ON5ZO – OQ5M

I imagine ON4BHQ kidding: “You’ve become the Poulidor of contesting!”. Poulidor goes by the name of ‘Eternally Second’. After UBA SSB it’s now in the ARRL DX CW that I have second place in Belgium. OT2A beat me in the Unlimited HP category for first ON. Last year he beat me too in claimed scores but I won after log checking (remember?). This time the difference is too big for him not to survive in the log checking process. I always get beaten on multipliers but not so this time. I even have ten more. But I lack QSO. I think I know why. ”A man is always smarter afterwards” to quote my father.

Comparison of claimed scores between OQ5M and OT2A

My quest for mults on 160 and 80 cost me a lot of time. I kept CQ’ing at a very slow rate to work at least some multipliers. Conditions on these two bands were absolutely horrible. I worked more multipliers yes, but at what cost? The cost of higher rate and more QSO on 40m.

It’s not that I did not know what was going on at the time. As soon as I saw the first packet spot for OT2A I knew ‘Country Winner’ would not come easy. I decided to keep a close eye on OT2A without him even knowing. I made use of the Reverse Beacon Network website. Yes I know: I said I don’t like Skimmers and all but this is different

I opened a ‘DX SPot Search’ window on the OT2A callsign and as soon as OT2A launched a CQ on any band, I knew he would be in the window. So I could follow his every move. Most of the time we were on the same band. Propagation dictates that. But I didn’t always agree with his choices although I understood. Sometimes I was grinding 80/160 for a QSO in the hope for a multiplier while he was on 40m. I knew the possibility that 40m would produce more rate, which it did it seems, but I really did not want to get beaten on mults. So now, afterwards I am smarter. The extra mults don’t make up for another 200 QSO on 40m. End of story.

I also used what I like most about the RBN: the Signal Comparison Tool. I learned that in most cases I was as loud as OT2A on a given Skimmer RX. Which is good because OT2A is a BIG station. Except on 40 where he usually was louder. Once again it is proven: my setup offers a lot of fun but bigger is better and height plays for horizontally polarized antennas especially when the wavelength goes up.

But Skimmers aren’t everything. There is still a big advantage of classic packet cluster spots. At one point OT2A and I were both on 10m, a few kHz away. He got a classic packet spot and things were slow (ten was horrible) so I went to listen. K0HA calls him for the NE mult. I turn green in envy and hit CTRL+Q to jump back to my CQ QRG. I’m only a few kHz away so if K0HA scans the band he’ll bump into me. Not so. Never heard him. I don’t know if he was ‘assisted’ or not but I assume he saw the spot for OT2A, worked the multiplier and went away. No classic spot for me = no NE mult. But later on it gave me an idea. Needing NE on 20, I openend up another RBN Spot Search window looking out for K0HA on 20m. As soon as he sent ‘CQ’ on 14 MHz, I’d be on top of him. And so I did and worked my NE multiplier.

For a second I was disappointed that OT2A beat me. I’m a contester and I like to win and be on top of things in Belgium. But then again: I had a good time and made the most of it given my limited setup. I only miss out on a piece of paper. Which is nothing for a weekend of big fun working only DX on all bands. And it’s more fun to have some competition than to be the only one and be ‘Country Winner’ with only 32 QSO like it happened to me  a few years ago in ARRL DX SSB.

What also could enhance the competition and ‘race’ feeling is if more people would make use of the real time score reporting possibility. I sent my score to Getscores.org but you’d need more people and especially high scorers to make it really fun. There also a Russian alternative for that but there were even less scores reported there. Maybe next time?

It’s time again for my yearly laid back CW contest: the ARRL DX CW. Laid back indeed. Point yagi to 295-300°. Call CQ on whatever band that is open to the USA at a given time. No stress, no fuss – every QSO is a blessing. The more inland the state, the better it feels. CA, WA, NM, OR always a treat. VA7 or VE6 anyone? Yummie: those fluttery signals!

Today (Friday) I had a day off from work. In the morning I set up the tower and the low band wires. It was cold and wet outside. A quick check in the shack around 09.00 utc showed poor conditions I’m afraid. 9K2/SP4R on 10m was not easy. My ‘neighbour’ ON4AFU was spotted as XU7AFU on 12m but I haven’t put up the WARC antenna. An HS0 had trouble logging a 4X call on 28 MHz. Just after 9AM UTC I worked V44KAI. On 40m! Uh oh… The reported solar numbers are too low for huge runs on 10m. My gut says even 15m won’t shine so it’ll be crowded on 20m. Again. Remember end October last year? A bottomless pit of USA on 10m and hardly a sginal on 20m because everyone was higher. Ain’t gonna happen this weekend I’m afraid. If things really go bad there won’t be anything more than a short weak opening to zone 3 on 20m.

