Another contest you say? Yes, another contest I say!

This time: WAE CW. Yes: Worked All Europe. But Europeans don’t work Europe. We work DX. Yes: DX. That means: far away. Which makes it hard. We like things hard. If it’s easy anyone could do it. Actually anyone can do it. But not everyone is crazy enough to do so.

From the archives:

For the record: WAE CW

WAE CW is a bit of a stinker. WAE CW is one of my favorite contests. There you go, once again I exhibit a bipolar disorder.

WAE CW is one of my favorite contests because:

• It is CW.
• It is only DX and some nice one.
• QTC! QTC? Yes, QTC. If you like CW and unpredictable exchanges, this is it.

WAE CW is a bit of a stinker because:

• It’s almost always hot with a chance of thunderstorms that more often than never come to life.
• It is not a rate contest and there is a very big imbalance between DX (not much) and EU (a lot of).
• It can get slow and boring at times. “Slow like WAE on Sunday” is an expression.

 

What’s up with QTC?

Setup HF – SSB and CW Contests

Want to train copying QTC?

QTC Training Sound Files

 

This year it was just too hot. Ridiculously hot. A heat wave ramped up on Thursday with outside temperatures of 37°C and more. I knew this would be a problem in the shack. It would make for some very uncomfortable hours. I even contemplated not playing at all. In the end I decided to settle for a low key casual participation. After the contest I can say that the shack’s temperature was always over 30°C peaking over 32°C on Sunday. That’s inside, where I operate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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WAE CW Contest Making myself heard on the bands. Not much motivation for something competitive-ish. That dreaded heat wave might be the reason: it’s 27.7°C in the shack and the day still has to start. I already took a bunch of QTC and I still got it. ___________________________________________________ #cqcontest #hamradio #amateurradio #radioaficionado #waedc #hamradiocontest

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 8 Aug 2020 om 12:20 (PDT)

 

Another reason why I wasn’t tempted: N1MMLogger. The QTC part is the programmers’ nightmare and I suspected a few bugs this year too. I knew I had to test in advance but I just couldn’t get myself to do that. Also: I don’t like the dedicated QTC window that got introduced a few years ago. Under pressure of the RTTY crowd? Clearly mouse driven operating. YUK. I was very fond of the classic interface using the Entry Window to log QTC. No mouse needed! Never a problem. A few days before the contest I saw a few mails passing from the German contest reflector: QTC logging problems. There you go. I did a quick test of the latest update when I booted the computer late Friday evening. It seemed to work. But you never know…

I knew that I was making a tactical mistake by starting late and sleep the night from Friday to Saturday but I just couldn’t be bothered. First QSO at 0540 utc on 7001.85. Pretty low in the band. That’s 7 MHz real estate reserved for the big gun hotshot contest folks. And me. First reply: NO6T with that distinctive fluttery sound of a more polar propagation path. California Über Alles! Next up: W9RE and let’s shake the tree with a batch of QTC – success! The logger worked and I still could copy CW. The run didn’t last long. After such a late start the band closed for DX so I tried 20m to the east. That kinda worked too: a lot of UA9, a bunch of JA, a VK and I QSY’ed for KL7SB with QTC to boot. I got bored around 0700 utc and took a loooong break. I even took a beauty sleep after lunch. Unplanned and it was longer than it should have been.

The rest of the day (late afternoon, evening and early night) was spent on 20m and 40m. Running, begging for QTC and S&P for multipliers. I did a quick scan of the still unexplored 80m band and went to bed between 1AM and 4AM utc. The bed was empty: the XYL moved downstairs to sleep on the couch. It was much somewhat cooler in the living room than upstairs under the roof. I took a portable fan from the shack to the bedroom to create at least the illusion of a draft and exorcising the devilish heat. Nevertheless I slept deeply and even hit swiped the snooze button too often.

I was QRV for sunrise and found a noisy and deserted 3.5 MHz band. Not much to work and no replies to my CQ. A bit of a shame because the RBN showed my signal all over the globe. It wasn’t much better on 40. That is: the band was good but not many folks to work me. Break(fast). An hour later: back to 20 and 15. Fifteen was very quiet. No propagation. I squeezed out a signal and 10 QTC on 28 MHz: 4Z4AK. This weekend was Cycle 24 at its best in bringing out the worst: closed bands. Don’t care: another cool-down break and another excessive nap.

In the meantime a few threatening clouds tried to cramp my contest style:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Ever heard the sound of a rain shower? This is it. It’s called ‘precipitation static’ and it’s caused by an electrically charged cloud. In this case: right over my head / antenna. In winter when it’s a snow cloud, the effect is even worse. The clip is an A/B comparison: With noise and nothing but noise, making signals hard to copy or mask them completely; versus With a dummy antenna, so no noise from the cloud (and no signals either). ___________________________________________________________ #hamradio #amateurradio #radioaficionado #hamradiofordummies #hamradioantenna #staticnoise

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 9 Aug 2020 om 4:13 (PDT)

 

It was very hot outside and relatively hotter in the shack. I got a peak of 32.5°C in the shack. I did my best to find the fun and I managed to find some consolation: I was working DX, chasing multipliers and getting QTC. I was not putting down a big score but it is what it is. Namely: HOT!

