Short participation in 2m NAC.
Rig: HiQSDR, ME2T, 200W PA, 4ele
A nice SSB QSO with SK7CY, ODX PA0O 540km.
Category Archives: Contesting
DUR 21/05
March 21 IARU contest
Since there were still heavy covid restrictions and no chance to sleep somewhere we decided not to go to JO60OM for multi-Op. I was planning to be part time qrv from home in JO61UC. Since i completed my test-setup of the Iceni 70cm transverter i was able to operate 3 bands, 2m,70cm,23cm. More bands are not possible because the mast is too short and 13cm is not ready yet.
Despite i thought different my main operating time was saturday afternoon. I started with 70cm because i was curious for this band that i never operated from home before. It started very slow, almost nobody qrv in the beginning. During the contest some nice QSO came on top with S59P and S57M. Keep in mind that this is only 5ele and 50watts.
![](http://dh5ym.hopto.org/wiki/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/21_MAR_JO61UC_70cm.png)
70cm March 21, OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA), DL4MFM Log Analyzer
I later changed to 23cm and did some qso there. On 23cm it is a bit easier since i have 36ele and 100W. Many thanks to DL3IAS and DL3IAE for the ODX QSO via AS.
![](http://dh5ym.hopto.org/wiki/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/21_MAR_JO61UC_23cm.png)
23cm March 21, OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA), DL4MFM Log Analyzer
2m i started in the evening after the kids were sleeping. Unfortunately the conditions were very poor and i ended up with frustrating 20 QSO.
![](http://dh5ym.hopto.org/wiki/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/21_MAR_JO61UC_2m.png)
2m March 21, OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA), DL4MFM Log Analyzer
Overall the result was a bit disappointing with the highlights of the 70/23 ODX QSO and the fact that the 70cm transverter was working fine.
Iceni TX Gain / output power
DARC 10m Contest 2021
This year i spent quite some time in preparation of the 10m contest. Already a year ago i bought some fishing rods with the plan to make a Moxon antenna. This antenna was realized now. The transceiver was my HiQSDR again driving a R155 PA. In order to improve sensitvity i connected a wideband LNA from Funkamateur. The LNA was switched on and bypass by one of my sequencer PCBs. Quisk SDR forwarded 192kHz IQ samples to skimmer and from there the decodes went to the bandmap of tlf log. I started in CW and worked quite some multies. After one hour i changed to SSB which was a likely a fault because the activity in phone was low. The last 30 minutes were spent in CW again.
The map below shows the locations of the stations worked. They were taken from internet and might be incorrect. The map shows that i mainly had the moxon to north and west direction.
![](https://dh5ym.hopto.org/wiki/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/10m_2021_map.jpg)
stations worked in 10m contest 2021 – maps by openstreetmap and opentopo contributors via DL4MFM edi analyzer
The most heavy part of the moxon is the mounting plate. The fishing rods are snapped to the plate and then fixed with U brackets. There are 16 wing nuts to fix.
Getting the antenna outside is not that easy. It needs to be mounted outside and there was little space because of a chimney nearby.
It you do not take care everything will end up in a big mess.
The software did cosist of Quisk, skimmer and tlf log.
The R155 PA can generate 100W with 5W input. Unfortunately it seems not very robust against some RF nearby. The linear power supply i tried to use before went unstable in SSB. Therefore i had to swap the supplies.
HiQSDR is quite unsensitive on 10m. I used a LNA from Funkamateur which has bypass relais for TX. I had to replace the transistors because both where faulty.
Marconi Memorial Contest 2020
Due to partial lockdown no multi-op activity. Other weekend activities cancelled as well, so found some time to participate the MMC from home.
The setup was my usual HiQSDR + ME2HT + 200W Transistor PA + 4 ele.
About 11h operating time resulted in 134 QSO with ODX 730km..
It was pretty obvious that almost all the big multi-op teams where missing. Still some good DX oportunities even for my tiny station.
IQ3AZ was super loud. The attempts with SM6VTZ and YO5LD failed although we heard each other for short moments.
TOP 10 DX QSOs:
——————-
9A8D JN95LM 731 km by DH5YM
9A4M JN85EI 669 km by DH5YM
IQ3AZ JN65QQ 602 km by DH5YM
S51S JN75ES 595 km by DH5YM
HA6W KN08FB 592 km by DH5YM
HG1A JN86MM 564 km by DH5YM
9A5RJ JN86EL 550 km by DH5YM
PA0O JO33HG 539 km by DH5YM
HB9FAP JN47PH 529 km by DH5YM
S59P JN86AO 528 km by DH5YM
2020 October DUR test
Recently my new 23cm LNA showed up here. For the DUR activity contest today i integrated it into my transverter system. 9cm got double points this month. Therefore i also tried to be active there. Not that much activity and only 2 QSO. The 23cm result was quite good due to some nice DX with SM6VTZ, HA5UA, HA5YA and OM5CM.
![](https://dh5ym.hopto.org/wiki/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/20201018_DUR_23cm.png)
23cm result October DUR // Image created by DL4MFM log analyzer. Kartendaten: OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA)
2020 October UHF/SHF
Originally planned some more QSO but in the end there where more time constraints than expected. Therefore only 21 QSO on 23cm sunday morning. I skipped all other bands. 70cm was not ready anyway. ODX HA5KDQ with >500km.
![](https://dh5ym.hopto.org/wiki/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/USHF_2020_10_23cm-2.png)
IARU VHF contest
I planned to make some QSO from home. In the end i had about 10h of participation mainly during the night and sunday morning. The setup was 4ele and 200W with my HiQSDR and ME2HT transverter. The raw result shows 95QSO with highlights YT4B in CW random and IQ5NN even in SSB via aircraft scatter. 7S7V and 5P5T had pretty strong signals here.
![](https://dh5ym.hopto.org/wiki/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Contest_Sep20_logs_dh5ym.png)
23cm NAC with new antenna
I tried my new 36ele yagi in 23cm NAC. 4 nice QSO. SM6VTZ (820km) via AP scatter, SM7DTE, SK7MW and DF0MU via tropo. Really strong signal from SK7MW.
![](http://dh5ym.hopto.org/wiki/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/NAC_202006_23cm.png)