For the rest of the day I tried to sleep a bit and rest a lot. I have no hope for fantastic propagation so I won’t be disappointed. Or at least not too much. It’s 21.30 local time now, watching some TV and waiting for the contest to start. CU on the bands!

Added 48 hours later:

The contest started slow for me. I could not get rate going on 40. Signals were not really loud, there were only the usual suspects and the noise level was pretty high. Memorable fact: my frequency-fight with YT4W. Normally I try to be ‘the better man’ and QSY but this time I fought it out with precision-timed CQ’s.
After a couple of hours I went to 80 which was even worse. Where was everyone? I didn’t think it would be this bad but sunrise propagation on 160m was pathetic. I could only hear and work 3 stations from 1-land. After that back to 80m until it died and it soon was clear that 40m was the better band. By 9 AM local time I took breakfast with the family and hit the couch for a long nap. I assumed the higher bands would not open before my lunch.

Back around 11.30 utc and the usual suspects were worked on 15m. From then on it’s just like any other contest: try to run and achieve high rates. Ten meters was a bust. Why oh why? Fifteen meters was great but only after a slow cold start. And twenty meters closed around 20.30 UTC. I granted myself a break and came back on 80 around midnight. Disappointing propagation there and a lot of noise again so I mainly spent the night on 40m. Things slowed down to the point where I was goofing up – only sleep could cure that. Seeing some OH (Fin) repeatedly spot a bunch of  W6-calls on 28 MHz at midnight with comments like ‘great opening to west coast’ was salt in the wound.

I slept between 2AM and 4AM UTC and immediately tried 160 when I got back in the shack. Better luck this time but the log counts only 41 contacts on Top Band. That’s a dozen less than last year and half of what I worked in 2009. Go figure. Some more 80 and a lot of 40 until 8AM UTC where I threw the proverbial towel and took breakfast and a short nap. I did some household chores to please the XYL, praised her lunch (macaroni and cheese = yummie) and around 12.00 UTC I started out on 20m. Then off to 15, some more trials on on 10, back to a shining fifteen until it gently started fading. I didn’t want to wait too long  so that I would miss out on 20m. I did that band for about two hours until it died which went pretty fast. It didn’t re-open.

Always the same routine in this contest. Although I remember 2001 where that same 20m never closed to the USA, not even for 100W and a low wire. That would limit the breaks I took now when there was a period without propagation to NA.

I ended the contest on 40 which was VERY crowded. Rate was low and I went to 80 for the last 30 minutes hoping to be called by another multiplier but it didn’t happen.

As always the fast hours are fun and the slow hours are boring. I’m surprised I worked so many multipliers on 15. There is quite a few z3 in there and VE7. I claimed my best result ever in this one. I think 10m must be wide open to do better than this.

There is some annyoing stuff but since it’s almost 2AM I can’t be bothered to go into details. Mostly it’s people jumping ‘into the void’ when you’re listening to a weak one. Not even ‘QRL?’, just fire away the CQ. And when there are a few callers and you ask for the ‘W1?’ you get the ‘K9′ and ‘AB4′. I expect that from European operators but not from the classy USA ops.

Can’t wait to see the claimed scores, especially OT2A’s…

I totally don’t like CW skimmers and all that stuff, especially in contesting, but I must admit I like the Reverse Beacon Network and its possibilities. After a contest I like to compare signal levels on different bands with my competitors. It also gives an immediate insight in ‘who of them was on what band at what time’. You can also use the website and its infrastructure for real time A/B comparisons. Not the subjective human ear and S-meter way, but an objective S/N measurement in dB.

