JN87VH      2 m.   SSB        706
06/09/2014  15:14   DJ5MW        JN47WN      2 m.   SSB        701
------------------------------------------------------------------

After all quite a successfull weekend again with very nice VHF DX and most importantly great people to spend one’s time with. 😉

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A few QSOs in SCC RTTY Championship

Posted on August 31, 2014 by dh8bqa

Made a few QSOs this morning in the SCC RTTY Championship mainly to test condx. The last few days were a real pain condition-wise. Seems it’s getting a bit better again, at least I could run some JAs easily although signals were rather weak. Always astounding to see what MMTTY decodes out of those weak s1 signals almost buried in the noise. 🙂

                    SCC RTTY Championship

Call: DH8BQA

Class: SOSB/15 HP
QTH: JO73ce
Operating Time (hrs): 2:20

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   15:  111    50
-------------------
Total:  111    50  Total Score = 15,200

Comments:
Elecraft K3, KPA500, 6 ele OWA Yagi

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Entity #100 on 30 m – 9BDXCC wkd

Posted on August 30, 2014 by dh8bqa

Just worked MDØCCE for DXCC #100 on 30 m. 🙂 That put me on 9 band DXCC status for 80 to 6 m. Classical 9BDXCC is normally 160 to 10 m, but hey, what’s normal these days?! 😉 Will still have to work hard to get over 100 on 160 m to complete 10BDXCC. I do not operate on that band often so it might take another few years. And as you might know I’m more of a contester than a DXer on HF. 😉 Here are my current standings:

160 m:  68         80 m: 102         40 m: 170         30 m: 100
 20 m: 196         17 m: 119         15 m: 219         12 m: 161
 10 m: 273          6 m: 131          2 m:  62        Total: 294

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Small Aurora opening on 2 m tonight

Posted on August 27, 2014 by dh8bqa

We had a small Aurora opening tonight. Seems it already started in the afternoon but I just recognized it after coming home from QRL this evening and switching on the rig to chase W1AW/1 in ME and wondering why condx were so bad, especially compared to yesterday. 😉 The reflection zone has not been very stable, signals were there for a few minutes, then silence, then sigs coming up again … back & forth. Besides this the activity was not very high, too. Nevertheless I managed to work the following nice QSOs on 2 m:

QSO  by DH8BQA on 2 m. 
Type of propagation: AUR                Mode: All mode 
From 27/08/2014 to 27/08/2014           Distance over: 0 Km. 
------------------------------------------------------------------
   DATE     TIME CALLSIGN      LOCATOR  TX     RX    MODE      QRB
------------------------------------------------------------------
27/08/2014 16:33 LA3BO         JO59CD   59A    56A    CW       707
27/08/2014 16:38 SM5DFF        JO88CN   59A    55A    CW       610
27/08/2014 16:43 SM5KWU        JO89IP   57A    55A    CW       734
27/08/2014 16:50 YL2FZ         KO37QI   52A    55A    CW       952
27/08/2014 16:53 LA6OJ         JO38HQ   55A    55A    CW       771
27/08/2014 17:01 SP1DFZ        JO84RE   52A    55A    CW       241
27/08/2014 17:04 GM3WOJ        IO77WS   55A    55A    CW      1257
27/08/2014 17:09 SP2CNW        JO93AI   55A    55A    CW       255
27/08/2014 17:12 SM7EOI        JO86FP   59A    59A    CW       410
27/08/2014 17:30 RZ1AP         KO49VW   42A    55A    CW      1209
27/08/2014 17:46 SM6LJP        JO68WI   54A    55A    CW       575
27/08/2014 17:57 ES3RF         KO29IF   55A    55A    CW       932
27/08/2014 18:25 SM7GVF        JO77GA   57A    55A    CW       427
------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of QSO listed: 13

For those of you who might never have heard how Aurora signals sound like here are a few audio recordings …

LA3BO & SM6LJP, both via Aurora:

ES3RF:

SM5KWU:

LA6OJ:

SM7GVF:

SK4MPI/B, the Aurora warning beacon:

