Last weekends QSOs

Luchtwachttoren (skywatchtower) 7O1 as I remembered it.

 Absolutely a interesting weekend historically and radiowise. Sunday morning after listening to the HAARP transmissions, which could not be heard here, I decided to hunt for some DX on the bands. Worked 3D2USU (Fiji) as best DX on 30m FT8. I noticed already that there was a special event going on in our country. The celebration of 60 years Cuba crisis. To the public known as the cold war weekend with the opening of several important buildings that played a role in the cold war. Some of those buiding feature a HAM radiostation as well and so it was possible to work some of those interesting locations.

Well, long time ago I had to go to school. At that time I could only get there by bicycle, very common in the Netherlands. Every day I passed an old tower overgrown with weeds and surrounded by trees. I soon learned that it had to do with the cold war. At that time we had no internet and you couldn't find much in books about it. Later I found out it was a lookout to warn when russian airplanes would come over to invade the Netherlands. It has been competely restored lately. I had no time to visit it this weekend but I might visit it somewhere in the future. Some HAMs did activate PA6KLD from the location and I was happy to work them last weekend. They were transmitting with only 3W SSB on the 40m band yet they came in 5 by 9 at my QTH which is about 25km east from the tower. 

I had some contact with PD1GAW Gerard who lives in Ulrum not far from the tower. He told me he visited it and he also gave me the frequencies to work several of the "special" locations. Thanks to that I finally worked 6 SES stations. PG60CUBA (Commandopost MBB, Grou), PC60CUBA (De IJssellinie, Olst), PA60NN (Luchtwachttoren 3T3, Nieuw-Namen), PA6KLD (Luchtwachttoren 7O1, Warfhuizen), PF60PENM (Schuilkelder, Panningen), PB60CUBA (Commandopost BB, Rijswijk). The nice thing is that I got a message from an old friend that I know from 11m years ago. In the mean time he also got his license. He told me he heard me making contact with PA60NN and was on that location. Later on he was allowed to take the mike and we had a small chat. In between the contacts I also gave some CQ on 40m in dutch so I hoped for some more SES stations that might be listening. But it was PA0FRI Frits that came back to me. Frits is well known for his incredible website full of useful info about our beautiful hobby. We talked a bit about our favorite subject which is antennas. He told me that the design of the antenna current meter was updated, I should check it out soon on his website.

Later in the afternoon/evening I decided to do some CQ calling on 10m, one of my favourite bands. With the 4 element LFA beam into the direction of north america I had a lot of fun making contacts in SSB. Hopefully the propagation will continue to be good for next weekend when the CQWW DX SSB contest is on.

Interesting read in dutch (translate if needed): https://www.luchtwachttorens.nl/