Shout out to my RX loops. They were invaluable for easy listening in diversity mode on 80+40m. And sometimes they were the difference between not making a contact or logging it in the end. The difference when switching between both directions was stunning this time.

Bottom line: WAE CW 2020 is done. Except for the heat is was a good one. No stress, lots of DX and of 1000 QTC logged. Hell yeah!

 

My 15th participation in this contest. One of my favorite contests. And I seem to do quite well: #12 in the top 100 of all times.

 

Statistics here:   http://scc.hamradio.si/euhf/statistics_top_100_all_time.php

I left the tower up after IARU. That’s three weeks. Make it easy on myself. Come Friday: 39°C heat, thunderstorms predicted – with possible heavy gusts exceeding 80 km/hr. Better safe than sorry so I lowered the tower on Friday in the scorching heat. Needless to say: no thunderstorm, no rain, no wind over my QTH.

Setting up again on Saturday, with low band wires and additional RX loop. Luckily my youngest son is becoming more handy and interested so I got a pair of little helping hands. His support is becoming more valuable instead of just symbolic.

Sweat all over the place while doing the antenna preparation. My T-shirt got soaked but everything got ready well in time and a shower washed away the sweat and body odor.

I had big fun chasing SJ2W for a z14 win. Check out his site ( http://www.sj2w.se/contest/ ) and IG account ( https://www.instagram.com/sm2wmv_sj2w/  ). Mike and I go way back since the good ol’ days of WWYC. We were young then, but we’re still kicking butt on the bands today!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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That was a lot of fun! Extra fun to fight with buddy Franki, OQ5M @on5zo #euhfc2020 #euhfc #radiosport #sj2w

Een bericht gedeeld door Mikael Larsmark (@sm2wmv_sj2w) op 2 Aug 2020 om 1:14 (PDT)

BTW: Real time scores are a hit! Check it out: http://cqcontest.net/

You can’t beat the guys in S-E EU but at least we kept the Germans off. Of course: SJ2W is a BIG GUN station. He’s got a bunch of HIGH towers and more monobander yagis than my small tribander counts elements. His ‘in band antenna site’ on the side is even bigger than my station. But the race was a thrill and I enjoyed every moment of it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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EUHFC Antenna set for EU. Already over 26°C in the shack without any device running. Oh boy. Counting down to 1200 utc… _____________________________________________ #cqcontest #euhfc #euhfc2020 #hamradio #amateurradio #radioaficionado #hamradiocontest

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 1 Aug 2020 om 4:19 (PDT)

It was very hot in the shack. Over 26°C before I switched on rigs and the amp. It got up to 30.1°C when running in the heat of the battle – pun intended.

Shout out to rookie OT5Z who did his first full time contest. Welcome to the scene and make yourself heard! Thanks for the ‘15’ multiplier!

 

The rate was fine and in the end I claim my biggest score ever: most QSO, most multipliers, highest score.

It does NOT get any better than this. Or does it?

 

Those who check out my IG account have seen this already but I want to gather the snippets in one post here. I’m learning to operate my employer’s laser cutting machine and instead of just cutting up and burning wood to charcoal, I try to end up with something useful – whatever this term may mean in this particular context…

Some of it is an enhancement of my previous experiment called ‘pimp your ham stuff’ (Sept. 2017).

I hope you like it as much as I did making it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Ham radio callsign shizzle while learning to operate the laser cutter… Previously I had printed this on paper, laminated with plastic foil and cut out the “flight case font” with an exacto knife. The new process goes much faster, is much more precise and is easier to use. The 5mm wood does not flex like the laminated paper. You can buy the alphabet and numbers as a template (expensive!) from a flightcase shop but I think I’ll make my own set. In different sizes. I ♥️ laser cutting! ________________________________________________ #hamradio #amateurradio #hamradiocallsign #lasercutting #brmlasers

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 3 Jul 2020 om 12:46 (PDT)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Lasercutter for dummies What is it with amateur radio operators and their call signs? If you’re learning the tricks of the laser cutter, you might as well do something usefull. 410x150mm, 5mm thick (birch?) multiplex. Holes in corner are also lasered, ⌀ 5mm. I feel more lasered gizmos coming! Too bad it doesn’t do metal _________________________________________________ #hamradio #amateurradio #radioaficionado #hamradiocallsign #hamradioporn #lasercutting #brmlasers #technischonderwijs

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 29 Jun 2020 om 9:27 (PDT)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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– … Since everyone voted ‘yes’ in the poll, here’s the last of my lasercut callsign creations. A set of letters cut out the same size as the laser ‘inversely etched’ board and spray painted in shiny gold. Then glued on with fast sticking glue. I made another one like this for someone else (kid’s room decoration) but with the shading done darker (i.e. higher laser power so the wood burns darker). The background is darker then making the golden letters stand out more. I liked this better than the one for me. Live and learn… ________________________________________________. #lasercutting #hamradiocallsign #amateurradio #hamradio #hamradioart #hamradioporn

