HB9LU Field Day SSB 2025

As every year in the first weekend of September our club HB9LU makes a field station participating in Field day contest.

The shack is in the car. On Saturday we build spiderbeam on 15m mast with rotator and 160-80-40 dipoles on another military 15m mast.

This year we had also a snake antenna for 160m - around 160 meters wire in the shape of square laying directly on the grass. This antenna was not a "game changer" as expected but we will work on it ;)

The team was exceptional. They're a group of people who really want to do something, and we had a great time together. Thank you all so much, and I'm so glad we did it together! A really fantastic team!

Urs HB9MYH, Mark HB9DBM, Andy HB9YMR, Marco HB9FLD (with Mateo :), Wolfgang HB9RYZ, Rene HB9BQI, Christine HB9BQW, Oliver HB9IJS, Bernard HB9ALH, Beat HB9THJ, Cedric, Mike HB9MBS, Hans-Peter HB9BXE, and remotely Yvonne HB9ENY and Guido HB9CQZ (thanks for the QSO!!!)

The propagation was not bad and additionally supported by 1kW PA :)))

Two generators provided by Marco did the job :)

The night when someone was operating the station i was sleeping in the tent. My shift started at 6:00. 

In 24 h contest hours we did around 1030 QSO. 

Now waiting for the results... ;)

IARU HF Championship 2025

Like every year...

Arrived to my farmer friend farm...

Field is ready...

Mast must be possibly ideally vertical. Otherwise will be difficult to erect...

Ready to put spiderbeam on...

Spiderbeam ready. Fixed after last crash (element replaced).

Put "pigs" for mast ropes...

Finally...  

Sunset...

Initially the delta antenna did not want to work at all. I had to tune it - shorten for about 4 meters. 

Then...

Breakfast next day...

And next day caffe...

Sunday... 

Disassembling the station. 

Assembling 2.5 days, disassembling 5 hours...

This year for the first time I was working MIXED QRP instead of PHONE QRP. 

Around 230 QSO, about 50k points.. 

10m band opened only at the end on Sunday. 

Ham Radio Friedrischafen 2025

Crossing the border. I need to stamp the list of my equipement to avoid problems with customs on return.

My car can float. With some help from a ferry....

With Przemek SP7VC and Andrzej F4MFS

 

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.