I’ve been especially impressed by the speed at which the average skimmer picks up a CW CQ and feeds it into the RBN. One (1!) simple and clean CQ CQ DE OQ5M OQ5M is enough to be picked up and decoded by a bunch of skimmers over the whole world. The only mistery to me is: why does W3LPL NOT pass my decoded CQ to the normal packet/telnet DX cluster? It picks me up (see images) but it ends there while some calls are passed. Some calls that the W3LPL system seems to label as ‘DX’ while on the other hand ubiquitous stuff à la ON is not fed into the concentional DX cluster. I understand that this filter is applied but I’d love to see me spotted as much as other do by the W3LPL system  :-)

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Another nice tool, although not as useful, is the real time log by HRD. If you work someone and look him/her up on QRZ, sometimes this is what you see:

HRD Web Logbook

The practical use of this is absolutely zero but it’s nice to see how ham radio developers are embracing web technology. I have discovered more of that lately, and it got me thinking. Oh boy, ON5ZO started thinking…

Very hectic times here. Since two weeks there’s another mouth to feed. Yes ON5ZO is homebrewing himself a crew of M/M ops! Shack time has been zero. I just let Windows update itself and let the amp run dry for a few hours. There is plenty in the blog-buffer to write about but I just don’t have the time.

The scarce free time was spent on collecting and accepting the logs for the UBA SSB contest. Along came the ususal problems of people sending empty mails, ADIF i.s.o. Cabrillo, zipped files, unreadable files and sometimes things close to Cabrillo but not quite. The good thing is that the software now catches these mails and rejects the log (if any) and let’s me send a warning. Before the ‘mail-humanoid’ (it’s not a robot since I control it so there is human intervention) all this crap was accepted and then when the log checking began, it turned out all these ‘logs’ were not readable. So in three years time the UBA DX Contest made a giant leap forward on all fronts. Not meaning to honk my own horn here, but it’s a fact. It’s good to team up with Marc ON7SS, a dedicated workhorse. He handles most of the issues with the participants (mostly Belgians) and keeps a close eye on what my software is doing. And keeps calm when I goof up  :-)

About the UBA SSB contest: it seems OS8A beat me (again) in the 12h high power category. He was giving out big numbers and I hoped that he would be in the 24h category. Not so. No plaque this year. I admit to be human and sometimes weak: for a moment I thought to send in the log as 24h HP and win the plaque there. But it didn’t feel right. I would not really ‘steal’ the 24h HP plaque from anyone since I was confident that no one would make enough QSO for a plaque there. Which after the deadline turns out to be true. But that would not be a problem for me: if you can’t make more points in double the time, you don’t really deserve to win.

My issue is that I promote fair play and ham spirit and changing categories to win a plaque is neither of those. Furthermore my competitors and friends know I did 12h HP, so they would also know that I switched categories after the contest just to win a plaque. I would be looking at a plaque I didn’t really win and risk losing the respect of my contesting friends. BTW I assume I have some respect  That respect and a clean reputation are worth more than a plaque. Which is easy to say if you already have a bunch of plaques, I admit. So I sent in the log as 12h HP which is what I actually did.

This weekend ARRL DX CW. I received a certificate last week saying #10 World in SOAB (A) HP. I plan to be there again, I just don’t know what to expect because I haven’t done much operating lately and I wonder what’s up with the sun and the propagation?

Since the UBA has its own set of categories, it is usefull for the participants to clearly mark their category. It seems that many participants have troubles doing so. Most of those are from Belgium. ON participants have another problem: they also need to fill in their Belgian province. If they fail to do so, the log will not be processed. Since N1MMLogger is the most used contest logger, I will try to explain how to do so.

FOR EVERY PARTICIPANT REGARDLESS THE SOFTWARE:

First of all, pick your category from the list. The complete list is shown on the rules website.

Overview of the possible categories in the UBA DX Contest

Then open your log with your favorite ASCII editor (I use NotePad, which is called ‘Kladblok’ in Dutch). You can do this by clicking on the log file icon with the mouse’s right button:

Right click the icon and look 'Open with...', pick Notepad or whatever ASCII editor you use.

The log opens, look for the ‘category’ line in the header:

Look for the category field

Then change the category to the abbreviation from the list: A40HP, DXD, AL… I was CH in my example. This gives the following result:

Change the category into the category you entered (see the list)

Make sure you leave the ‘CATEGORY:’ intact! Save the file and mail it to us. Please don’t ZIP it or perform other modifications on the log.

ONLY FOR BELGIAN PARTICIPANTS USING N1MMLOGGER:

When you open the new contest log and set all parameters, you see this:

The 'Prov' is now changed into VB (my province). Put your own province abbreviation there.

