July 2024

Posted on July 15, 2024 by mario

First (and maybe only?) contest for this year.
From JO60OM. 23cm only + a nice laser qso.
Broken backside RX path and remote rotor control not working.
Nice qso and it seems 2nd on 23cm among the DL SOP stations (1st in the laser category ;) )

23cm 24/07 – Kartendaten: OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA), DL4MFM log analyzer

Red dot by DR7B on 65km distance

Results page
Some nature impressions:

day

and night coming

2023 June UHF/SHF Contest from JO60OM

Posted on June 11, 2023 by mario

Our local club DARC chapter S07 participates in the DARC Club competition. See our results page here (external).
Because of the UHF/SHF contest and the CW Fieldday both contributing to the Club competition we went to our portable QTH in JO60OM. There is a great mix of high altitude and very nice accomodation. Find some report of DL6JZ here.
Because of some family struggle i went to my parents home already friday evening. From there its only a half hour trip to Hirtstein. We met in JO60OM around noon and started to put the equipment. This time i took my 1.5m dish for 23cm and the 1m dish was planned for 13cm. Fred also brought his 6cm and 3cm systems.
The 23cm was my favourite configuration with 2x 100W (one for front system and one for the backside), the 23cm transverter with 10m IF and my HiQSDR. The Quisk SDR waterfall gives a good overview about the band and aircraft scatter can easily be identified.
For 13cm my transverter masthead box with the 75W amplifier was used. Its the same that was already used first last year. Together with a PTT splitter it was possible to connect my old 5W 9cm system to the same 1m dish as well. This was working better as expected.
On 6cm we had a very well working system with a old IC202 as IF transceiver. Despite not beeing used for quite some time it was still doing great.
For 3cm the feed was missing unfortunately and so we skipped the band entirely.
Surprisingly all systems where up and running at the beginning of the contest.
The focus was planned to be on 23cm because this band counts for the DARC CM. All other bads where add-on for the DARC UKW Contest Pokal OV competition.

23cm right, 13/9cm and 6cm left.

23cm place with SDR PC right and log left.

place for 13, 9 and 6cm operation.

The activity saturday afternoon and sunday morning was quite good. But i had some impression that the activity from OK which was always great is somewhat declining in the recent times. Its a bit compensated by the IC9700 effect.
In addition to the microwave activity i was planned in for some lightwave tests saturday evening. Jo DL3ARM does a great job motivating an increasing group of enthusiasts to try communication with visible light. So i took my old laser station to the hill. The decision was absolutely good since the weather turned out to be almost perfect.
Jo was on the Fichtelberg JO60LK which is only about 20km from our location. We found each others light very fast and completed the QSO in AM within minutes even during the sunset. It was great to hear his modulation and i think it was my first voice QSO via light. I took a short video of his on-off beacon signal demodulated at my station. The loud noise is some 70cm APRS on the talkback frequency we had choosen.

Watch this video on YouTube.

The next foto shows my red light as seen by Jo DL3ARM on Fichtelberg.

My light from JO60OM as seen by DL3ARM in JO60LK

After that QSO i had an unsucessful attempt with DM5D (Wetterberg) and DL3ALF (Trageser Halde). During investigations later the next week i found that the path to DM5D is unlikely to work due to going through trees in between. But the path to DL3ALF should have had perfectly worked. The problem was likely that our preparation had room for improvement. From Trages you cant see the chimney in Chemnitz which is a prominent landmark due to its colorful lighting in the night. This and the cold wind and darkness on the tower there makes it very diffcult to find the right direction. Therefore we missed this slot.
The path to DL0MLU on the Petersberg close to Halle seems too far as well. But one more QSO i was happily able to complete. With DR7B (Rene DL2JRM) i was able to complete a very nice 65km AM QSO after some minutes of mutual searching the horizont. This was a new light ODX for myself and i am very happy about that. Unfortunately i missed to take a video :(
After storing away the light rig i continued with 23cm to about 0030UTC. Then there was nobody to contact anymore in the ON4KST chat and i decided to take some sleep. I only started operation again from lunch to the end of the contest.

