PE10WCA PA-09 Rensumaborg sunday 30-6

I'm sorry there was no activation from PE10WCA anymore, Other things took my time as expected. My IC-706MK2G is still in my car together with the antennas and ready for the final activation. My license for the special call is valid up to this sunday. I'm planning a very early in the morning activation from PA-09 Rensumaborg in Uithuizermeeden. It will be the 5th castle I activate for this special WCA 10th anniversary event. I suggest to keep an eye on the DXclusters to see when I will be calling.





I've been active from PA-09 before a few times:

https://pe4bas.blogspot.com/2014/06/pa-00009-rensumaborg-activation-sunday.html
https://pe4bas.blogspot.com/2014/09/fieldday-fun-at-rensumaborg-cota-pa.html

Incredible that happened already 5 years ago. I can hardly imagine time goes that fast...

(Friday 28-6) I will do a last activation from PA-07 Menkemaborg between 10-11 UTC. It will be at my lunchbreak. I will probabely be active on 20m only.

Update 28-6: Made 22 QSO in about 45 minutes on 20m. Propagation was very low, much QSB on all signals. It's a miracle I made this amount of contacts anyway...

Update 30-6:

Started this last activation early and made my first QSO at 5:25UTC on 40m. After that 40m went slow, I had a lot of noise (S5-6) as well on this location. 20m went better and most of the QSOs are made there. Ended at 6:55UTC with 108 Qs in the log.

The 10 years WCA activation from PE10WCA is over now. I hope I made some people happy. 5 castles have been activated this month a absolute record for me. It was a nice experience. It showed the portable setup is working fine. I have been trying to get on FT8 as well, but only 2 QSO were made in FT8 from PA-07. I think SSB running is still a lot faster and more populair. This shows SSB is not dead at all, a lot of DX might be on FT8 but there is still a lot of action on other modes as well.

FT8 Intercontinental DX code of practise

Just to remind that there are some gentlemen agreement rules. Keep it in mind when DXing on 6m.

By the way, I worked Japan on 50.313MHz. But I guess I will have to check 323 as well especially for DX outside Europe.

Rules are published on the 50MHz UKSMG website:

http://www.uksmg.org/ft8-code-of-practice.php

More on some IC-7300 features

After I wrote my thoughts about the IC-7300 and returning the radio to the owner I realized I forgot a few things to write.  First of all I talked about the heat problem I always have with my IC-706MK2G. Well, although the sound of the IC-7300 fan is a little annoying, the radio is not getting warm at all. At least not at the outside and according to the TEMP meter it stays cool even after long transmissions with full power. Imagine I'm not used to that , I guess it's normal for a radio like this.

A feature I really like is the screen capture function. Ideal for documentation like in a weblog. The screen above is my favorite, but you can choose several screens. Like a audio scope screen or a bigger waterfall. You can also adjust the waterfall colors if you like to do that. Audio scope works on both RX as TX.

I doubt if every IC-7300 owner knows there is a build in RTTY decoder in the radio. I've just tested it briefly since it is not my favorite mode. There is a RTTY keyer inside and you could make a RTTY QSO just with the radio. If this is really interesting? I don't know. These days RTTY is only used for contesting and most are on FT8. Anyway, I'm shure it's just a matter of a software upgrade to switch RTTY to FT8 decode (or any other audio digimode) in the future.

But my most populair feature of the IC-7300 is the ability of record the audio with the radio. Great to listen back to QSOs. Or just to prove that you made the contact. One of my first recording tests I made a incredible DX on 10m....just listen:




It could be that more handy features I used in those weeks I had the IC-7300 will come back into my mind when using the IC-706MK2G again. If so I will update this post. I'm shure I will miss some of them...