In the ‘sent exchange’ text field, you need to change the ‘Prov’ into the two letter province abbreviation. Possible values are: AN, BW, HT, LB, LG, NM, LU, OV, VB, WV and the region of Brussels: BR. If you fail to do so and keep ‘Prov’ then the Cabrillo output will show ‘??’ where the province goes. This means we cannot process your log.

This gives the following:

The 'Prov' is now changed into VB (my province). Put your own province abbreviation there.

Click ‘OK’ and all is set.

We could of course do all this for you but we’d rather not. We receive a  lot of logs so it would take us a lot of time to edit and fix all the logs. Furthermore we would need to contact you to ask your province of category which in turn is even more work. We hope that prople will pay more attention in the future and this small ‘how to’ guide might help you. 95% of the logs are OK, it’s only the 5% that causes troubles. We hope to be able to reduce this even more in the future.

January has been a very calm month in the shack. In fact I only made my first QSO of the year on Friday 27^th. I spent the first month of the year buried under QSL cards. I also wanted to make some changes to the UBA Log Acceptance Software. It needed some fine tuning to reject bad logs. Like logs where the call in the QSO line doesn’t match the used call. Or logs where 59(9) and serial numbers are reversed. Yes it all happens. Some people use software that is not suited for the job.

Four weeks without a single QSO – it’s hard. Especially when ON4BHQ reports daily what he worked which is what I missed. And with a few DXpeditions on the air (HK0NA, VP6T and TN2T), it was itching. Especially TN2T since I know many of the operators in person. So on Friday up went the tower and along the low band wires and the WARC antenna. Then off to the shack. Propagation seemed not too good. But what really disgusted me was the behaviour of the DXers in the pile ups. And if not in the pile up, it’s on the DX QRG. The same shit over and over again. The TN2T boys seem to be plagued by carriers and tuners on their QRG.

I admit: at least two times I was the monkey keying simplex. I find the K3 very vague about being split mode or not. I blame the 2^nd RX. You hear the pile up and the DX in each one ear, but sometimes the rig is reset to simplex (after a keyboard triggered QSY). Then I feel bad adding to the mayhem. But it’s an accident. What can’t be said about tuning right on the DX or deliberate jamming.

At one point there was one guy constantly sending ‘NW MORE QRM NW MORE QRM’ (on top of VP6T I believe). I can understand the frustration. We all have lost a QSO or missed a confirmation because some idiot was keying or talking right when you THINK the DX calls you. ‘Abyssus abyssum invocat’ as we say, it’s only human and sometimes hard to resist to seek vengeance.

I gave myself the weekend to work the expeditions on 80 and 40 CW. I forgot that the contest was SSB so I had to adjust the 80m vertical for the SSB subband. So I had only one sunrise. On Friday night things were a ‘no go’ so I ended the day with an hour in the CQ 160 CW contest. Made 105 QSO in 1 hour but only EU. I think the DX days of 160 are numbered with the rising SFI. I set the alarm to 06.00 utc on Saturday. I heard VP6T on 80m. Weak but workable and he was working z14 EU. Then he quit. Chance missed. HK0NA was VERY loud which attracted a huge crowd as well. Didn’t work them either. Here’s what I did work:

• HK0NA: 10 CW, 30 CW, 40 CW
• VP6T: 20 CW, 40 CW
• TN2T: 10 CW + SSB, 15 CW + SSB, 20 CW + SSB, 40 CW + SSB, 17 CW

Then came the UBA DX SSB contest. I don’t like this one as opposed to CW but somehow I feel obliged to participate. The XYL doesn’t understand that. Why do something you don’t like? Yes why? It’s the timing (January, many other contests) and the mode that make it less appealing to me. Although it seems the contest had better ‘ation’ this year. Better propagation. Better participation. The operator on the contrary lacked concentration. My wife’s due to give birth to our second kid this very weekend so it could be that I had to quit the chair right in the middle of the contest…

It didn’t happen (still waiting!) but the contest result is only so-so. I took many breaks and a long nap. Before going to sleep on Sunday morning I spent another hour in the CQ 160 CW contest. This time I was able to cross the EU borders. VY2ZM (loudest), a couple of East Coasters and UP2L and P33W for Asia. I heard Nebraska covered under a loud EU. If not for the EU I might have worked a new state on 160. There were several weak Americans that I could hear in between CQ’s of loud EU’s on top of them. Useless to call them because the EU always thought I was calling him. I was thinking to drop 160 in the ARRL CW contest next month. But there you go: it’s still possible to work transatlantic DX on 160 with my poor Top Band antenna. And each QSO there is a possible multiplier! I must say these were the weakest USA signals I heard on 160 since 2009.

