Category Archives: Equipment

CQ WPX CW 2018 & further 7300 experiences

Another CQ WPX CW is in the books! As usual I decided to do a 10 m single band operation. I just like the band, especially in sunspot minimum it offers a variety of propagation modes most people are not … Continue reading

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IC-7300 – the first “overflow” situation ;-)

Well, yesterday I finally had the first situation with the OVF indicator making it onto the display – frontend ADC overflow! I was wondering why I got it on 6 m and first suspected some strong ES opening with TV/broadcast … Continue reading

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IC-7300 – first impressions

Now having played with the radio for a few days it’s maybe time to give some feedback on my first impressions. Setup was a breeze! Be it all the menu settings, recording voice files for the internal voicekeyer, programming the … Continue reading

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Current antennas

The perfect blue sky weather called for taking an up-to-date photo of our antennas today: Left to right: Tower with a 6 ele GØKSC OWA for 15 m and an 8 ele YU7EF for 6 m at about 14 m … Continue reading

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IC-7300 – a new radio is “in da house” ;-)

Recently I sold my Elecraft KX3. While it was not a bad radio (except a few glitches like the poor speaker) it was mostly collecting dust. I do not do that many portable ops anymore after having built quite a … Continue reading

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CQ WWDX SSB 2017

Well, this one was a real mixed experience! Got to the station Friday evening. Peter, DM5DX, was already there having some fun chasing all the different DXpeditions. After I had installed all of my stuff I turned on my K3 … Continue reading

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CW-Fieldday & WRTC antenna tests

Spent the weekend up in JO73 again. Met with Paul, DL5CW, Falk, DK7YY and locals Heiko, DG1BHA, and Uwe, DL3BQA. Wanted to do some antenna setup testing for WRTC 2018 which Paul is the Antenna Director for. Lots of stuff to … Continue reading

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Antenna work on Aruba

Quite good progress on antenna work during the last two days. Pictured left are Ben, DL6RAI (left), and John, W2GD (right), on two of the towers. They both arrived Monday evening here on Aruba to take care of the antennas. Ben is … Continue reading

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STEW PERRY TBDC 2015

After being at the station anyway I decided to take some time to also install my RRC-Micro again which was just laying around after some initial tests and a review in FUNKAMATEUR magazine a few years ago. I really do … Continue reading

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Fixing issues: Remote Ops VDSL internet connection

As you know my station at home is remote controllable. I’ve been doing remote ops for 7 years now and the station’s (remote) capabilities have been constantly expanded throughout all the time. One major change I did was installing a … Continue reading

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Marconi Memorial Contest … and QRV on 2 m again

Just seeing I didn’t report on this blog that my 2 m PA used for remote ops had failed. 🙁 It happened right after the early October tropo. Returning from taking a nap on 4 October when switching on the amp … Continue reading

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QRP in the WPX-CW using the Elecraft KX3

My motivation to participate full-time and high power in the WPX-CW was quite low this time. Currently I’m rather in “VHF mood” enjoying 6 & 4 m as well as waiting for more Sporadic E on 2 m during my holidays. … Continue reading

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Building a 50 MHz notch filter with coax cable

Holidays now! 😎 Decided to visit my goddaughter Anna-Lena (now 4 years old or better young ) near Frankfurt/Oder. Her father is my good friend Sandro, DD3SP. While there he mentioned interference of S5 to S7 between his 50 and … Continue reading

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Temporary permit to use 4 m in DL again! :-)

German BNetzA informed today (Amtsblatt 8/2015, Mitteilung Nr. 412/2015) that they allow German class A radio amateurs to operate on 4 m again during the upcoming Sporadic E season. 😎 Effective from today the permit is valid until 31 August 2015 … Continue reading

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Antennas, antennas, antennas

Been busy the week before Easter with some antenna work. Weather was just awful with heavy storms and even snow on two mornings! So I prepared the new 6/4 m Dualband Yagi indoors and could only mount it on Good … Continue reading

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DAØHQ in July’s VHF contest 2014

We had the honor to activate DAØHQ on 2 m during last weekend’s VHF contest. DAØHQ is the German Headquarters station during next weekend’s IARU HF World Championship. So we used the call to be active on 2m, too, and hand … Continue reading

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DRCG-WW-RTTY

I have not done any serious RTTY contesting in the past. Have been chasing a few DXpedition slots on RTTY lately using the built-in features of the K3 or IC-7100, i.e. sending RTTY from memories. Using this method I also … Continue reading

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Holiday activities … getting things done

It’s been a while since my last blog entry. Reason is simple: I am on holiday 700 km away from home in JO73, about a hundred kilometers north-east of Berlin, where we have our contest station. Have been busy doing … Continue reading

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Kenwood CAT banddecoder

Just got around to write a few lines concerning our Kenwood CAT banddecoder. It was published in FUNKAMATEUR issue FA 10/13 and all project parts like PCB layout, firmware, etc. are available for free for private use (sorrily no complete kits … Continue reading

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Melting more solder … 10×2 Antenna Controller

  Last year I published a few articles on station automation in FUNKAMATEUR magazine. One of them (FA 5/13) was about a 6×2 antenna controller unit I had developed that allows using a 6×2 antenna switch from two different shacks … Continue reading

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