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 29 Jul 2020 om 2:16 (PDT)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Ham Radio things with the laser cutter pt. III For years I have been using these wire antenna end insulators. Hand made with a hacksaw from a leftover piece of plexiglass plate. Recently I discovered these can be lasercut too. So I made the most of a broken cover of my small greenhouse (storm damage). 200x25mm, three 4mm holes for the wire ends, 7mm hole to hook it up. All lasered. These are used for dipoles, verticals and elevated radials. Easy to switch from CW to the occasional SSB length on 80m. Just slip wire through and fold back. It took a few tries to find the optimal travel speed and power setting for the laser but I got it nailed for 3mm thickness. ________________________________________________ #hamradio #amateurradio #radioaficionado #diyhamradio #homebrewantenna #wireantennas #lasercutting

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 14 Jul 2020 om 5:20 (PDT)

 

 

I have been making use of Instagram for a while because it allows for fast publishing of BS and images.

https://www.instagram.com/on5zo/

Lately I haven’t got much to say that is blog worthy. After all these years you cannot keep on telling the same things about the same contests.

Here is a collection of things I posted about the 20m dipole on my portable field day mast made of tubular tower and a base with a winch mounted on it. I made a tapered aluminum 20m dipole which is a beauty but too heavy for my mast. This mast was designed to haul up some wire antennas for field day, not to carry heavy aluminum antennas. Let alone a rotator.

In the end I decided it was too risky to put this in the air even without any wind. I made up an ad-hoc wire dipole on two cheap lightweight fishing poles I have here for almost ten years. This worked just fine on a mechanical level and proved a winner RF-wise to fill the gap when the beam was to USA. It was oriented with the antenna lobes radiating to Japan and SW-EU.

 

Making the coax choke

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Upcycling a leftover stretch of Aircell7 to feedpoint and coax choke for yet another upcoming antenna project. Something lightweight horizontally polarized on the field day mast as addition to the yagi for single band contesting. Putting my SJ2W design stackmatch to work, filling the gaps in the elevation pattern. Yes: wannabe Big Gun things… ________________________________________________ #cqcontest #amateurradio #hamradio #radioaficionado #coaxchoke #aircell7

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 13 Jun 2020 om 7:40 (PDT)

 

Attaching to the mast

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The center assembly for the 20m dipole is ready: feed point and bracket to attach to the portable field day mast. Starting diameter is 40mm. A bit overkill for a 20m band element (~10m long) but the center isolator was made for this and I don’t have access to a lathe right now to turn it down. Adapt, improvise, overcome. Maybe I’ll use agressive tapering to get to a smaller diameter fast. I’ve never put anything this big in my /P mast. Only wires. I hope it’ll work. Build first, worry later! ________________________________________________ #hamradio #amateurradio #diyhamradio #hamradioantennas #antennaporn #dipoleantenna #homebrewantenna

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 19 Jun 2020 om 1:40 (PDT)

 

The mast partially assembled

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Gravity unleashed upon the lower 6m of my modular winched field day mast. The project I learned welding with in 2014. It can go up to 15m high by adding more aluminum tubes. It’s designed to haul up dipoles with ropes and pulleys. Setting up extra stuff for next weekend’s contest… __________________________________________ #hamradio #amateurradio #radioaficionado #diyhamradio #antennamast #antennaporn

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 9 Jul 2020 om 2:37 (PDT)

 

Aluminum version too heavy

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Bollocks! This 10.5m long half wave dipole for 14 MHz is a heavy duty beauty but my fear became reality: too heavy for my portable auxiliary tower which was designed to carry wire dipoles (inverted V style) and get raised “unloaded”. I got it up to 8m for a test which proved calculations and production was spot on. But it is not something for my field day mast. I still have one day before the contest. Adapt, improvise, overcome. Plan B is hatching… _______________________________________________ #amateurradio #hamradio #radioaficionado #dipoleantenna #antennaporn #diyhamradio

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 9 Jul 2020 om 2:48 (PDT)

 

Lightweight wire version is up!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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ON5ZO’s Quick Fix 20m dipole, feather weight class. Using 2x 4m long El Cheapo fishing poles. So the wire ends simply hang loose 🤙 Currently about 12m above ground with signal lobe to Russia and S-W EU. A/A+B/B stackmatched with the 3L yagi. A waste of the time that went into the aluminum dipole that is too heavy for this mast… ______________________________________________ #hamradio #amateurradio #antennaporn #dipoleantenna #radioaficionado #homebrewantenna #diyhamradio

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 10 Jul 2020 om 4:52 (PDT)

 

 

I did not participate in 2019 but this year I wanted some piece of the action cake again. A huge slice (20 CW) or nothing. As a one man show of course. I’m not someone who shares the little fun that one band offers in just 24 hours.