Sorrily there was nothing at all on 6 m this time, I did not even hear any beacons via Aurora. That’s kinda strange …

Posted in Audio recordings, Aurora, VHF | Comments Off

Surprise surprise – nice 10 & 6 m openings

Posted on August 26, 2014 by dh8bqa

Coming home from QRL switched on the radio to check condx. Found ZD8N pounding in on 10 CW, worked with just one call. 🙂 Saw 6 & 4 m spots on the cluster so went to check six. Nothing heard. Scanning the CW band again and suddenly hearing C5YK at up to 599 calling lonely. Certainly ES + TEP linked propagation. Quickly worked him and spotted afterwards … oh, suddenly life on the band. 😉 Yes, it always pays off to spin the dial oneself instead of only relying on the cluster. Made a nice audio recording of him …

C5YK on 6 m:

Nothing else heard. Then saw I8/UT3UX spotted on the cluster working FSK441 on 2 m via Meteor Scatter. Took about 20 minutes to complete and worked a new square with JM88, too. 🙂

Grabbed ZD8N on 10 SSB, too, then 6 m opened a bit via Sporadic E into the Ukraine but signals very much up & down, lots of QSB, not very stable. Went down to 12 m and easily worked a few US west coast guys. Condx picked up nicely during the last few days! Thought it might be worthwhile to check 10 m, too.

The band was well open all over Europe via Sporadic E but besides ZD8N no interesting DX heard. So I thought lets see if signals do cross the pond on 10 m, too. Skimmers on the Reverse Beacon Network are a good opportunity to check condx. And boy, we had condx! Worked a number of guys on the west coast on 10 m, some of them being real 599, nice! 🙂 But it was very selective and I’m not sure yet what it was, either multi-hop ES or rather ES + F2. Suppose ES for the first hop (EI’s & G’s were booming in supporting that theory) and then F2 layer propagation (backed by the nice 12 m condx). Worked guys from WA, CA, AR, AZ, WY, TX & MO. AC7AF in Wyoming was a nice catch after digging him out of the noise as he was using just 80 watts into an Inverted-L antenna. Unfortunately activity was not very high so not many QSOs made. Probably due to being in the middle of the week and not many expecting such an opening so not many checking 10 m. Besides skimmers I got even spotted on the normal cluster but that didn’t help much, either. 🙁 Checking 6 m again it was still (or again) open via ES into EI (backing my theory above). Made a few more QSOs on 12 m and working my way down to 10 MHz were I worked a few new ones, too (which is not difficult still being below the 100 DXCC mark on that band, hi). All in all quite nice evening. 😉

Posted in Audio recordings, DX, Meteor Scatter, Propagation | Comments Off

4W – Timor Leste #294

Posted on August 23, 2014 by dh8bqa

It’s been quite quiet during the last few days concerning radio activity overhere. Heavy workload in QRL and rather bad condx so I didn’t spend much time on the radio. Now during the weekend I finally switched the rig on again and managed to work another ATNO. PE7T & 9V1YC are currently active from East Timor as 4W/PE7T & 4W/N1YC. Caught them both today, one on 20 m, the other one on 17 m, CW. Condx have improved during the last 2-3 days as well. Nice to see 15 m open around local midnight to A3 and KH6 on short path. Hope for another good DX season this autumn/winter before good ol’ sun finally drops activity and heads down into another sun spot minimum.

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Meteor Scatter DX on VHF – the Perseids meteor shower

Posted on August 15, 2014 by dh8bqa

It’s been a while since my last blog entry. I spent most of last week on the radio (when not in QRL) doing Meteor Scatter mainly on 2 m but a bit on 6 m, too. It’s been the time of the Perseids meteor shower that passes earth every year in early August.

