PACC 2017The Dutch PACC contest is of course a bit special for us Dutch hams. PACC 2017 is no exception. In the PACC contest for once in a contest season it’s all about the Dutch hams. This one contest we can run CQ and actually get pile-ups instead of search & pounce for whole contests.
For this year’s (the weekend of 11 and 12 February) participation my radio buddies Rob PA1RAB and Gerald PA9G and I came up with a new plan. Gerald offered to use his family cottage for the PACC-weekend.
Continue reading

Last Saturday I visit my friend Mischa, PA1OKZ. I took my Elecraft K1. I still noticed no one replied my CQ’s when I used it and I also got weird results on Reversed Beacon Network. My idea was that transmit and receive frequency was not the same on the K1 and maybe the filters where not aligned properly.
It’s great fun to open up any case at Mischa’s. He is a very experienced guy when it comes to anything electronic and HF in particular. He also has a very impressive shack with a lot of professional tools such as a spectrum analyzer, transceiver testing unit etc.
When we attached the K1 to all the gear it became clear very quick why things weren’t as they should. Mischa aligned the band modules and low pass filters with much preciseness. Indeed the K1 wasn’t receiving and transmitting on the same frequency. So that was fixed quite quickly too. Now my beloved Elecraft K1 is putting out it’s maximum power of 7 watts on all bands, is aligned for best receiving performance and I might hear a reply on my CQ after all 🙂

Thanks Mischa for the great help (again)!