#60m Monaco worked

 Let's not forget about 60m!

I recently noticed that 3A/IW1RBI would be active this weekend. Although uncertain if they would activate 60m I was eager to make a QSO and so I programmed my DX alerting app to notify me. Theoretically they will be active till midnight today. But I have limited time and so if possible I did want to make it quick...

I initially saw spots of them at inconvinient times on CW/SSB and FT8. Saturday evening they made 1 CQ call on 60m that was spotted by about 12 stations. The app alerted me, but my station had not seen anything. I saw a few calling but no one made a contact. A few minutes later I saw them spotted on CW. Then the game begun. Like the old days....trying to find out were the DX was listening, tuning up or down... 3A/IW1RBI was not really strong but readable...I choose a frequency above all others to call on. And after about 20 times calling I was finally noticed. 

I have to say....I enjoyed this contact a lot more compared to the usual FT8 F/H these days were you just have to wait till you are next in line...

Amazing 6m propagation 19-May

 

PB7Z Bernard messaged me he could work USA on 6m early in the evening. Unfortunately I saw nothing from that side. But 10 minutes later propagation arrived and did hold on till local midnight. Icredible signals, some USA station had a S9 on my S-meter. I had the opportunity to work USA on SSB this time, something I never did before. The last US based SSB station on 6m heard was back in 2001 I believe!

Bas Lev · 20210519 23:17 50.140Mhz USB WC2K

I also worked fellow blogger WW1L after some effort...

Rebel's busted!

 

http://3z9dx-busted.com/

Reminds me of my earlier blogpost about 3W3RR Romeo. Like history repeats itself. Dom is absolutely a rebel, that's for shure...

Update 20-5-2021: Some views on this topic by AE5X: https://ae5x.blogspot.com/2021/05/in-doms-defense.html

First transatlantic 2021 on 6m

 

Another good day on 6m and 4m. This morning I was called unexpected by 9K2NO (Kuwait). First transatlantic was with VO1HP (Canada) on 6m FT4, not shown on the PSK reporter map unfotunately? Did see more north america but only 2 stations show up in the map, don't know why? VO1HP was very strong with signals from -4 to -2dB. I did my best to do also some SSB on 6m which gave me a small pile up primarely stations from Italy. I also did my best to do SSB on 10m today and had some really nice QSOs with Ireland, England and Wales. I really enjoyed it and think I will do many more SSB QSOs this summer. We had some very strong ES to Ireland on 4m in the evening. I'm now focusing on working some new ones on 6m and 4m. 

ES season really does take-off

6m and 4m FT8 today... 

Worked A61ZX for a new one on 6m.

6/4 duoband beam repair

 Decided to work on the repairs first thing saturday morning. Before unexpected super ES would appear. 

The strange thing is that you don't see this at the other elements. Only the 210cm long 4m reflector broke in two. 

I decided 2 take 2 half elements connected by another smaller tube inside. I glued the tube so it will not shift. It increases the wall thickness to 2mm now. I got other suggestions like a wooden stick inside or a piece of POM rod (industrial plastic also known as Delrin). If I could get solid alu rod I would probabely take that.

Repaired and ready to go... I did make some 4m and 6m contacts. But signals were not that strong this weekend. 

WWFF JS8Call Island Activation | Hailuoto Kirkkosalmi OHFF-0970

 Julian OH8STN and Ossi OH8HUB will be activating Hailuoto Kikkosalmi Island OHFF-0970 today. The special thing is that they do it primarely on JS8Call. Read about it on Julian's website.

http://oh8stn.org/blog/2021/05/06/wwff-js8call-island-activation-hailuoto-kirkkosalmi-ohff-0970/

Since this is so special I wanted to work them. I'm no island chaser but like special contacts anyway.

At first I didn't see anything from them this morning. So I wrote Julian a message to his JS8Call inbox that I was around. But just after finishing the message I saw OH8HUB/P calling....the rest is history...

Julian is probabely taking pictures and video. So. I'm curious how they have done...

Antenna damage...

 When looking out of the window this morning I noticed something was wrong with the 4m/6m duoband antenna. 

Half of the 4m reflector was missing. We had some large winds last night with heavy windgusts, very unusual for this time of year. It looks like the wind has found the weakest point. It is no problem to repair but takes time I do not have at the moment. The weather forecast is not as good either. 

Found the missing part between our garden and our neighbour just at the border. But can't use it anymore. Bought a new tube today. I found a solution to make it mechanically stronger and probabely have to work on all radials in time. 

Of course, now the antenna is out of order, we will have amazing ES propagation in the next few days...

F2 propagation on 10m at midnight

 Although I monitor 10m/6m quite often to detect some ES propagation there is still almost nothing to hear/see. However I got some reports that 10m (11m) does open at almost the middle of our night (22 UTC). And indeed I can report I catched such an opening last night.

I managed to make one QSO with NP3DM from Puerto Rico. And saw others making QSOs with Chile. Signals were quite good at times. But it seems to be one way. Besides that my receive is far better as my transmit coverage. Or you can see it another way.....most stations do not have a good receive possebility.

This morning 10m was open to Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. I managed 2 QSOs with Indonesia. Slowly we get some better propagation now. But to make a proper SSB QSO we probabely have to wait for about 2 weeks. However, you never know.....you can't predict everything.