Denmark vacation

 

   It has been a while ago I posted something. And yes, I'm still alive. Though I was on vacation in Denmark for two weeks and these days it is not safe to post something about that on the internet that can be read by everyone. Particular because there have been a few thefts in the neighbourhood the last few weeks. Anyway, this is a post about how I was active from Denmark as OZ/PE4BAS. Yes I was portable but not moving so I left the /P out of the call. We hired a small house close the bridge over the Sallingsund straight to the Island of Mors. Close to the city of Glyngøre, were famous cyclist Jonas Vingegaard lives. I tried to be on air everyday. But in reality this wasn't always possible. I brought my (tr)uSDX QRP radio, my PE1BVQ made endfed, the K6ARK lightweight endfed and the Superantenna MP-1. The radio power supply was a 12Ah Li-ion battery which I also used last year in Sweden. 

I also brought my laptop to do digital modes but when I arrived in Denmark I had two challenges. First the laptop battery died and second the laptop didn't see the local accesspoint. It didn't bother me as I wanted to do most QSO's with CW. But I got questions why I was not on FT8, since that would be so much easier. I found a solution by leading the coax through a window and got it to the laptop which worked with the power supply. As accesspoint I used my iPhone hotspot which was detected  by the laptop. I made some FT8 contacts in the end and was even heard in the USA and Australia. Most of the fun though was with CW and a occasional SSB contact.

First day I tried the lightweight endfed but although it worked well, I didn't like that it pulled on the radio, since there is no coax attached, the endfed is connected directly to the radio. I made one contact with OK2BVX on 40m CW and decided to hang the other endfed with 5m H155 coax like I used in Sweden. It worked well and SWR was reasonable. Output of the (tr)uSDX showed about 3,5W, real QRP. It's incredible that I made so many QSOs at all.

See below screenshots from the excellent HAM2K Polo logger I used on my iPhone.

To be honest some of the QSO were arranged via skeds. Like the QSO with PA1PRD on SSB and PA4O also on SSB. I later made a sked with PE2V which didn't work out well in the morning, but it went well in the evening. Most of the QSOs were in the evening since that was the time with the propagation on its best for short distances. At some days dutch radio amateurs sound as strong as local stations in Denmark (although I worked only one station in Denmark which was OZ9MM, and he was not local). HA7RJA Rob from Hungary was worked 4 times both on 40m and 20m. He has me in HamAlert and was soon listening as soon as I was calling CQ. It was great to do some CW training with Rob and he also did provide me some useful tips. I did try the CWops Tests on wednesday evenings but most of the stations were way too fast for me and few were receiving me, it might be fun for the more experienced CW operator but it wasn't really for me. 

I also had some skeds on FT8 with some friends at home. That went very well as expected from FT8. We arranged the contacts on another frequency as the standard one which is very convenient. Signals were strong, most time in the + dBs. Of course I did some other FT8 QSOs as well to see what I could reach. Below a picture of the efforts. Best DX was TF4M from Iceland. But as mentioned before I was heard in the USA and Australia as well.

FT8 is a lot of fun and it's so much easier to make worldwide contacts with QRP and a small antenna. But it isn't really a challenge. CW is a challenge for me and a lot more interesting. 

Last evening of our vacation I decided to test the K6ARK light weight endfed again. I wanted to see if a block of wood, which I used to fix the antenna on the table, would affect the SWR and how the antenna works. It didn't affect the SWR at all and receive seems to be ok. I just tried it on 40m and made some excellent contacts to SO5CW, OZ9MM and PA3GPX with CW. Of course the block of wood was a little unconventional. I think a piece of wire can be used as well to fix the antenna. Building this endfed was fun and using it from Denmark was interesting.

Can you spot the antenna?

We had a great vacation and have been driving and sightseeing all around the northern part of Denmark. It really is one of the most beautiful parts of the country in my opinion.