Getting Cold
Last weekend we had Scandinavian Activity Contest (SAC) SSB, where I was planning to participate in QRP category. For the contest I decided to improve my station 80m performance. Everything did not go as planned, especially since all the work had to be done in the evenings when the outdoor temperature was below 5 degrees.
The 80m phased array with two end-fed dipoles was ready on Thursday without remote relay controls. I did on-air tests on Thursday evening and everything was fine. I installed the remote control cables on early Friday morning before leaving for work.
Unfortunately, I started feeling ill during the day, got fever in the afternoon and lost my voice in the evening. What a bummer! Needless to say that I was forced to skip the SSB contest.
I will detail the antenna construction step by step, lessons learned, and the system setup I was using to cosntruct the phased array.
I named the antenna based on the radiation pattern that resembles a duck (at least remotely):
This picture was generated with EZNEC+ v. 5.0.
The "lame" part of the name I return in my later posts.
QRP: 4U1VIC by DxCoffee
Team DXCoffee activated UN building in Vienna from 4U1VIC (Vienna International Center). For DXCC this counts as Austria, but this is a separate entity for WAE award by DARC.
The band conditions were absolutely horrible. At the times the station was below the noise and barely audible. They were running SSB and callign CQ lonely when I found them. Working the station with 5 watts seemed to be impossible, but I left my radio on the frequency. Suddenly, the band opened and the station was coming S9+10. I gave all out effort with the voice that I had left and used the QRP as part of the call to get their attention. It worked. Giving my call a few times with different ways they finally managed to copy it correctly from the noise. New WAE entity was in the log in QRP style. Congratulations for the DxCoffee team for the activation and making this possible. Great ears, hi!
QRP: Rodrigues Island by HB9FR Radio 7 Team
The pedition came on air on Monday afternoon.
I tried to work them late in the evening on 40 with no luck. The propagation was not the best possible with lots of QRN as well. I gave up maybe a bit too quickly but I felt really tired so I went to bed.
On Tuesday I checked that they had a station running SSB on 10 but nothing on 15 and nothing CW. I figured they might come on air soon with CW and my bet was on the 15. Sometimes my HAM friends ask me how is it possible to work DX peditions with 5 watts through a pileup. Well.. the best way to work them QRP is to be there first before pileups mount. This was the case with 3B9SP as well. I had radio on 15, keyer ready, splits programmed, antenna pointing to 3B9 and all my scanners running on 15 waiting for station to come on air. This time the waiting was short. Less than 30 minutes waiting and scanning the bands before any cluster spots appear. I was not the first one to work them on 15, but I think I worked them QRP less than 2 minutes after their first CQ on 15.
I think the op was still familiarizing himself with the radio and how to control split since he was asking up, but at the same time running QRH simplex. This is quite unusual method of working split and I felt a bit unsure was it really a 3B9SP or a pirate that I worked, but just a couple of calls after me HB9DAX a well known QRP DXer called his countrymen and had a short qso. The op there id'd himself as HB9BQP who is listed as one of the team members on the DX website. So I felt confident that it was a real deal. Just 10 minutes later he started running split, so I guess he was just getting used to a new radio.
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