I started using Meteor Scatter on 2 m myself about 20 years ago and have very fond memories of a lot of nice contacts made in highspeed CW and SSB. Nowadays almost all activity concentrates on digital modes like JT6M and FSK441 thanks to the efforts of Nobel laureate Joe Taylor, K1JT, and his WSJT software suite. It sure made MS (as Meteor Scatter is abbreviated) much easier. SSB is just used during the peak of a shower when you can expect reflections of several seconds up to a minute or so. This year’s shower was not outstanding but not too bad either. I’d classify it as “normal”. SSB activity was quite low but that might be related to the fact the shower peaked in the middle of the night from 12th to 13th August in a normal working week. I had set up a sked with Jussi, OH5LK, an old time VHF friend, to work on SSB MS hoping for a big enough “stone” to be able to complete our QSO in a single reflection. Maybe it was just bad timing but we needed almost 45 minutes to complete. Reminded me of all those many hours spent on CW & SSB in earlier years to work a new one when things were still more difficult and activity much lower. 😉

MS is an easy way to work new squares on VHF. This shower was no exception. There had been a few guys activating rare grid squares as well as residential guys providing new ones by popping up to do some MS QSOs. As activity is higher than normal you also happen to work some nice tropo contacts in-between. These are the almost one hundred QSOs worked on 6 & 2 m during Perseids, the asterisks denoting new locators on the respective bands. My grid square totals are up to 617 on 6 m and 503 on 2 m now. 🙂