Two years ago  (link)  I managed to stay out of the remote network. As the only station out of twelve. I am not a huge fan, it doesn’t help me to make a QSO extra and it opens up Pandora’s box for software problems or freezing logger software. I attended a pre-COVID meeting early February, during one of those stormy weekends. We were still joking about the virus then. Little did we know.

I felt kinda pushed into the remote network thing during that meeting. One of the UBA officials made it more or less clear that it was mandatory for everyone. Fair enough so at one point I said I would step back if that was the case. With no hard feelings. And I meant it. Rather do Single Op than do something I don’t like. And I would not hold that against anyone. That strong is my feeling against all those gimmicks that don’t really lead up to extra on the air performance. And for those who don’t know me: if you try to twist my arm… I find ‘Prinzipienreiter’ such a beautiful word.

Another UBA official said that two years ago I made a lot of QSO (i.e. more than anyone else) and that finding a valuable replacement would not be easy. True ☺. Someone else at the table tried to ensure me that this network thing is completely transparent and does not cause latency or did not cause any problems with the logging software. So in the end I agreed to give it a try and make everyone happy. But with a lot of doubts and prejudice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Found in the mailbox: a gift from the UBA (Union of Belgian Amateur radio operators). A personalized polo shirt for this weekend’s 🇧🇪 OPØHQ 🇧🇪 operation in the IARU HF Championship. I’ll be one of the 12 Belgian Headquarter stations. If you work OPØHQ on 20m in CW, don’t forget to say hello! It’s me running the show there. – – . . . . . . – – ________________________________________________ #cqcontest #hamradio #amateurradio #radioaficionado #iaruhfworldchampionship #iaruhf #iaru #ubacontest #hamradiocontest #iarucontest #arrl #greatesthobbyintheworld

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 10 Jul 2020 om 1:44 (PDT)

Just like in 2018 I wanted an extra antenna to fill the gap to EU when running USA. I used a wire dipole as an almost flat top antenna, stackmatched with the yagi. It felt it was a good addition. This year I made a full size aluminum dipole. Very successful project, but too heavy for my field day mast (link). I could crank the tower up but it felt unsafe. Since my garden is not that big I tried to leave it unguyed. The antenna analyzer showed a nice SWR curve but it is simply too heavy. All that 36 hours before the contest. All that work for nothing. Even worse: I now need to stock a full size 20m dipole.

On Friday I settled for plan B: two lightweight and cheap fishing poles and copper wire. The field day mast was installed anyway. Might as well use it instead of the fiber glass poles I used two years ago. I hauled the portable tower up and SWR was flat along the 20m band. The fishing poles are only 4m long. I left the excess wire hanging loose towards the ground. This dipole was now about 12m above the ground or 0.6 λ. It was fixed with the lobe to Japan and France/Spain and CN. I connected the rig straight to the stackmatch. Nothing in between. I did some RX testing and it worked just fine. The yagi and the dipole have about the same impedance R+Xj, which means the A+B transformer makes it back to 50Ω. I could use the amp settings for all three options (A or A+B or B). So I would not have to touch the amp. Friday afternoon, all set to go.

I will be short about the contest. All things went great. Even the network. Rate was good, DX was good but the band did close for a few hours. I decided to take nap, because calling CQ in vain is tiresome and I wanted to be fit when the band opened up again. I was QRV around 5AM local time, which is 0300z. But the band was still closed. Apart from some big gun Russians which were of course worked on Saturday. I had set myself the goal of 2000 QSO but I fell short two dozen claimed QSO. I think that this is about as good as it gets with one small tribander (short boom) only 1 λ high. Numbers on 3830 confirm this.

The dipole was a great addition. The footprint on the RBN confirmed this. I think I ran with both antennas combined about 90% of the time. I’ll try to put something down about this antenna. On a few occasions, with the yagi to USA, I tried the difference when a JA called in. Almost unheard on the yagi (90° out of the direction), solid S7 or more on just the dipole…

Once again a very enjoyable contest operation!

 

I didn’t do much on-the-air radio in May. I got some antenna work done to get a second antenna on 15/20m again for SO2R. In anticipation of this contest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Feedpoint of what is to become a new multiband vertical antenna. Made entirely out of salvaged parts and junk from abandoned antennas and projects. Upcycling from base support to antenna tip. Confinement means: not shopping for parts. I recently rediscovered the joy of ‘all band contesting’ so I need a second antenna for SO2R on the higher bands. Grab a local mult, check band openings but without abandoning the RUN QRG. It’s not a yagi but ANY antenna beats NO antenna. _____________________________________________ #cqcontest #hamradio #amateurradio #hamradioantennas #homebrewantenna #antennaporn

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 25 Apr 2020 om 12:33 (PDT)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Phase 2: let’s dual band it. I added a second radiator: a copper wire for 21MHz. A few iterations of measure-calculate-adjust and both λ/4 radiators were resonating on the desired frequencies. A quick ‘on the air’ test was satisfactory. USA stations were workable under the current marginal conditions and EU stations were often louder on this vertical compared to the yagi pointing to USA. _______________________________________ #cqcontest #hamradio #amateurradio #hamradioantennas #hamradioporn #homebrewantenna #verticalantenna

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 26 Apr 2020 om 6:32 (PDT)

I wondered how I would do compared to the SSB part a month ago. I landed just over 4 million points just shy of 2000 QSO. I targeted 3000 QSO in the CW part, just to prove that CW beats SSB any day.

