Tag: Contesting

Fieldday 4 and 5 september 2010

by Jurgen

As Jan seems to be a far better writer than I am, I copied his text from the ON4KB page at QRZ.com:

ANNUAL ON4KB/P FIELDDAY OPERATIONS …

Over the last 4 years, the callsign ON4KB/P stands for a state-of-the-art SSB Fieldday operation each first weekend of September. This emergency exercise is an initiative of a team of great and competent fellow hams, mostly living in the area. In 2010 these are Hugo ON7FU, Luc ON7KZ, Jurgen ON5MF, Tim ON5HC, Geert ON7USB, Francis ON8AZ and myself, who all share the work of preparing, building the station, operating and logging. We’re also grateful to Sofie ON3SC (qrp on7kz) for the occasional help.

The team takes a fieldday quite seriously, keeping in mind the original philosophy behind the event :

  • To test our technical competence as radio amateurs and to combine knowledge and teamwork into the installation of a comprehensive emergency radio operation ;
  • To discuss technical issues and experiment in the true spirit of amateur radio ;
  • To primarily consider a Fieldday to be a test setup for an emergency situation, where time is at a premium and without any access to fixed structures like cell phones, WiFi and power lines. Continue reading Fieldday 4 and 5 september 2010 →

SO2R switchbox

by Jurgen

I’m still working to get the station up and running for some SO2R in phone and digi. I started by looking for a way to switch audio and PTT for my 2 (oldtimer) transceivers (TS-50S and FT-990).

As a commercial controller seems to expensive to me for the moment I found a way to homebrew a *basic* switchbox myself. The layout is based on this one made by DL1IAO but with a few enhancements:

Continue reading SO2R switchbox →

DL-DX RTTY contest (July 3/4) from our club station ON6CK

by Jurgen

Some of my club members at UBA-KTK wanted to gain some experience using digital modes. So what’s the best way to achieve that? Of course, participate in a contest.

I made a few calls and soon I found 7 operators (ON7USB, ON5HC, ON7TS, ON8AZ, ON4KB, ON4TOP and myself) to do the DL-DX RTTY from the ON6CK-clubstation. There was only one small problem… I was the only one of this crew who ever did a digi contest and some of the crew didn’t even know the difference between a PSK31 and a RTTY signal 🙂

I organised a meeting a few nights before the contest and I gave my friends an introduction in some of the ‘secrets’ of the digi-modes: Continue reading DL-DX RTTY contest (July 3/4) from our club station ON6CK →

So little time, so much to do…

by Jurgen

During our EU-099-trip I really got bitten by the radiovirus again. Of course it was still (more than a little) present otherwise I wouldn’t have accepted the invitation but nevertheless I now want to get more quality time on the air.

That’s why I decided to quit helping in the motorsports-competition to get more time for the radio.

My idea for now is like this: as I hardly have time to get into my shack during weekdays (I have a business to run, remember), I decided to get back into contesting like I did some to many years ago. Lots of work todo before I can really try to be competitive.

One of the ways to be competitive as a SOLP (I don’t own an amp and never used one from my home qth) is SO2R (and it is better to focus on 2 radios than to contest with 1 radio while watching TV). Setting up the station for SO2R in digital and phone modes means I at least need more antennas, some way of switching those antennas and some way of switching the audio between the 2 transceivers.

Moreover it will be impossible for me to compete in every contest every weekend so I thought of a way to select 4 contests per year I really want to participate in, but more about that in a future post!