This summer I was active as SM/PA8E from Sweden, JO77ed. We rented a lovely holiday house at a lake, away from anything. With a private little beach it was ideal for the kids to play. We’ve had a great time !
Radio stuff
Of course I took some radio stuff with me to be on the air as SM/PA8E. The ICOM IC-7300 with two antenna’s: the full size delta-loop for 40m and a End Fed Random Wire 40m wire length. Immediately I noticed when switching on the radio, were the extreme low QRM-levels. Actually, there was no QRM at all. Only some QRN from lightning a few kilometers away. It was so nice to be able to copy S0-signals again.
I’ve only made a hand full of QSO’s, but to be able to contact VK in SSB and ZL in CW was really cool. Also I’ve made some QSO’s to some hard to work (from Europe) states in the US which was a blast.
Problems
Unfortunately when I wanted to move the Delta-loop, the top section of the Spider-beam snapped. The EFRW was first thrown in a tree a few meters high. From there it worked pretty well (only one or two S-points less then the Delta-loop). When I flown it in a much higher tree (with a little drone) it didn’t worked that well anymore. Since our holiday was almost over by then, I didn’t put any effort in anymore.
Bring better antenna’s
I did learn a lot about bringing a portable kit. It needs to be much smaller in size and weight and more variation in antenna’s. It would have been great to be able to use a ZS6BKW or a EFHW with these low QRM-levels. Also I’m still not happy with the top section of the Spider-beam mast of the Delta-loop. I need to rethink the construction to put the wire trough.
Software
Also I did all kind of software configuration as preparation at home, but when I was in Sweden, things didn’t work as expected. I need another preparation script to be better prepared. Next time I want more operating time and less tinkering around to get it to work properly.
I prepared CQRlog on linux (funny detail: I worked OK2CQR/P, the developer of CQRlog while being SM/PA8E) together with FLdigi. But on site CQRlog wasn’t working correct anymore and FLdigi crashed constantly. I spend a few hours compiling both from source only to find out logging in FLdigi was much easier in this setup.
All in all it was a great holiday with the family. I really hope we return to the house again some time!