The day before the contest, I installed some extra antennas:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Fieldday you ask? Not really. But a major contest always involves field work to maximize the OQ5M fun. Additional RX loop to the east, the new elevated 20/15m vertical for SO2R, extra runs of coax… The tower is cranked up and soon the antennas for 80m and 160m will be too. Be sure to call me this weekend! OQ5M SOAB HP a/k/a that ginormous peak on your bandscope. ________________________________________________ #cqcontest #cqwpx #cqwpxcw #amateurradio #hamradio #radioaficionado #hamradiocontest #antennaporn

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 29 Mei 2020 om 3:03 (PDT)

I had a slow start. A  *V.E.R.Y.* slow start. The 40m band was full. I wanted to run bout found no place to park. I got on 7061 and then started a slow run with some 80m QSO on the second radio. The first hour went by with just passing the psychological barrier of 100 Q: 103 contacts is a slow start. Luckily I could keep this up for a few hours. The 80m was just OK. After sunrise I went to 28 MHz right away because that band was whopping. I scraped 9 contacts from the noise floor last month in SSB. I easily logged more than hundred early in the morning. That’s probably more than what I logged on 10 meters in all the contests of the three past years combined. This sun takes but it gave some this weekend too. I admit: it was mostly EU but it’s TEN and there were tons of prefixes. After that I had a good run on 15m too. Same feeling: 79 hard fought contacts in SSB and an easy +100 run this time. Thanks to the sun. Saturday afternoon I attacked the 20m band yielding the best hour of the contest: 130 Q/hr. That is not really a lot but it is what it is. I stayed on 14 MHz until late in the evening. I was surprised that the band was open this late supporting DX propagation. After that I went to 160m. This is not an important band in the WPX contest but the ‘fresh meat’ experience boosts the rate and there are some prefixed there that can’t be found elsewhere because of the SB160 guys. I didn’t stay long and spent the rest of the second night on 40m. That band gave rate, prefixes and 6-point contacts. What more can you ask for?

During the first part of the contest the K index had risen to 3. That was felt in the propagation! Typical situation: low K and good conditions the weak leading up to the contest. Right at the start the sun spits some garbage towards Earth that affects propagation. The ionosphere recovered slowly during the contest which was felt too later on Sunday. The sun gives, the sun takes…

I took the last long break on Sunday morning. The plan was to do the last twelve hours of the contest in one stretch. Extrapolation told me that 3000 QSO was possible if nothing went wrong. In the mean time I looked up the Belgian record for this contest in my category: 6.9 million points.

Set in 2002 (lots of sunspots) by DL2CC (German!) from the ON4UN station (big antennas). Beating this score was not really impossible but I would have to go after it with only ten hours to go. Challenge accepted!

A couple of decent runs on 10m and 15m followed. The decreasing K-index had some surprises in store: a few stations from California on 15m. Never expected: East coast was troublesome in the recent past, West Coast virtually impossible. And KH6TU heard me and we exchanged numbers. Booyaa! All this boosted the score and the 7 million mark was in reach. I had to build a good margin for the record to stand after log checking… That margin came in the form of a sustained 20m run to the USA. Finally some action! Three point contacts and a wealthy dose of new prefixes.

To finish the contest I sat on 40m for the double points. I grabbed a few stations on 160m and 80m with the second radio but decided not to spend more time there.

When the closing bell rang I was quite happy with a new claimed Belgian record. Especially since this had been set with BIG antennas way higher than mine (see it here), in a year when the solar cycle facilitated DX propagation. I have a small tribander, ineffective low band wires and only one small tower. Not to mention SFI=70 at best…

I had good fun on the radio in my preferred mode and heard lots of friends from all over the globe.

To John AE5X: your signal was just fine but each S7 DX signal is sandwiched between S9++ local signals here… Good to hear you!

 

It’s been almost seven weeks since the Corona / COVID-19 confinement. Apart from nature walks with family and dog, and some gardening, there is not much left to do but ham radio. You won’t be hearing any complaints from me about that. Here’s an image from one of the long walks:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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be like: But I would walk 500 miles And I would walk 500 more Just to be the man who walks a thousand miles To fall down at your door #wandelenmetdehond #coronawandeling #komuituwkot #coronawalk

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 24 Mrt 2020 om 12:06 (PDT)

So what did I do?

The red thread running through this month is that I left up the tower and low band antennas after RDXC and WPX SSB. Since I am at home all the time (Corona confinement!) and WX is not too windy… Actually the wind was strong enough on two occasions. Not a storm but très gusty. Everything held up. With the antenna up and nowhere to go, I participated in some events I usually skip.

