Most northern Netherlands (licensed) radioamateur station

We visited the most northern point of mainland Netherlands today. Not too far from our home. There is a monument on the dyke and lately a new monument in remembrance of a plane that went down due to motorproblems in the war. Several of the crew members were found on the northern coast here. It is a very nice place to be but on the open with a lot of very cold wind.

Now, I sometimes proudly announce on the frequency that I am the most northern active amateurradio station of mainland Netherlands. But today I was thinking if that was right? Since PA4GB Gerrie has made a appearance on hamradio again I know now were he lives. Looking at googlemaps I saw I am not the most northern active licensed radioamateur mainland Netherlands anymore, he is. So, congrats Gerrie with this new title, actually you should deserve a certificate for this. Till someone claims he is further north. By the way I think the most northern amateurradio station in the Netherlands could be PD9R from Schiermonnikoog. But I'm not certain of this. Unfortenately PD9R is not active (yet).

Dramatic drop

A dramatic drop in the WSPR challenge charts! Unexpected. I was listening on the vertical and it seems there is a difference in noise that has a effect on receive from very weak stations. I expected to get higher in the distance chart, but am not even in it! Analyzing power outputs from stations received I miss a few of the QRPp stations. I´m not able to switch antennas at the moment so it is still on the vertical for today (Friday). Will try a new run next week with the horizontal loop. The plan is to move to 60m after that to do some experiments.

My WSPR receive setup below. The small laptop behind the desk and the FT-817.

Testing "ears" vertical

Unfortenately there are no results on the WSPR challenge page today. Probabely because of the inaccesible WSPRnet.org website. I see that some live MUF data based on WSPR spots is add to download which you can insert in the LIVE_MUF software by G7RAU. This only covers the 6,4 and 2m band. I've made a test before between my horizontal loop and vertical antenna in 2013. It was clear then that there was almost no difference, the vertical was slightly better to Australia (DX). I decided to monitor 30m WSPR today with the vertical only. Just to see the difference in total distance, not the amount of spots. Comparisation of course is difficult as propagation is different from time to time. Only 2 exactly same receivers on the same location with 2 antennas at the same time will give a exact comparisation. Unfortenately I haven't got that possebility. Hopefully the WSPR challenge page will be able to get into the database this night...