My "own" CW Field Day

Just week after a CW Field Day I decided to do "my own" CW Field Day.

So landed in the "usual place" with my vehicle...

The first task was to position it properly...

Then build the antenna...

Then...

And finally ...voila...

Easy to say ...voila. 

The temperature inside quickly raised to 38c (around 100F)

The propagation was not fantastic so I was using the PA with 300..400w.

And then ...the smoke came from that box...

I was controlling the temperature regularly...

... and wasn't even red!

So finished the day with 100w directly from the transceiver.

I made several CW contacts, including my classmates from CWA Academy: Alessandro IZ5CFN, Rene PA3GPX, Bill PD5BS and Michel PE1PTS. We almost made contacts with Andrew K4EXA and Frank DL6FBN but the propagation was not cooperative here.

Finally next day morning I removed the beast from its usual place...

And then the PA landed in my workshop...

Using the measuring tool that is my nose, I found the component that smelled the most:

And now the most funny part.

When the previous owners (swiss army?) ordered the amplifier it was in its original box... But someone considered the cooling in the original version as not enough.

The box was replaced with bigger one and some additional fans were installed (there are total 9 fans inside now!). These fans needed additional power supply... 

And this power supply, installed to prevent overheating of the amplifier died due to overheating...

So far I'm not sure if only this capacitor died but will check it later. 

Luckily not finals... they can be ...expensive.

CW Field Day HB9LU/p 2025

First day - Friday.

With Heinz HB9BPH we have built the Spiderbeam antenna. 

As a storm was expected during the night, I had built a lightning rod so that if lightning struck, the preferred path would be that mast rather than my car, which I was inside...

I spent this night in the car sleeping (as usual) on the table:

My batteries seems to be in bad condition. There are two 100Ah batteries. After using around 1kWh they were almost empty  :(

Luckily soon the help arrived :)

On Saturday we have erected the Spiderbeam:

And later an additional antenna for 80m (dipole):

Before the contest we tried to make QSO with Andrew K4EXA but the propagation did not make it possible. 

However later the propagation was much better.

At 17:00 local time the contest started. For many of us this was quite new experience :) 

My wakeup call on Sunday morning was "Houston, we have a problem...".

Strong wind has broken one of the fiberglass pipes in the Spiderbeam Antenna.

As the weather was expected to be even worse we decided to erect simpler antenna for the rest of the contest - Windom.

My car does not especially like the wet terrain it needed some help to move from this place :)

Thanks Heinz HB9BPH for photos :)