------------------------------------------------------------------
 DATE     TIME   CALLSIGN     LOCATOR    BAND   MODE   PRO.   QRB 
------------------------------------------------------------------
03/08/14  20:53  GM4ZJI       IO86KE     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1159 
03/08/14  22:23  EI6GF        IO62RG     6 m.   JT6M   MS    1396 
04/08/14  17:06  G3VYF        JOØ1FN     6 m.   JT6M   MS     949 
04/08/14  19:51  SP3BJK       JO81HT     6 m.   JT6M   TR     224 
04/08/14  19:57  S58P         JN76ID     6 m.   JT6M   MS     784 
04/08/14  20:06  SA3AZK       JP73GF *   2 m.   FSK4   MS    1116 
04/08/14  20:27  E77AR        JN94AS     2 m.   FSK4   MS     976 
04/08/14  20:59  F5GXX        IN95LP     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1381 
04/08/14  21:13  EI8IQ        IO62SF *   2 m.   FSK4   MS    1391 
04/08/14  21:18  F8GGD        IN95UQ     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1335 
05/08/14  16:49  UT5ERP       KN77AQ     6 m.   CW     ES    1525 
05/08/14  21:15  IV3DXW       JN65QQ     2 m.   JT65   TR     836 
05/08/14  21:50  S51AT        JN75GW     2 m.   FSK4   MS     806 
06/08/14  21:27  DL8NP        JN58SC     2 m.   CW     TR     595 
06/08/14  21:29  DL8NP        JN58SC     2 m.   SSB    TR     595 
07/08/14  20:04  OH8MGK       KP23PQ *   6 m.   JT6M   MS    1329 
07/08/14  21:16  UT3UX        KO5ØHJ     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1168 
07/08/14  21:46  F5GHP        IN96LE     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1340 
08/08/14  20:47  RA3MAU       KO97XP *   2 m.   FSK4   MS    1687 
09/08/14  06:59  EB5AL        IN9ØWB *   2 m.   FSK4   MS    1817 
09/08/14  07:36  LA9BM        JP4ØCM *   6 m.   CW     MS     892 
09/08/14  07:54  UR5LAK       KN89KL     6 m.   JT6M   MS    1620 
09/08/14  08:28  GØCHE        IO9ØPS     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1054 
09/08/14  08:38  GØHVQ        IO81UX     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1120 
09/08/14  08:48  GW8JLY       IO81JM     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1194 
09/08/14  09:24  F6IFX/P      IN87XC *   2 m.   FSK4   MS    1336 
09/08/14  10:06  YL/OK1MU     KOØ7SH     2 m.   SSB    TR     652 
09/08/14  18:28  IW7DEC       JN81GF *   2 m.   FSK4   MS    1341 
09/08/14  21:01  R5BI         KO86OQ     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1511 
09/08/14  21:50  USØLW        KO8ØEE     6 m.   JT6M   MS    1557 
10/08/14  05:45  OH9HEU       KP25TD     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1475 
10/08/14  06:08  RM5P         KO94HA     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1605 
10/08/14  06:26  SM2A         KPØ4NP     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1332 
10/08/14  06:52  G6VXB/P      IO95EN     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1056 
10/08/14  07:17  OK2PMS       JN89WW *   6 m.   JT6M   MS     441 
10/08/14  07:53  OH7AZL       KP33ON *   2 m.   FSK4   MS    1374 
10/08/14  08:52  F4EZJ        JNØ5DK     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1322 
10/08/14  09:12  SM/PA2DW     JP84HP *   2 m.   FSK4   MS    1281 
10/08/14  09:40  EA3LL        JNØ1NE     6 m.   JT6M   MS    1655 
10/08/14  10:02  SP3MIP       JO82HX     2 m.   FSK4   TR     163 
10/08/14  10:58  F1MPQ        JNØ8XS     2 m.   FSK4   MS     986 
10/08/14  17:23  EI9E/P       IO41TU *   6 m.   JT6M   MS    1661 
10/08/14  21:58  EI9E/P       IO41TU *   2 m.   FSK4   MS    1661 
10/08/14  22:27  SP7QJF       KO1ØFQ     6 m.   JT6M   MS     629 
11/08/14  17:28  YO6OBK       KN26TR *   2 m.   FSK4   MS    1085 
11/08/14  21:18  F/PA5MS      JNØ4MW     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1323 
11/08/14  21:44  UW8SM        KN28IV     2 m.   FSK4   MS     874 
11/08/14  22:35  EA3BTZ       JN11BI     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1596 
12/08/14  05:55  RU1MS        KO48VR     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1145 
12/08/14  06:23  OH9EKT       KP38SP *   2 m.   FSK4   MS    1854 
12/08/14  06:47  F6APE        IN97QI     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1234 
12/08/14  16:40  RW3XR        KO73FU     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1336 
12/08/14  17:57  UA1OEJ       KP94VN *   2 m.   FSK4   MS    1915 
12/08/14  18:17  RM1A         KO59BU     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1220 
12/08/14  18:58  R3YA         KO73FA     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1347 
12/08/14  19:33  R3ICQ        KO77LJ     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1388 
12/08/14  19:43  RK3AF        KO75WO     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1422 
12/08/14  19:51  UT2UB        KO4ØUO     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1099 
12/08/14  20:14  OH2LKV       KP2ØIL     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1029 
12/08/14  20:54  EI7IX        IO53FT     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1565 
12/08/14  21:14  EI8HH        IO53HN     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1557 
12/08/14  21:41  UA1ANA       KO59EW     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1237 
12/08/14  21:55  OH6UW        KP22WH     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1224 
12/08/14  22:00  EU6AF        KO35LA     2 m.   FSK4   MS     854 
12/08/14  22:24  RA3UAG       LOØ6GU     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1715 
12/08/14  23:08  OH5LK        KP3ØON     2 m.   SSB    MS    1134 
12/08/14  23:38  YL/OK2ZAW    KO17BF     2 m.   FSK4   MS     673 
12/08/14  23:46  RN3A         KO85NV     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1501 
12/08/14  23:59  US5EY        KN67RX     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1471 
13/08/14  00:02  UW7LL/A      KN66IQ     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1502 
13/08/14  17:12  EA3AXV       JNØ1TJ     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1613 
13/08/14  20:03  RV3MA        KO98JB *   2 m.   FSK4   MS    1624 
13/08/14  20:10  SM7SJR       JO87FB *   6 m.   CW     TR     454 
13/08/14  20:20  SP8SN        KO11FI *   6 m.   JT6M   MS     597 
13/08/14  21:02  GD6ICR       IO74PF     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1246 
13/08/14  21:27  F1NZC        JN15MR *   2 m.   FSK4   MS    1154 
13/08/14  21:39  YL2DA        KOØ6MM     2 m.   FSK4   TR     573 
13/08/14  21:49  G8RWG        IO91WH     2 m.   FSK4   MS     996 
13/08/14  21:55  F6BEG        JN25JS     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1067 
13/08/14  22:15  F8DO         JN26IF     2 m.   FSK4   MS    1030 
14/08/14  19:54  SM5P         JO88FX *   6 m.   CW     TR     659 
14/08/14  20:13  SM3LWP       JP72NC *   6 m.   JT6M   MS     993 
14/08/14  20:23  OZ7KJ        JO46ML     6 m.   CW     TR     493 
14/08/14  20:33  IW2HAJ       JN45NO     6 m.   JT6M   MS     919 
14/08/14  20:59  GM4VVX       IO78TA     6 m.   FSK4   MS    1279 
14/08/14  21:35  IKØOKY       JN61ES     6 m.   JT6M   MS    1276 
14/08/14  21:41  I6WJB        JN72CK     6 m.   JT6M   MS    1195 
------------------------------------------------------------------