I participated in a local 6m contest. But I have no 6m antenna. So for that I hung up the WARC dipole. It exhibits reasonable SWR on 50 MHz. Any antenna beats no antenna so I logged 13 CW and 25 SSB QSO. Of which one DX: a DL.

I worked 51 Japanese stations in their JIDX CW. All on 20m, none of them loud. Some pretty weak and marginal.

Gagarin Memorial Cup. That was fun. I logged 516 CW QSO on 40m only. Lots of stations to work. Confinement is a bliss for our hobby.

Manchester  Mineira a/k/a CQMM. My plan was to work a dozen Brazilians on 15m. That turned out quite… well:

  Band     QSOs    
   3,5      99
     7     357
    14     391
    21      22
 Total     869

A lot of people to work from all over the world. Again: confinement is boosting on the air activity.

During the week there was stuff to work. World Amateur Radio Day SES stations (***WARD). Especially the Spanish: AM*WARD. Spain is not always easy from here but I think I’m up to 30 now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Last week a radio-friend asked if this never gets boring to me. NEVER! April 18 is World Amateur Radio Day and I have used morse code to talk to people in Alaska, Argentina, Greenland, Brazil, Australia, Martinique, Siberia, Azerbeidzjan and a ton of other places. That’s only today. I am tired and my bed is tempting me but the signals keep coming from the #greatesthobbyintheworld !!! Someone has to answer so it might as well be me. _________________________________________ #cqcontest #amateurradio #hamradio #radioaficionado #worldamateurradioday #qrz #morsecode #telegraphy

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 18 Apr 2020 om 3:52 (PDT)

Never waste a good crisis and any occasion can serve a Special Event Station purpose. STAYHOME, STAYSAFE, HOPE, ANGELS and other variations on the theme. At first I wasn’t really in to this. But then my club opted for OT4HOPE and since I was on the license… I made 1100 QSO so far, mostly CW. Of course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Someone is trying to convey a message on the amateur radio frequencies… QSL ABT QTH! #amateurradio #hamradio #qrz #qsl #radioaficionado #specialeventstation #stayhome

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 9 Apr 2020 om 7:21 (PDT)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I just contacted this Finnish amateur radio station with a funky callsign: OH1PYSYKOTONA. ‘Pysy kotona’ aparently means ‘stay home’. That makes sense. The Belgian equivalent would be something like ON5BLIJFINUWKOT. Amateur radio is a very educational hobby! And 100% compliant with the anti-virus rules. _________________________________________ #amateurradio #hamradio #hamradiocallsign #specialeventstation #blijfinuwkot #stayhome

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 23 Apr 2020 om 1:24 (PDT)

Another red thread though all of this is the absolute abysmal conditions on HF. There is DX but it’s few and far between. Openings are short lived and moreover: during weekdays there seems to be no one around even of a band shows signs of life. I’m talking about classic CW and SSB. Don’t care for anything else.

My conclusion: if there is no award to chase or online ‘leaderboard’, people don’t care. And CW contesting during the weekends is currently alive and well, even in small unknown contests.

73 and stay safe – stay home!

 

This contest is always low priority for me and most of the time I just skip it. It usually comes right after a series of contests (both UBA DX, both ARRL DX and RDXC), it’s only SSB and it usually falls on a weekend that has social commitments. None of this in 2020. I missed all contests in February and early March because of the storms. Social commitments in the Covid-19 era are non-existent. So I let the antennas up in the air after RDXC and decided to play in CQ WW WPX anno 2020.

My initial plan: SB20 with an auxiliary 20m antenna to spray RF in two directions with the stack-match. I had played with this idea in the past and it would be useful in other contests too. So my youngest son and I started building a 20m dipole. Not a wire inverted V but a real flattop dipole. I would use the field day mast to get it up about ten meters high. This plan was a follow up of my 2018 plans and ideas (read here)

I started collecting all parts from the scrap bin. This antenna needn’t be pretty, it needs to work and be ready in a few days. Soon I had to give up. There was one size of aluminum tubing missing to make the tapering and I was missing some bolts of the right size and diameter. This is not a problem under normal circumstances. But now all stores are closed. So I gave up on the antenna. And the SB20 effort. I would just do a SOAB(A) HP entry for fun. No goals, no targets, no stress, no real time scoreboard. Just run a band that is open and when it’s no longer fun: take a break.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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CQ WPX SSB Contest With off the premises activities strictly limited, I suspect -no: fear- my radio shack being invaded by my boys (8 & 10 y/o). With phone activities there can be zero verbal interaction as opposed to telegraphy. So I decided to turn them into SWL. I installed my headphones distribution amplifier and hooked up two extra headphones. I gave a quick lesson on the NATO spelling alphabet and tested for EMC / RFI when running QRO. Seems fine. Look for OQ5M trolling the bands. Just for fun, nothing competitive this time. #cqcontest #hamradio #amateurradio #swl #cqwpx #cqwpxssb #behringer #behringerpowerplay #hamradioshack

