Portable St Peter Ording Beach [JO44HG]

Hi guys!

The fibrepole on the Radiojeep :)

One time per year we go to St Peter Ording beach. This time we had the chance to play with a whole bunch of equipment. We had the ICOM 7300 and the FT-817 running. Martin, DL8LBY, did a bunch of Qs with QRP power and the MP-1 Antenna which actually works surprisingly well in beachy environment. 

I had plenty of time to configure N1MM logger and optimize settings for the upcoming contest. We made CW and RTTY contacts to a couple of DXs (even Japan and Indonesia).

The antenna for the ICOM was a 9m piece of wire, tied to the Spiderbeam fibrepole. At the feedpoint there was the SCG 2000 automatic tuner.

Unfortunately the bandconditions were very poor and so we shut down at 23h local time, brought down the antenna in pitch black and muddy environment.

The MP-1 portable antenna

Next year we'll try some QRO instead of QRP to math the band conditions ;)

73 and thanks for all the QSOs!

DG7LAN/mm

Some of you may ask:

What does DG7LAN/mm mean. 

Thats me, cruising with my small 27 foot yacht playing HAM Radio

Locations include the river Elbe, north sea, baltic sea. 
I really enjoyed doing CW in the last days. Thank you guys for all the nice contacts and thanks for being patient and not minding me asking 'AGN' and 'AGN' :D

The rig used is the ICOM IC 7300, 9m of wire and a chinese automatic tuner CG 3000. I usually don't run more than 100 Watts - that drains batterys fast enough and I simply don't want to let the engine run for hours to recharge. 

I am already looking forward to the upcoming weekend to meet you guys on the air. 
73s, Andy

Anchorage @ Pagensand Island

The IC7300, key, Coke, JTDX :)

Extended 'radial' in the water

Anchorage for the night

Portable in St.Peter Ording

Yesterday we (Martin, DL8LBY and I) went out for some portable activity. The first stop was at a (closed for maintenance - ignored) view tower. We had to climb some fences to get there and eventually we went upstairs. Martin mounted the portable antenna and we managed to tune on 20m with the Yaesu FT817. Just after the 2nd CQ call the local authorities showed up and we had to leave the tower. Welcome to Germany. 

My first CW QSOs!!

Last night I made my first contacts in CW on 20m and 40m. Of cause from the mobile :) I felt like a little kid trying to learn to speak. Or better: Trying to learn to understand. I have no problems on TX. The HIMOUND Manipulator feels great for me and integrates nicely into the IC7300s CW setting. I set it to 13wpm by the way. Some OMs responded to my call with the same speed, some simply where "fast" - for me at least :) I do imagine how the OMs on the other hands sat with a shaking head because I had to reask callsigns and things over and over but in the end - hey, there was a QSO, a nice report and a "73". I will keep it up and eventually be one of the QRQ guys...maybe ;)

My special thanks for the operators on the other side: LZ1YP 9A2UU SM3UZU OM3LL IZ3KG

Next time I will be a lot faster!

New kid in town - The HLA 300V mobile amplifier

Since my IC-7300 gives me an average peak power of around 70 watts, I was looking for a little more output power. The published ALC mod is a "no go" for me. I don't want to lose the warranty and I am not sure that the mod is a good idea at all. Here is my solution: The HLA 300v from RM Italy :) Love it. I will not come up with measurements or technical details. If you are interested, have a look at this: https://pa0fri.home.xs4all.nl/Lineairs/HLA300/hla300eng.htm
That's quite a lot of detail. For me the amp is just great because it has decent power, is quiet (the fans didn't make much noise,yet) and should give a clean output. In fact it quadruples my power from 70w to 280w easily. Let's see how this turns out in future. 

The hidden power of FT8

The new fascinating digital mode FT8 took off like a rocket. But do people know the real power of FT8? To be honest, I didn't. Today I was in the mobile and the band was absolutely dead. I mean really, not a single station heard on 20m SSB. But what about FT8? I tuned to 14.074. Nothing. Maybe there is something. A really quiet tone in the noise. Not sure. I gave it a try. Turned decode mode to "deep" (usually I am on "fast") and... surprise!

South America showed up. Remember: I was in the car with the 30bucks antenna. Nearly nothing to hear from the speaker but W-SJTX was decoding like hell!! 

And then... tada! KC4AAA from Antarctica showed up. For those who don't know: That's the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station. That's 14500km from my position!

I gave it a try and he confirmed me immediately. Fantastic.. Remember: From the car, cheap antenna and a windows tablet :) 

Conclusion: With the right propagation FT8 rocks. With bad propagation FT8 rocks even more! 

If you didn't try it yet, go to https://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/k1jt/wsjtx.html and start NOW!!

Mobile antenna: C-Whip Monoband for 20m and 17m

My new mobile antennas arrived today:

The C-whip monoband antenna. 

I ordered 2 of them: One for 20m and one for 17m. The antennas look like the "hamstick" or "buddystick". They are 2.6m long, regardless for which band. I mounted the antennas on the 3/8 mount of the Jeep and made a measurement with the Rigexpert. After a few minutes I was able to tune both antennas to the following SWR:

 
The SWR is way better on the c-whips than on my Outback 1899. I didn't make a direct 1 on 1 comparison with the old antenna but I made a couple of QSOs and got nice reports from everyone. I should get the 15m and the 10m as well. :)

CQ WW SSB Contest going on!

I was in the Jeep doing the antenna measurements. The band was all crowded by the contest guys. So I decided to make a couple of contacts. During 2h I was able to make more than 80 contacts from the car, including 5 countries I was still missing. A44A from Oman, CT8/W6SD Azores, 9Y4D Trinidad... Great!

Playing with the Outback 1899 Multiband Mobile Antenna

If you are - like I was - looking for a cheap solution to be hf-ready on the ham bands you may come across this antenna:

It's the Outback 1899. Designed for 80,40,20,15,10 and 6m. Power rated for 120 watt pep.
Sells for around 50 bucks. Great!

When I first bought the Outback, I only had a magnetic mount on the Jeep. At first sight the antenna was much too short, resonating always to high for the chosen bands, no matter which one. 

1st problem: Antenna length 

The top part of the antenna was too short to tune the antenna on the ham bands. Since this is not much of a deal I changed the top part to a slightly longer welding rod. The result: The SWR was ok on 10 to 20m, medium on 40m and crap on 80m. At this time I thought that could be a problem of the ground connection of the mag mount. 

Finally I managed to install an old Wilson antenna mount. Felt bad to drill a hole in my Jeep though. What must be, must be. 

I was optimistic that the SWR would be better now.

Let me share the results with you

All measurements made with the Rigexpert AA-55ZOOM

10m band

We have a nice SWR 1.13:1 in the 10m band but still below 2:1 on 28500. I consider this to be ok for me. 

15m band

1.16:1 on 21210 kHz and below 1.5:1 for the whole band. Great!

20m band

1.72:1 on 14175kHz, near 2:1 at the edges - usable but not great

40m band

2.1:1 at 7020kHz, not good. I have to use the tuner an the whole band.

80m band

just bad. bad. dips @2750kHz with 3.1:1. bad.

6m band

I don´t make use of the 6m band but for the sake of completeness, here comes the measurement

This doesn't even come close :(

Conclusion

I am sure that there are better pieces of the Outback 1899 around. At least my model doesn't work as promised by the manufacturer. The model of a friend works slightly better but far away from 1.5:1 on all bands. 

Since 6m and 80m bands are really out of tune (antenna too long) but the other bands are in tune, I suspect the coils to be incorrectly tune at the factory. For 50 bucks I still do like the antenna since I use 15m and 20m most of the time.