After spending so much time on the radio I certainly need a break now! 😉 Will be driving some 600 km tomorrow to meet some contester friends at DP9A in Jessen. Andy, DK4WA, invited me to joing their annual BBQ so looking forward to some “non-radio contacts” now. 😉

Posted in Meteor Scatter, VHF | Comments Off

Nordic Activity Contest August ’14

Posted on August 5, 2014 by dh8bqa

Spend a little time in tonight’s NAC on 2 m. It’s always a nice opportunity to do some VHF DX QSOs into Scandinavia as activity in those 4 hour events is quite high. A real pity those guys are seldomly QRV in the big 24 hour contests. Anyway, despite not very good conditions these were the more interesting ones among the 30 QSOs made:

------------------------------------------------------------------
 TIME    CALLSIGN        LOCATOR   TX    RX     BAND MODE     QRB 
------------------------------------------------------------------
 18:54   ESØS            KO17AV    559   559    2 m. CW       718 
 18:58   LAØBY           JO59IX    559   559    2 m. CW       785 
 19:03   SM4GGC          JO69RK    559   529    2 m. CW       696 
 19:05   SK6W            JO78FM    559   559    2 m. CW       593 
 19:08   LA2Z            JO59EJ    579   579    2 m. CW       729 
 19:34   SA6CBY          JO57XP    55    55     2 m. SSB      515 
 19:35   SM6CEN/P        JO66HV    52    57     2 m. SSB      424 
 19:45   SA6AIN          JO68UD    599   579    2 m. CW       552 
 19:48   UA2FT           KOØ4LT    539   599    2 m. CW       476 
 20:02   G4SWX           JOØ2RF    519   559    2 m. CW       864 
 20:35   LA1T            JO59FB    55    53     2 m. SSB      693 
 20:49   LY2SA           KO14UG    419   559    2 m. CW       636 
 21:00   YL2DA           KOØ6MM    529   529    2 m. CW       573 
 21:01   YL3AG           KOØ6WK    559   579    2 m. CW       609 
 21:15   IV3DXW          JN65QQ    O     O      2 m. JT65     836 
------------------------------------------------------------------

IV3DXW was worked on his request in the ON4KST chat after the contest using JT65B on a for him difficult tropo path as he has to cross the Alps. Worked easily. 🙂

Posted in Contesting, VHF | Comments Off

Alpe Adria & BBT contests on 2 m

Posted on August 4, 2014 by dh8bqa

Spent a little time Sunday morning handing out points on 2 m during the Alpe Adria contest. Nice thing about that one is that the activity concentrates on Southern Europe thus you can work quite a bit of VHF DX then without the usual QRM in the big European contests. 😉 Made 42 QSOs in total. The more remarkable ones, i.e. over 600 km distance, were the following:

