One of the most important things on my todo-list before the next contest was to finally get that shack cleaned up! So here you can see some pictures of this work in progress.
Before cleanup:
What a mess…
Category: Contesting
We made the newspaper again!
The ON4KB/P fieldday team made the newspaper again, the full online article can be found at Het Nieuwsblad. The title says: ‘Radioamateurs have a successful training – ready for an emergency’
Top: Hugo ON7FU / Tom / Sofie ON3SC / Francis ON8AZ / Wim ON7WPE / Jurgen ON5MF / Jan ON4KB
Bottom: Tim ON5HC / Luc ON7KZ / Geert ON7USB
Preparing for next contest
Normally my next contest should haven been the ON-contest 80m SSB on sunday october 3. But, my YL and I received a (short) helicopter flight for that morning and that’s something I don’t want to miss.
So my next contest will be the EU PSK63 QSO Party on november 21.
Okay, there’s a little over 2 months left but I still have a huge todo-list (more or less in order of importance):
- Make/buy and put up antennas for the missing bands: 40m, 80m, 160m
- Study the rules of the contest and try to figure out a good strategy
- get my shack cleaned up: Continue reading Preparing for next contest
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 🙂
Fieldday
We made the newspaper even before the fieldday 🙂
At least we’re on the local webpage of a national newspaper: Radioamateurs oefenen op noodsituatie (in dutch only sorry)
Look for us on the 40, 80 and 160m bands in SSB this weekend (saturday 1300 UTC to sunday 1300 UTC)!
Fieldday 4 and 5 september 2010
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
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:
DL-DX RTTY contest (July 3/4) from our club station ON6CK
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
Contest selection
After examining the WA7BNM Contest Calendar for some time and after studying the rules of most of the contests I made a selection of the FOR ME most interesting contests. These were the parameters I used:
- more than one radio allowed? I hate to watch TV when things get slow AND I own more than one radio AND I own a couple of bandpassfilters
- 24 hrs or shorter I have a business to run, also on mondays!
- is there a low power category? I don’t own an amp and I want to keep my neighbours happy
- is the contest also running on saterday morning? the business interfering again!
- is it an everyone works everyone contest? I hate to sit at a station calling only one country
- how much activity is there in this contest? I like lots of activity
So little time, so much to do…
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!