Report 2013_03_EN
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- Published on Tuesday, 26 March 2013 19:13
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Season’s start – the first contest on Mt. "Wetzstein" in 2013
In the morning of March 1st 2013 Harti, DL6AUI, Frank, DL2ALF, Gerhard, DL2ASI, Rainer, DJ1RK, and Bernd, DE0BEN, met in Gotha in order to put our equipment which we want to use during the season-start-contest in March on to our rent-a-car Van. Harti and Frank started on Friday morning - not in the direction to the Schneekopf, destination was our “Winter - QTH”, the Mt. "Wetzstein" in JO50RK. There – 120 km away from Gotha - we wanted to start the contest season working as DL0GTH/p.
After the “Dorsten weekend”” – 16/17 of February – we had a severe onset of Winter, just after wet and cold weather it has been snowing for days and Wetzstein looked like this …
The Wetzstein in JO50RK – 1st of March 2013 Harti, DL6AUI digging to the 2m and the
microvawe-shacks
On Friday we had an extreme snow situation just to heavy for this season. The top of the mountain was reachable quite well, but all the containers and masts, which should carry the antennas were completely snowed in, so that they had to be digged out first. Oli, DL2ARD, had been on the the Wetzstein the weekend before in order to do the most important preparing work – thank you Oli!
Oli, DL2ARD putting up the parabolas 13 cm parabola above the Wetzstein deeply covered with snow
for 23/13cm
The 2nd of March was a very calm and clear winter day promising good conditions on 2m and 70 cm because of a stable high-pressure system: excellent mood, all went very well.
Roland, DK1RC looks quite optimistic: sun is shining, The equipment works well: Jens, DL2AKT in the
no problems caused by any snow the microwaves container
The Mt. "Wetzstein" (792 m ASL) has been in military use until 1990. These military forces left some containers carrying radio equipment, a few masts and garages. Two of those containers we are using as shacks, one of them for 70 cm and the microwaves, the other one carries the 2 m equipment. The antennas for 70 cm up to 24 GHz were put on the existing masts, the equipment which should be used on 47 and 76 GHz was on tripods. Thes tripods were carried up to the air with an elevator. The 2m antennas were put on separate masts. Setting up all the equipment went on without any problems, just because of the calm winter weather. Some problems appeared on 70 cm – the PA dropped down because of a bad SWR quite often. This situation was caused by double cable mistake, which could be eliminated 2 hours after beginning the contest.
Everything on board: 70 cm – 76 GHz -except 2 m - The “Contest-Rack” in the microwave-container
all on the top of the mast
The “ContestRack” (controlling the transverters for 9, 6, 3 an 1,2 cm using telemetry) was developed during the last years was in use too. It carries the antenna controller and has a build-in IC 706. This rack was shown during the microwave meeting in Dorsten this year. On 23 cm a TR1296H (Frank, DL2ALF), an Elecraft K3 (Mathias, DM5CT) a parabola including the PA and preamplifier were in use.
The 13 cm – working station was a transverter made by Roland, DK4RC controlled by another IC 706.
Oli, DL2ARD, working on 70 cm … Maximum operation inside the microwave-shack
On 70 cm a preamplifier, a transverter TR432H and another Elecraft K3 - all by DL2ARD – were in use. The equipment was completed by a DK4RC – made PA.
2 m was equipped by a TR144 H transverter (DK4RC), an Elecraft K3 (DG5CST) an another DK4RC-made poweramplifier. The equipment was put into the second container.
Rainer, DJ1RK operating 2 m Max, DN4MAX checking the log
The results were as expected. Because of the Wetzstein’s geographic position we couldn’t profit from the very good tropo conditions in Western direction.
QSO’s above 1.000 km remained the exception during this competition (GM8OEG in IO86NM, 1162 km, G4TSW in IO80FV, 1.057 km and F4FEY in IN97EF, 1.021 km). Despite the quite normal conditions, only the DX-QSO's via airplane-scatter on 23 and 13 cm should be mentioned. The new AirScout-Software deleveloped by DL2ALF was doing an excellent job, the QSO’ s could be forecasted exactly. There were three QSO’s above 700 km in our log (9A2SB, JN95GM, 759 km, G3XDY, JO02OB, 736 km and SP4MPB, KO03HT, 729 km).
During the first hour we had about 90 QSO’s, during following 3 hours the QSO ratio was 115 per hour. On 70 cm we had problems getting started, because of bad SWR ratio. These problems were solved soon. In order to avoid QRM on the microwaves, we didn’t use the complete antenna equipment on 2m, so that the QSO-ratio was equal to 70 cm. The number of QSO’s went down until to midnight on all bands, the minimum was in the early morning. At 07.00 GMT the QSO ratio increased again. On March 3rd at 09:15 GMT we had the ODX on 2m: GM8OEG in IO86NM, in a distance from 1.162 km from the Wetzstein. On 70 cm we reached distances above 1.000 km, too. The longest distances per band are shown in the charts below:
Top Distances 2m: Scottland was ODX Longest distances on 70 cm were England and France
All directions on 23 cm: G, F (Biscaya) and 9A2 were the 13 cm: 9A2SB, G3XDY and SP4MBP was ODX, preferred
longest directions direction was North-East
On 9 cm we succeeded in having a QSO with PI4GN PI4GN was ODX on 6 cm, too
in JO33II - ODX
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DL0GTH/p - ODX during contest on 02./03.03.2013 on the Wetzstein |
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Band |
Date |
Call |
UTC |
DIST (KM) |
LOC |
WKD LOCs |
|
2 m |
03.03.2013 |
GM8OEG |
09:15 |
1.162 |
IO86NM |
74 |
|
70 cm |
02.03.2013 |
G4TSW |
16:54 |
1.057 |
IO80FV |
68 |
|
23 cm |
02.03.2013 |
F6DZR |
22:25 |
969 |
IN96RT |
51 |
|
13 cm |
03.03.2013 |
9A2SB |
09:12 |
759 |
JN95GM |
27 |
|
9 cm |
03.03.2013 |
PI4GN |
08:13 |
460 |
JO33II |
11 |
|
6 cm |
03.03.2013 |
PI4GN |
O8:23 |
460 |
JO33II |
9 |
|
3 cm |
03.03.2013 |
OK2C |
11:02 |
486 |
JN99AJ |
13 |
|
1,5 cm |
02.03.2013 |
OK7RA |
15:12 |
107 |
JO60LJ |
2 |
|
1,2 cm |
03.03.2013 |
DK5NJ |
09:56 |
25 |
JO50VJ |
1 |
|
0,6 cm |
03.03.2013 |
DK5NJ |
10:03 |
25 |
JO50VJ |
1 |
We had a total from 1.163 QSO’s and reached 257 locators. The average distance was about 283 km/QSO, claimed score 325.781 – a quite good result.
Now we had to put down the equipment – this wasn’t as difficult as on the Schneekopf. In spite of this the the old and new basic still remains: Everyone helps and does his best!
Until 19:00 the Gotha OM’s are at home again, after a winter weekend with a lot of events in the beginning March on top of the Wetzstein.
DL0GTH/p „Contest March“ 02/03 rd of March 2013 Although it is winter there is spring in the air – let’s have
on the Wetzstein in JO50RK a lot of QSO’s in May from the Schneekopf!
Thanks to all who helped DL0GTH and made the story of success of this crew and all the contesting fun possible! Thanks to all OM’s who gave us points!
We think about the Contest crews, who went on top of the mountains all over Europe during this winter season and gave us a call .
Thank for your patience – specially on the microwaves.