Contest preparation always begins before the contest weekend. We used the
Thuringian amateur radio meeting in Jena on April 24th to update all the
equipment lists. Equipment loading in the van was already done on Friday
30th. We got bright sunshine.
Our convoy of cars and vans started 8.15am on Saturday arriving on
Schneekopf mountain about 9am - still beautiful weather.
We never trust the weather in the mountains. Therefore we hurried up to
install all the equipment and antennas. It really paid off we learnt later
at this day.
We decided to swap the locations for the 144MHz and 432MHz stations locating
the 432 MHz station very close to the GHz stations. The advantage is a
better QTH for the 432 MHz station and therefore a chance to reach a better
result on 432 MHz which is more important for the German contest
championship. The 144 MHz station was located app.. 50 meters away from the
432MHz and GHz cluster.
Our tent specialist Gerhard, DL2ASI, without any help installed our 32 years
old kitchen, lunch and dinner tent. It is a Russian made indestructible
device - the only tent which survived all changes and conditions.
The equipment and antennas were never installed faster than for this
contest. We finished already 13:00 UTC, every thing was functional up to 47
GHz. Propagation conditions were quite good.
However, one the oldest rules of contest has proven to be valid again:
The rain starts with the contest
The good propagation conditions disappeared. And it did not stop to rain
until Sunday 13.00 UTC. The only change in between was that the kind of rain
was different: weak rain, strong rain, thunderstorms. We are operating all
bands up to 10 GHz from inside the cars. But operation of the 24, 47 and the
alternative 10 GHz station is a wet business for the old men.
There was just one technical problem during the contest. Just after the
contest begun, we had a defect in the RX of our 5.7 GHz station. We needed
to bring the aerial mast which carries the 2.4/5.7GHz dishes down and
replaced the 5.7GHz equipment. Good luck and thanks to Roland, DK4RC - it
was the only backup equipment we had available.
Taking the weather and propagation conditions into account we are satisfied
with the results we achieved. Please look at the archives for details.
When we left the Schneekopf about 6pm we had sunshine again and the team was
happy as you can see on the last picture.
Now, we hope (and anticipate) a good result again.
|
