SSB Fieldday 2014

I wanted to prove to myself I could do a full fieldday (set up the station, operate 24 hours and tear down the station) without any help from anyone else. A few days ago I received the plaque for my first place in the QRP class. Thanks UBA!

Fieldday 2014

I wrote an article for CQ-QSO about my experiences in the fieldday but I haven’t found any time to translate it to English yet. Members of the UBA can read it on the UBA website in dutch or french.

I’m looking forward to work you all in the next UBA SSB fieldday first weekend of september!

To UBA or not to UBA?

A few days ago I received an e-mail from Rik ON7YD to ask me to pay the yearly membership fee for the UBA. Since a few years they send out these e-mails a few weeks before they send out letters to all members. For those who pay before the letters are sent out they can spare some postage.

After receiving this e-mail I sent this reply to Rik ON7YD (the dutch speaking vice-president of the uba) and to Claude ON7TK (the president of the uba):

(I sent the reply in dutch but translated it here for you, in italic you find some extra explanations to help you understand)

Dear Rik,

with all due respect to those putting a lot of work in it but I think CQ-QSO (the bi-monthly printed magazine of the uba) is a huge waste of money. Continue reading To UBA or not to UBA?

We won the DL-DX RTTY contest 2010!

Last year we set up our UBA KTK club station (ON6CK) to compete in the DL-DX RTTY contest in the multi-multi category. See my post about this contest.

A few days ago the organiser published the results on his website.

Not a lot of competition but anyhow we took first place worldwide in the multi-multi category. Not bad for a bunch of inexperienced operators (in digi modes) and for an average station in the middle of the city!

For now I’m trying to get a crew together to compete in the SP DX RTTY contest from our club station. Maybe this win will help me find more operators!

 

I won my first contest :-)

As the frequent readers of this blog know I don’t own an amplifier and I like to contest. So what’s the solution to still be competitive a contest? Yes, enter the low power (100W) or the QRP-class (10W).

Every year the UBA-section DST of Diest organises the UBA Spring contest in 4 parts (each on a different sunday morning 0800-1200 local time) : 80m SSB, 80m CW, 6m and 2m.

In the UBA Spring contest there is no LP-class so I went for the 10W-class in the 80m SSB-part.

During the contest I had a pretty good feeling, not too much trouble to keep a run frequency for some time Continue reading I won my first contest 🙂

Back on the air soon?

logo ham radio FriedrichshafenLast weekend Jan ON4KB, Luc ON7KZ, Andy ON7TS and me went to the hamradio in Friedrichshafen (16th time in a row for me). The fair was a little disappointing, no real new things to see this time (apart from a 44m €28000 tower from Japan…). Moreover it seems there will soon only be a couple of companies left in Germany to sell hamradio gear.
The most positive thing is however that this time (for the first time in many years) we received a warm welcome at the UBA booth. Could it be this depends on the people being at the booth at the moment we arrived?

Next year the fair will be from june 23 till 26. Probably we’ll be there again.

The most important thing is however that, still not being on the air from my own shack (or from the car I bought last year), the virus hit me again during the trip. I’ll try to get my antenna’s up on the tower (HF) and probably the mobile rig in the car (VHF/UHF) in a few weeks!

I’ll keep you posted!

Featured blog

Have I mentioned the great blogs of Peter ON6TT? They can be found here in English and in Dutch
For those of you who don’t know Peter (you must have lived on Mars for the last 15 years…), Peter is a honorary member of the UBA (he was the guy who lobbied to get the Belgian contest stations 2 KW
and 2 by 1 callsigns).
During the last 15 years he was active from more DX-countries than most of us can ever dream of.

Moreover listening to Peter handling the pileups from yet another rare location is a joy to the ear.