The result with claimed scores is:
23cm: 89 QSO (some dupes), ODX HA8V 680km => 3rd in DL SOP
13cm: 25 QSO, ODX ON4CJQ/P 580km => 4th in DL SOP
9cm: 14 QSO, ODX OE5VRL 240km => 4th in DL SOP
6cm: 10 QSO, ODX OE5VRL 240km => 1st in DL SOP
Light: 2 QSO, ODX DR7B 65km => 2nd in DL SOP

Next time will likely be only some QSO from home in July.

Some maps:

23cm 23/06 – Kartendaten: OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA), DL4MFM log analyzer

13cm 23/06 – Kartendaten: OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA), DL4MFM log analyzer

9cm 23/06 – Kartendaten: OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA), DL4MFM log analyzer

6cm 23/06 – Kartendaten: OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA), DL4MFM log analyzer

20220705 NAC 2m

Posted on July 5, 2022 by mario

Quite a good evening on 2m in the NAC activity.
200W and 4ele from home. Some nice aircraft scatter QSO. For example DK0IZ first time in SSB.

2m 22/07/05 NAC2m – Kartendaten: OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA), DL4MFM log analyzer

2207 V/U/SHF

Posted on July 3, 2022 by mario

No time for activity from hill. Therefore participated from home on 70cm, 23cm and 13cm (and accidently some QSO on 2m). Working mostly overnight and sunday morning.
Finally:
2m 6QSO 520p 50W mobile antenna ;)
70cm 18QSO 3100p 50W 15ele
23cm 33QSO 8700p 100W 36ele
13cm 13QSO 2800p 75W 20ele
3cm 1QSO 100p 10W 40cm dish

antennas for 70cm,23cm,13cm

23cm 22/07 – Kartendaten: OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA), DL4MFM log analyzer

13cm 22/07 – Kartendaten: OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA), DL4MFM log analyzer

70cm 22/07 – Kartendaten: OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA), DL4MFM log analyzer

Microwave Contest June 22

Posted on June 6, 2022 by mario

This time i was able to join the team on Hirtstein in JO60OM. It was planned to do CW Fieldday and Microwave 23 + 13cm. For 23cm we took the rig of Henrik, DG0LFF. For 13cm new masthead transverter with 75W PA was just finished. In the last moment i took the 1m mesh dish with me as well as my old 9cm transverter with 5W PA and a patch antenna as well as my 6cm transverter on tripod. Fred, DH5FS brought the 10GHz station. I also took my laser station for some try with DM1LGF and DL3ARM.
We mounted two mast. One with 2x20ele for 23cm on top and the 1m dish with the transverter below. Only some meters above ground and to be turned by hand we mounted the patch for 9cm and the transverter. The 6cm transverter did stay on the tripod on ground level. 3cm was located on the second mast.
23cm was pretty good and also the new 13cm rig did a good job without any issues. Even on 9cm quite some QSO were done and even on 6cm there was some success although the time for those trials was limited.
Saturday evening i tried to establish lightwave contact with DM1LGF and DL3ARM. Unfortunately the sight was very bad (a lot of dust) and it was not possible to see the horizon. Therefore the 2 attempts did fail for this time although we spent a lot of time to find the correct direction.

Results:
23cm 71QSO 17000p
13cm 29QSO 6900p
9cm 8QSO 980p
6cm 5QSO 480p
3cm 7QSO 800p

Some impressions:

laser station at sunset

6cm tripod station

23cm/13cm/9cm

microwave antennas june 22

QSO maps:

23cm 22/06 – Kartendaten: OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA), DL4MFM log analyzer

13cm 22/06 – Kartendaten: OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA), DL4MFM log analyzer

9cm 22/06 – Kartendaten: OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA), DL4MFM log analyzer

6cm 22/06 – Kartendaten: OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA), DL4MFM log analyzer

3cm 22/06 – Kartendaten: OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA), DL4MFM log analyzer

22/05 VUS

Posted on May 11, 2022 by mario

Some participation in the May VUS contest Saturday night and Sunday. Worked from home on 70cm and 23cm. Conditions were quite ok but few station calling cq.