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 27 Mrt 2020 om 9:53 (PDT)

The closer the contest came, the less I was tempted. SSB… Closed upper bands… Phone on 40? Oh boy. I went to bed on Friday and set the alarm for 4AM local time which meant the contest would be in full swing for about three hours when I would finally land in the chair. Not so. I snoozed and snoozed. Then I got up. But I didn’t go into the shack yet. In fact I was looking for excuses not to start. I got a message from K7GK/6 who had a very unproductive period from the SF area. W6 is not z14 but anyway…

I took a late start and decided it would be on 80m. Signals were good even from the USA. A worked quite a few of those: 38 in total. It’s a phone contest and I missed prime time for this band. After about 150 QSO I moved to 40. Ouch – forty on phone. I. Hate. That. Nevertheless I had two hours of about 125 QSO each. Then a three hour break.

Back some 20m and pathetic efforts to work someone on 15m. That’s how I spent Saturday afternoon: slow runs on 20, desperately looking for life on 15. In the evening I did 40 but not much success. I did 160 but that wasn’t a hotspot either. I did work two fast hours on 80 then, about 240 QSO in total. The wee hours of the night were slow and uninteresting. So I took a break for a nap and answering a call from nature. QRX 180…

I knew from my SB80-efforts in CQ WW SSB that 3656 is a good place for both EU and USA. This once again turned out well. Maybe I should keep this to myself? Around 0630utc a local French net claimed the frequency with the usual contest mockery and profanity. It doesn’t always have to be a German invasion or a G-tea party.

By that time I had taken a look in the cqcontest.net scoreboard. With my ‘just for fun’ attitude in a phone contest I was way down in the list. Über-nice-guy Anton ON6NL was there (below me) and OR3A way ahead of me. That upset my contest-ego and triggered my competitive drive. Suddenly I went from ‘laid back – no goals’ to ‘not on my watch!’. The target was simple: get over OR3A. It’s nothing personal Marc. You’re a good operator and a very nice guy, I know that. But I have my small sides. This is one of them. The problem was that OR3A had a big deal of score advantage. Furthermore he worked way more 6-pointers on 40 where I focused on 3-pointers on 20. How does he do that? I will ask later on. I don’t think he has a big 40m antenna (but I might be wrong).

During the day it was obvious that everyone is on 20m. There was no free spot to call CQ. If you run barefoot and have a multiband vertical, this SSB contest obviously is not for you. US1Q had an awful signal and he decided the RS report 59 is optional. UB7K was even worse. From here there was more than 7 kHz of spectrum around him that masked everything else below S9. There were many stations not giving the mandatory 59 report, just the serial…

The afternoon was uneventful. Runs on 14 MHz were not spectacular, it was hard to work something on 21 MHz. The good thing is that I caught up with OR3A and by the time the contest was coming to an end, I had a good margin to beat him. Which I did, at least judging from the real time scoreboard.

I had a few good hours and a few boring hours. SSB is hard on the ears and not nearly as much fun as CW. I hope I can do SOAB in the WPX CW in two months.

Support the contest scene!

 

I’m not really in a writing mood so I’ll keep it short. I have adopted Instagram (ON5ZO)  for my quick dose of BS-publishing.

Just for the archives.

Note to future self:

1. This was the Corona / COVID-19 edition. The one with the toilet paper craze.
2. Finally a CW contest after three months. I had to skip both ARRL DX and also UBA DX CW because of a couple of storms weekend after weekend. Ciara, Dennis – remember them?
3. You had to work on the tower once again after these storms. You did this the week before the contest. You had plenty of time. Because you were not allowed to go to work. Schools closed. See note 1.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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【Ｔｏｗｅｒｗｏｒｋｓ】 The part I hate the most: working on the tower. I needed to realign after the storms. The 40m dipole and the yagi’s elements are parallel again. If this is the only damage, I get away cheap. 2nd image: a small bird found its way into a tower leg, but not out. Totally dried up remains. Usually I get a handful of dead wasps. ________________________________________ #hamradio #amateurradio #hamradioantennas #towerwork #cqcontest #yagiantenna

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 19 Mrt 2020 om 1:20 (PDT)

About the contest:

It was fun. As always the first half was good. Then it slowed down. Ten meters was utterly dead. Just ON5JT. He proposed to move there after he called me. Fifteen meters was very very poor. I hoped for an opening in some form on Sunday. The opening came but it wasn’t much of an opening.

Online scores on cqcontest.net were a motivator. I didn’t go to sleep but I slipped away for half an hour in the chair around 5AM utc. Too slow to keep me going I guess.

I was glad to log over 2k QSO CW only. That was my only goal (apart from relief from the contest blues).

