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Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Fox hunting & contest list 2011

Hunting a fox or....fox hunting that's the question!
After reading about fox hunting on the blog of LA1TPA Mads I just had to try it myself for the first time ever. My 84m horizontal loop is just perfect for this kind of activity. But I can tell now that it is not easy to find the foxes. Finally I made a QSO with ON6WJ Jos on SSB who gave me  5/9 report. I was transmitting with the FT-817 and 5W. Then I searched for half an hour on te very crowded 80m PSK frequency and found EI9HQ and DG4FSF. Both with very weak signals but readable. Unfortenately I made no QSO. Hopefully next more luck. Last week I thought about the contests I really want to participate in. So I made short list..
  • - PA-beker contest
  • - Frysian 11 cities contest
  • - PACC
  • - CQWW CW, RTTY and SSB
  • - CQWW WPX SSB
  • - ARRL 10m contest
  • - A 6m contest this summer. (UKSMG?)
First one now will be the upcoming PACC 2011. I'm not ready to go yet. I have to build my voicekeyer into the box so eliminating LFD when using it.

Nadat ik het stukje over vossenjagen gelezen had op de blog van Mads LA1TPA was mijn interesse gewekt. Ik moest dit gewoon een keer proberen. Mijn 84m loop is gewoon perfect voor dit soort werk. Ik kan nu wel zeggen dat het vinden van een vos niet eenvoudig is. Uiteindelijk vond ik ON6WJ Jos uit Dendermonde en heb ik een QSO kunnen maken met 5W uit de FT-817 op SSB. Jos gaf mij een 5/9 rapport. Daarna een half uur gezocht naar 3 vossen op een zeer drukke PSK frequency. 2 gevonden EI9HQ en DG4FSF beide met redelijke signalen, maar helaas is een QSO niet gelukt. Misschien volgende keer meer geluk! De afgelopen week eens nagedacht over welke contesten ik echt mee wil doen. Een lijstje staat hierboven. De PACC is de eerste contest waar ik me op concentreer, helaas ben ik er nog niet klaar voor. De voicekeyer moet nog even in het kastje gebouwd worden zodat ik dit jaar geen last meer heb van LFD.

6 comments:

  1. VE9KK Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at 12:21:00 PM GMT+1

    I have read about the fox hunt contests but not taken part sounds like a nice challenge. Also when you make contact with a "fox" there is a sense of accomplishment. Very good hunting Bas.

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  2. KL8DXTuesday, January 11, 2011 at 3:20:00 PM GMT+1

    Something I have never done either and we have lots of foxes here :0)

    I need to do the same with the contests. My wife is always asking me if I have radio plans on certain weekends. I need to look at the year and mark those certain contests so not only does she know, but I won't forget.

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  3. John AE5XTuesday, January 11, 2011 at 4:07:00 PM GMT+1

    I hope conditions this year will allow the 10m contest to be worthy of our time. That's my next one too.

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  4. PE4BAS, BasTuesday, January 11, 2011 at 9:48:00 PM GMT+1

    @Mike, indeed I felt like a made a very special DX. Although it was just a station in a neighbour country. Did I tell I made the QSO in the Dutch language? A certain (flemish) region in Belgium is talking Dutch as well. So, that was easy for me and easy to understand. But only find the fox is already a accomplishment.

    @Phil, I hope those foxes in Alaska don't have guns like the one on the photo. Otherwise you're living in a dangerous environment.
    As soon as I know the exact dates of those contests I write them down in our home agenda. So my XYL knows weeks or months before I got something important to do on the radio.

    @John, in this solarcycle (if it is arriving) I want to specialize in the 10m band. But till I got my 5 or 6 element beam up it will take some time. I still hope I will manage to have the antennatower up again this summer. But actually hope that for 2 years already without succes. So nothing else is left then my vertical for 10m, and I'm always surprised I can make some QSOs with it in te 10m contest.

    73, Bas

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  5. John AE5XSaturday, January 15, 2011 at 3:06:00 PM GMT+1

    This is what happens when Foxhunters are not careful!

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_belarus_fox;_ylt=Anaio1QYos_5VVn.0OJI1nJzfNdF

    ReplyDelete
  6. PE4BAS, BasSunday, January 16, 2011 at 9:19:00 PM GMT+1

    Thanks for the link John. Interesting read. 73, Bas

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for your comment. Bedankt voor je reactie. 73, Bas