July 21 VUS contest

Posted on July 5, 2021 by mario

During the time i was qrv i experienced very low participation from DL. Activity from OK was quite good. Some nice AP scatter QSO arranged via ON4KST chat but also random QSO. The SDR really helps to find the people when turning the antenna. Average of 270km/QSO on 70cm and 220km/QSO on 23cm are quite ok for me for operating from home.

Saturday evening 70cm. Rig HiQSDR+Iceni Transverter, 50W, 15ele.
27 QSO 7300p, ODX S59DGO, 610km.

70cm 21/07 – Kartendaten: OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA), DL4MFM log analyzer

Sunday afternoon 23cm during the last 2h of the contest.
Rig HiQSDR+MKU13G3, 100W, 36ele.
25 QSO 5500p, ODX S50G, 560km.

23cm 21/07 – Kartendaten: OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA), DL4MFM log analyzer

And i almost forgot: 1 QSO on 3cm with OK2A ;) Rig: FT790R2, Transverter, 10W, 40cm offset dish and W1GHZ feed.

DUR June 2021

Posted on June 20, 2021 by mario

17 QSO on 23cm and 2 on 10GHz. Quite good activity on 23cm due to ongoing Alpe-Adria Contest.

DUR 21/June 23cm result – Kartendaten: OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA), DL4MFM log analyzer

2021 June NAC 70cm

Posted on June 8, 2021 by mario

Rig: HiQSDR, Iceni Transverter, 50W, HA8ET LNA, 15ele
Result: 13QSO, 5900p, ODX SM6VTZ 820km

I drilled some additional holes into the boom of an old 21 Tonna fragment in order to mount the mast clamp. Together with a 2nd segment this gave 15ele with some suboptimal clamp mounting close to one of the directors. But better than my 5ele lightweight i estimated. It turned out to be right.
Some of the OZ stations where easy to work. OZ1DLD/P even in SSB. Outstanding signal from SM7DTE. ODX was again SM7VTZ with a rather short AP reflection this time. But i was happy to work him with my 50W qrp signal. An average of 424km per QSO is surprisingly good.

15ele made of parts from 21ele tonna

my 70cm “transverter in a box” mess. But it does the job.

Jun21 NAC 70cm – (C) OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA) – created with DL4MFM log analyzer

IARU June contest 2021

Posted on June 8, 2021 by mario

Because of some Covid restrictions still in place in DL there was the decission to remove the nigh time from the contest period in Germany. For me this was a very unfortunate decission since this is usually the only time where i can operate without interruptions or other assignments.
In the afternoon there was quite some RS condition. I tried to find some QSO partner on 6cm but did not succeed. I heard DB0FGB (JO50), DB0NCO (JN59) and a OK station calling. The OK station did not come back to my call and i was not lucky in the ON4KST chat.
Videos of the beacons received:

Watch this video on YouTube.

Then i switched to 10GHz. Usually i am limited to direction south because of problems moving the dish through the upper roof window. This time i managed to put the little plastic dish outside to work some station to the north. At least DF0YY made it to the log this way.

Dish for 3cm on the roof top direction north-west

Jun21 3cm – (C) OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA) – created with DL4MFM log analyzer

Rig 3cm: FT-817, old transverter, 10W, 35cm dish with W1GHZ dualband horn
Result 3cm: 7QSO, 660p, ODX OK1FPR 200km

Later i tried 23cm. 10pm local time was already close. But i was not sure if i would be able to do some more QSO on sunday. So i decided to give some points to others outside DL at least and continued for a while. In the end i did not switch on on sunday again.

Jun21 – 23cm – (C) OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, SRTM | Kartendarstellung: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA) – created with DL4MFM log analyzer

Rig 23cm: HiQSDR, MKU13G3, 100W, 36ele
Result 23cm: 19QSO, 4600p, ODX HA5KDQ 550km

Rauschfunk

V-U-SHF / SDR / DV and more by Mario, DH5YM