IARU 2013 - picts

IARU 2013 is over... 

As every year months of preparations, constant station improvements finished with one very busy weekend in July... 

This year there were two main changes to my station configuration:

1. rotator for the antenna

2. when rotator is used it is good to have computer which calculates the bearings... computer is also very useful for other contest activities (logging, checking, playing games during storms..) So the decision was that computer will be also involved (hurrraaayy, no more paper dupesheets!!!)

My farmer (Herr Meyer) agreed to use his field as base for my contest activities (maaany thanks Herr Meyer!!!). My wife baked some cakes so both side were happy :) This time the field available was on the top of the hill and my impression is that the conditions were better then when I used the field in the valley. 

As year ago I resigned from building the tent. It takes too much time to build the tent and then to put it back to the bag. Additionally if it is raining it is a problem later to get it dry. 24 hours in the car is not that bad...

Following last year experience (started station building around 18:00 on the day before and was delayed with contest start for around an hour) this year I started much ealier - around 14:00 (2pm) on Friday. Thanks to this I started contest... with one hour delay... Maybe the reason was the changes I introduced in my GP antenna just before the contest. I thought it will take several minutes but that was definitely longer. Maybe next year I will start on time (that would be probably the first time). 

This rotator and computer changed the requirements for power. Radio alone on QRP power even with Panadapter is ok on two car batteries (my car has two). After 24 hours you can still start a car and go home. 

According to my calculations with computer and rotator I may need between 100 and 130Ah (for 24h contest). It doesn't include light and other car equipment. I was afraid that after such power consumption I may have problem to start a car - the batteries are 7 years old and don't like to be deeply discharged. For a while I wanted to buy a power generator (planned since ever) but the version I want is still to expensive. Finally I decided to get a additional battery - 12V 107Ah AGM type battery designed for solar installations and electric wheelchairs (can survive deep discharge). So finally I had almost 270Ah onboard which appeared later as more than enough.

Just before I ensured that all my three baterries are fully charged. 

IARU 2013 preparations started...

Like every year more or less this time I start to think about this year contest. Last year I had the best result ever and even was listed in official results (in NON-W/VE list) but the goal is TOP-TEN and possibly close to rather "TOP" than "TEN". It is probably many things that I could do better and have better score but I have no idea which they are :)

This year the improvements to my station setups will be at least: 1. rotator for the antenna - no more running to tower with wrench in my hand to rotate it manually... The rotator is just on the way and I expect it next week here. There are some works necessary to adapt the mast to rotator. And again I have no idea how to erect mast which this year will be even higher (plus rotator height) by one person to 15 meters height.

2. I was thinking about power generator but seems to be too expensive so far. Maybe I will consider some cheap one just for battery charging but cheap is usually enemy of "good". Luckily the rotator is powered from 12V. Maybe I will find somewhere some notebook with limited power consumption so I will have computerised station again. The advantage would be using computer for steering the rotator with automatic azimuth finding...

3. 40/80/160 meters antenna.. this is usually weak side of my station. Spiderbeam does not cover these bands so I use primitive GP antenna from 18m fiberglass mast. I have impression that it doesn't work as it should and looking for some plans for antenna based on such mast. Do you have any??
4. less sleep work more. Yes, I know - no sleep during contest. I will try this way in 2014.. maybe..

Hope the farmer, that is so kind that lets me use his field for my station will allow this this year as well. Every year my wife bakes some cookies for him. Hope he likes them :))

Seems I havent been publishing anything here for "some time". I will try to do my best to improve this.

IARU HF Championship 2012 - Results

Just published...

Looks like around 30.000 points is maximum what I can achieve from current setup. Need to consider how to double it to be always member of TOP TEN :)

IARU HF World Championship 2012 (photo only)

IARU HF Championship 2011

I have story about this contest.. stay tuned, it will come...

soon :))

18 meters fiberglass mast from Spiderbeam

Some analysis of my IARU HF Championship results show that my weak side are the lowbands (in this case 3.5 and 1.8MHz). Last year I tried to use a dipole with traps for these two bands (all the dipole is 80 meters long) but as you may suspect it is quite difficult to find a location where such dipole could be used. I guess that for such antenna I should have the height more than 3..5 meters above the ground... Last time I could use only my aluminium masts so the height was between 8..12 meters (dipole ends) - for 80..160 meters seems to be not enough.

I decided to built some GP antenna for 80 meters (and use it on 160/40m as well). I bought a 18 meters fiberglass mast from Spiderbeam.com, some wire and ropes.

Some evening equiped with all necessary tools, ropes, clamps, wires etc etc I visited my favourite "test hb9ega area" where I try all new radio ideas...

Initially I used simple configuration with just around 20m of wire along the mast and a few 20..40 meters radials around. It was loaded directly from coaxial cable. I did some tests but probably not enough to decide if it works fine or not...

I had to recalculate the lengths of guy ropes ...

As usual the requirement was that all the action related to erecting the mast must be able to be done by one person. With this mast it is no problem. Just need to create one "virtual" person who holds the base of the mast in one place:

Finally mast achieved vertical position and looked really impressive (18 meters!!).

Unfortunately that was a little bit to late and dark to make some more sophisticated tests.

Lets see how it works in future (especially in contest :))
73!

North America NAQP SSB Party

As the NAQP SSB Contest is in nice for family life time (1800Z-0600Z) I decided to take part in this contest this year (SSB part). I must also add this contest for my calendar for next year.
The biggest problem was a place.. All my places used before were equiped with Trafic Ban sign and I cannot legally accees them any more. I asked some local hams for help but they didnt point me any specific place. Again I reviewed my area with Google Earth and decided for some region. So packed everything I could find into the car and started to search for some nice place. I visited many hills (wherever I could (and sometimes was not allowed too.) and finally after around two hours I found some interesting and accessible place. I had scanner with me tunned to some RTTY stations and was looking or place with possibly strong signal reception.





The place I found was open for most directions (especially West/North-West), was not banned from traffic (at least no traffic sign) and it was road with dead end. Would be good to find owner to have "agree" but how?
I assembled Superantenna YP3 on 10m mast (for Spiderbeam there was no time) and tried to find some american stations. At the beginning I found many european stations working in contest (but not mine as the were giving report with QSO numer when in "my" contest the report was followed by name). Later I found some stations working "my" contest but any of these american stations could hear me. Finnally I did 3 QSO, two wit european stations and one with United States (but not contest - lighthouse).




This was my first real test of working from this car. It is possible and quite comfortable but I can't imagine do this for more than a few hours. This experiment enlighted also problem with power for radio - freshly charged 17Ah battery died really soon. I must have bigger battery (possibly 50..70Ah) and in future power generator. There is of course possibility to use car batery but have to find method to avoid loosing power for car startup.