Saturday’s sunrise was a big zero on 80m SSB in the UBA contest. Suddenly HK0NA was spotted right beside me. Loud! He was listening ‘3801 and also 3798’. But I didn’t get through the packet spot’s induced pileup. It was useless to listen on 80 CW since the antenna was shortened for SSB.

Of course there was the traditional clash with the British rag chewers. Not the Germans this time. The Brit came whining that I totally devastated the American he was talking to ‘1kHz up’. I had asked 3x if the frequency was free, honestly I didn’t hear him nor the American so I fired a CQ. But apparently I was QRM’ing him. I left him whining on my QRG and QSY’d 1kHz up where he said he was before. There I asked 3x if the frequency was free (no reply of course) and started CQ’ing. He came back and was not amused when I told him again that here too no one replied to my triple fold question if the QRG was free. He concluded that “there is something wrong with your ear then”. He didn’t share my sense of humour when I replied my rear is working just fine. Oh well, ragchewers and their shoe size conversations…

It became clear that I needed to move up the bands for the UBA contest. I had a huge gap on 20m where nothing worked on Saturday. I filled the gap and then did the 10/15/20 shuffle for the remaining hours. I was glad when it was over. I went outside and took tower and antennas down again. Three weeks until ARRL CW. Three weeks that will be full of anything but ham radio…

I just opened my mailbox and was shocked to see ‘P43JB SK’. I could not call CQ, be it in a contest or on the WARC bands, and Joop would call me.

I met him in person in Friedrichshafen 2005 or 2006. We both attended the BCC Contest Dinner. It was a hot evening and a lot of people went outside for some fresh air. There we met and started talking about who knows what. Contesting, DX and antennas for sure. I remember him as a warm, open friendly guy. While we were chatting, his wife was taking pictures left and right.

A couple of weeks later, there was an envelope in my mailbox. He had a picture of us both printed and mailed it to me. I didn’t ask for the picture to be taken, I never asked for the picture to be sent to me. He just did it. The picture has been on the shack’s wall ever since. In fact, it’s even the only picture that is there (don’t have any other ‘famous ham shots’). I always was glad to work him and say a quick hello. That’s what our hobby is all about.

Thanks a lot P43JB for the 45 CW QSO in the last ten years. RIP OM Joop!

Sometimes a bad performance still yields a surprising result. My IARU Championship performance in 2011 was NOT good, in fact it was pathetic to my own set standards. A boring contest too because of the lack of DX. It was the turning point of bad versus less bad / good propagation. The results are out and indeed on a global scale my ranking stinks. But what if we look to CW only HP in ITU zone 27? Yes, number one. No big deal. It seems that there were no real competitors, mostly casual participants. And only 10 in total… Too bad the certificates for the IARU contests for Belgian participants are never signed by the national organisation’s president (UBA). I have a few of them but the signature lacks.

Sometimes you discover nice QSL cards in a big stack, cards that bring back memories. Sometimes you discover a lot of bad QSL cards in a big stack. Not in log, bad date, bad mode.

Sometimes ON4BHQ links to a bargain. This time he points out that the ALS-1300 seems to have dropped in price as quoted on a German distributor’s site. Less than 2600 Euro for 1200W solid state / no tune is a good price-to-power ratio. Too bad quite a few reviews on eHAM say it stinks. No sign of the ACOM 800W SS amp so far either… Speaking of which: maybe it’s not good to be an early adopter. Let the masses discover the design flaws and buy a revised model later on.

Sometimes you just got to have patience and process another few hundred QSL cards.

The new year 2012 is gearing up but things have been slow in the ham radio department. I chased a second hand bargain price solid state amp last week but since the seller lives more than 90 minutes away from here one way, I just couldn’t get there before the weekend. First come, first served. Bye bye amp.

I did a final inspection of the tower and rotator on Friday and got a kind helping hand (in fact a pair of them) to put it back on track on Saturday. It was pretty cold but sunny and dry. I had to climb up two times and put on gloves the second time. The aluminium was so cold! And I really don’t like climbing towers.

I also collected three years worth of ‘buro QSL’. Three shoe boxes. Not for infant beach slippers, no: adult boots size 45. I’ve already done 2/3^rd of one box. That’s almost 700 confirmed QSO that need to be QSL’ed. For 2/3^rd of the smallest box so in the end it’ll be a few thousand *sigh*.