------------------------------------------------------------------
 TIME    CALLSIGN        LOCATOR   TX    RX     BAND MODE     QRB 
------------------------------------------------------------------
 07:26   S57O            JN86DT    59    59     2 m. SSB      724 
 07:51   HA6W            KNØ8FB    59    59     2 m. SSB      720 
 08:30   OM3BH           JN87WV    59    59     2 m. SSB      643 
 08:46   S51ZO           JN86DR    599   599    2 m. CW       733 
 08:59   OE/OK2CM        JN77QP    599   599    2 m. CW       622 
 09:27   9A1CMS          JN86DM    59    59     2 m. SSB      756 
 09:31   HG1Z            JN86KU    59    59     2 m. SSB      729 
 10:00   S59DEM          JN75DS    59    59     2 m. SSB      824 
 10:53   F6DCD/P         JN38RQ    59    59     2 m. SSB      688 
 11:48   SM4GGC          JO69RK    549   559    2 m. CW       696 
------------------------------------------------------------------

The BBT (Bayrischer Bergtag) is running in parallel for 2,5 hours, too. It has some special rules limiting total station weight depending on band (including antennas, cables, transceiver, mast, etc.) as well as maximum usable output power which is 6 watts. It’s always astounding what can be achieved with QRP on VHF from a good mountain top QTH. The following guys used something like 5 watts and small yagis resulting in remarkable distances for that kind of equipment:

------------------------------------------------------------------
 TIME    CALLSIGN        LOCATOR   TX    RX     BAND MODE     QRB 
------------------------------------------------------------------
 11:00   DL3WP/P         JN48NI    59    59     2 m. SSB      645 
 11:29   DL2AM/P         JN57BR    52    55     2 m. SSB      672 
 11:43   DL4SBK/P        JN57GN    51    51     2 m. SSB      677 
------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted in Contesting, VHF | Comments Off

European HF Championship

Posted on August 3, 2014 by dh8bqa

Made just a few QSOs (not much time available) in EUHFC to hand out a few points. Did some running during the last contest hour on 80 & 40 m and had fun with a 110/h rate which is almost too much for my bad CW. 😉

                  European HF Championship

Call: DH8BQA

Class: CW Only HP
QTH: JO73ce
Operating Time (hrs): 3:30

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Mults
---------------------------
  160:    7             7
   80:  125            48
   40:   57            31
   20:   57            32
   15:   10             9
   10:    2             2
---------------------------
Total:  258     0     129  Total Score = 33,282

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New awards received: RIGA 2014 & WRTC Chase Award

Posted on July 30, 2014 by dh8bqa

The city of Riga, capital city of Latvia, is the official European Capital of Culture 2014. Therefor Riga radio amateurs founded the award series RIGA – European Capital of Culture – 2014. Three award categories Gold, Silver, Bronze are available and can be obtained by contacting a certain number of special event callsigns starting with YL2014. The guys are quite active so to achieve at least Bronze is not that difficult. The award is issued for free and sent as a PDF file.

Another award received recently, also as a downloadable PDF file, was my WRTC Chase Award, pictured right. It was only issued to those 388 radio amateurs worldwide (41 of them in Germany) that made contact with all 59 teams during WRTC2014 that was held in parallel to the IARU HF Championship in July. The Chase Awards series was certainly a strong motivation to be QRV during IARU-HF myself. It’s been a nice incentive by the organizers, something to keep in mind for the next WRTC in 2018, too. 😉 The German WRTC participants and visitors signed the “Boston declaration” to file an application to the WRTC sanction committee to bring the next WRTC to Germany in 2018, an idea I strongly support. If you are willing to support that idea, too, please sign the declaration online. As it is in German you might want to let Google translate it for you to get the basic meaning although the translation is not the very best. 😉

Posted in Awards, Contesting | Comments Off

Better luck on six today :-)

Posted on July 27, 2014 by dh8bqa

Besides doing a few QSOs in the IOTA contest and chasing W1AW portable QSO slots (this week in Rhode Island and Indiana) I also had more luck on 6 m today. The band was well open into Scandinavia via Sporadic E this morning. Activity is usually not very high up north but now and then you happen to work a new one. Today it’s been LA5MIA in JP78 as well as OH8UL in KP45 who provided new squares for me. The band closed down after lunch so I could do a few other things out of house in the afternoon without fearing to miss something. 😉 Then we had another slight opening in the evening to the west when EJØPL in very rare square IO42 (not much land in there) contributed grid locator #609. 🙂

Posted in Propagation, VHF | Comments Off