HAM meets military

  I have been writing before that in some situations we as licensed HAMs can talk with military operators. In "peace" time this is just an exercise. In "war" time this can be handy in some situations were information can be exchanged about the enemy or target locations. 

I could have written about the todays event before. Unfortunately they had chosen April's fools day. Many operators would think it is was a joke. I've been thinking the same and so I was a bit cautious. But this morning it was evident that the event was no joke and stations were really there.

Just to be shure I brought my portable 60m gear with me to the job to get active at lunchbreak.

Transceiver was my FT-817 with 5W and the magnetic loop on a tripod. Unfortunately no military stations were heard, probabely they had a lunchbreak as well.

I made only one QSO with another portable station who was trying to do the same as me. It was PE1COS Hans who was about 25km from my QTH. The QSO went well even with only 5W output. It was a good test to see what my range is even that nearby. And just with a small MLA.

Back home on the full size doublet and with 100W output I worked PA04MIL QTH: Willemstad on 60m, PA07MIL QTH: Poederoijen on 60m, PA01MIL QTH: Zeewolde (old RNW site) on 60m and PA08MIL QTH: Hoek van Holland (probabely the PI4CC contestsite) on 80m. Some stations were manned by military personnel and I was told by one station he was using a Harris radio with 400W output. Signals were good. I did hear some other MIL stations on 40m but they were too weak to work. Given the current events in Ukraine it was a interesting excersise for both HAMs as for the military ops I think. I captured some on video. It is in Dutch so it might be less interesting for foreign readers.