I loved QSL when I started in the hobby. Everyone remembers the first DX cards.  Over the years I’ve come to hate it. It costs money and even worse: a lot of time. Face it: almost all of our QSL cards are stored away in boxes, cases, cabinets etc. And what do we do with it? With LotW no sane person still sends actual cards to the ARRL, does he? If I ever need to retrieve a card for say Nebraska on 10m CW, I’ll need to go through ALL cards to find it. Knowing Murphy a few thousand cards will pass through my hands then.

I admit that it is a part of our hobby. Another legacy from a previous century, just like the antique CW that I love so much. So now I’m filling up the second plastic box (yup, this one) to put it back into the storage room. I remember the day that Scott W4PA (the world’s most read contest blog before he quit the scene out of the blue) wrote about throwing away thousands of QSL cards. All his cards into the bin, all at once. Good riddance! He coined the term ‘blasphemy’ and I felt like that when I read it so I will never throw away all those cards – for now. Gosh, it’s more than three years already that W4PA’s contesting log burned out. How time flies!

Back to the pile of QSL. The plan was to use GlobalQSL: upload ADIF, click here and click there – done. And pay over 100 US$ per 1000 cards. That will cost me a few hundred Dollars for this QSL-batch. Alternative is buy the cheapest of the cheap cards from UX5UO (who offers very good price/quality). Why buy full cover glossy cards when they end up in boxes never to see the light again? The price of the QSL cards is in favour of UX5UO, but then I need to buy labels, print them and stick then on the cards. More work! As if they smelled it, ON5UR QSL Print Service sent out a promo-mail today announcing even nicer cards. Max ON5UR’s cards are VERY nice and ultra high quality  but too expensive for me to buy them – on principle. My card only ends up in your box never to be seen again, right?

I’ll just plough my way through the three boxes and see how many cards I need. Then decide what to do. Some people knit a sweater next to the fireplace, I just process the QSL you sent me. No, I don’t throw them in the fireplace.  :)

This time the beast has been given a name: Andrea. She even makes watefalls run uphill. Last night was bad. Overnight the wind picked up speed. But this morning around 10.40 local time the sky turned black and there was a roaring noise. I went upstairs into the shack to look through the window and check the tower and antennas. My stomach turned upside down. Hail, rain, thunder and hurricaine-ish winds. The mast had turned another 90° and while noticing this, there was a strong gust that swang the yagi and dipole another 90° live as I was watching. Total offset from from the rotor’s controller position is now 270°.

Clearly the Create (type RC5-B3, the heavy duty model) rotator’s mounting flanges got somewhat loose so they lost grip on the 50 mm aluminum tube (10 mm wall thickness). I climbed the tower yesterday afternoon when storm #1 was gone. You can see the ‘skid marks’ of the mast’s tube wrubbing the clamps. Still the clamps have enough grip to rotate the antennas even in the wind. I’m kinda lucky the mast slipped in the rotator. If not the motor’s gears might have been destroyed. The problem is that to tighten the flanges again, the inner section of the tower needs to be cranked up. You cannot put a wrench on the bolts when the inner section is nested into the two outer sections.

As per OptiBeam’s directions, I have always turned the antenna’s elements into the wind so it’s the yagi’s boom that takes the wind load. This has never been a problem in the past. Until now. I draw two conclusions. First: this is one helluva storm with the strongest winds I have ever witnessed since moving in here in 2003. Second thought: once or twice a year when the tower is tilted over, I check and tighten all the bolts. But since installing the tower and antennas in October 2004, I have never touched the rotator clamp’s bolts (because they’re hard to reach, as mentioned above). So these bolts will now also be tightened when I do a checkup. I might as well buy a tube wrench for this.

ON7RU said that sometimes people put a bolt through the mast and the clamps to join them. This way the two can’t move relative to each other and the tube can’t slip on the rotator. I wonder if this is a good idea since the torque on the rotator might become very high.

Another thing that crossed my mind is that it would be handy if the rotator’s controller had an offset adjustment. That way I could readjust the bearing and calibrate north regardless of the potmeter’s position. The Green Heron controller has this function. But it’s an expensive piece of hardware while the original Create controller is working fine. And it doesn’t tighten the bolts either.

If 80-100 km/h wind gusts can do this (and other damage all over Belgium), I do not want to see what a real hurricaine or a tornado would do to our house and the antennas… The horror!