Imagine this contest with 10+15 wide open. No more wasted time. Let’s hope for a massive amount of sunspots. SOON.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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-.-. –.- – . … – Dr. Marconi and Prof. Hertz agree: a HF ham radio contest is the best ‘social distancing’ you can get. QRV today in Russian DX as OQ5M. Double K3 SO2R setup. . #cqcontest #hamradio #amateurradio #russiandxcontest #rdxc #elecraft #n1mmlogger #radioaficionado

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 21 Mrt 2020 om 3:24 (PDT)

Sometimes you need to do something you don’t really like just because it’s a moral duty. I’m not talking about marriage but about a small SSB contest under marginal HF propagation. Coinciding with two CW (REF and CQ160) and one RTTY contests. If I get invited to play along with the special UBA callsigns, it’s only normal that I participate in the SSB contest. It also helps me in the log checking process, to know who was around.

The good thing is that there is also the CQ 160 CW contest. I don’t operate that one seriously but while the tower is up, I might as well see what Top Band has in store for me.

Preparation was easy. WX was dry and calm and everything went smooth. Even retuning the 80m GP for SSB.  I did that a few days before the contest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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📞 Retuning the GP antenna for a phone contest. 🎤 It’s ready for UBA DX SSB. Not my favorite contest but once a year patriotism is stronger than my love for CW 😄 . #cqcontest #ubacontest #hamradio #amateurradio #hamradioantennas #hamradiocontest

Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 25 Jan 2020 om 3:54 (PST)

I decided not to get out of bed early on Saturday. In retrospect I should have done that because 160m and its contest could have been very productive. N5DX (NY) and K1LZ (ME) were easily workable more than 90 minutes after my SR. I only made a handful of Top Band QSO and decided to rest.

The SSB contests starts at 1300 utc. It was a slow 20m start. With not much participation. This was prime time and there were gaps of two or three minutes between answers to my CQ. Go figure. Cluster spots pointed out a lot of EU activity was on 40m already but I decided that I could work these later on. I focused on USA which was more points per QSO and it was a case of ‘now or never’.

With the antenna to USA I had some RF into my headphone. I wondered if it was only in my ears or also on the RF side. I solicited an audio report and the USA operator confirmed the audio was OK. But a few contacts later N1RR said in wasn’t. He stood by my side for a moment while I fiddled with the cables. He said it got better but not completely resolved. There was plenty of time between the answering calls to reroute a few of the cables which made the problem disappear. N1RR called in a few minutes later to confirm the audio was clean. No idea what it was but moving the headset’s cables and twisting a few plugs did the trick. QRO RF, it’s always something…

The initial plan was to play in the 12h category but I took too much breaks between slow periods that I would have to operate either through the night, which is useless in this contest or fill the remaining eight (!) hours on Sunday morning which is no fun either with only 20m open and no one around. So I quit late in the evening and decided to go for 6h only. Chances are slim to win that one but who cares. Nothing to prove in SSB. My contest ego is only CW-sensitive.

I did some S&P on a jam-packed 160m. I couldn’t resist to call CQ and worked 150 QSO in one clock hour. That’s more like it. The band was full between 1810 and 1900 kHz. I decided to get some sleep at 0030 utc and set the alarm to be QRV on 160m at 0530 utc.

The band was in pretty good shape. And tons of stations to be worked, even DX. K5ZD writes the following on 3830:

Called lots of guys with no response. Must have been crowded in EU because was very difficult to find a clear frequency enough to get answers.

That is exactly what I noticed from my side. There was DX from LU over CX and XE to W7 and KL7. With S7-S9 signals. That would have been easily worked if they weren’t sandwiched between S9+20dB EUs 150 Hz away or nasty clicks from the crust of the sandwich. The good thing is I finally worked XE2X for a new country on Top Band.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Een bericht gedeeld door Franki – ON5ZO – OQ5M (@on5zo) op 6 Dec 2019 om 9:57 (PST)

Actually it wasn’t an ATNO. I just checked if the QSO was confirmed on LotW (now = Wednesday after the contest) and it wasn’t but there was a XE2X confirmation for a QSO made the end of December 2019. I forgot I worked that Top Band ATNO a few weeks ago. That’s how much I keep track. EDIT: last weekend’s QSO is also on LotW now, the log was still being processed from the upload queue.

Also cool: working Steve N2IC in NM for a new (?) state on Top Band. Just checked: also not new. I worked N2IC in the same contest two years ago. Yep, not really keeping track of DXCC/WAS progress. But I do know how much QSO I made in a random contest ten years ago.  😁

I could have done more on 160 but I was happy with 477 QSO. And 61% of 160m DXCC. I still had to work two hours in UBA SSB. Mostly spent on 20m of course. Being called there by a couple of VK and ZL was nice. I never went to 28 MHz but I did try 15m. Not much around but the band was more open than activity would suggest. I tried to raise awareness by spotting the three stations I worked there and called CQ myself. This resulted in a bunch of EU mults and a loud VK3. I said this already last month: 21 MHz is not as dead as you’d think. I always work a VK or a JA or some Far East multiplier with a decent signal. We just need to try and don’t think the worst.

I reeled in the low band wires and lowered the tower on Sunday afternoon. There is a gusty period on the WX maps for the coming week.

Next up: ARRL DX CW. I hope for calm weather and good propagation. Don’t forget to try 21 MHz you Americans!