Congratulations! Your log was accepted!

I just sent in the Cabrillo log for the SP DX contest and the CQMM DX contest.
Just in time, because I had almost forgot.
Often I leave the shack after the contest, when the contest ends in the afternoon.
Sometime I spent some time on the log in the same evening.
But often I forget the contest at all, until the next weekend.

After the contests I had little time to send in the Cabrillo files.
But today I luckily remembered.

Category
The most important part of the Cabrillo file is the Category.
Wrong category, no award.

Soapbox
I always spent much time on the Soapbox comments.
It's great fun to mention in the Soapbox, a single QSO that was made with very low power,
for example 10 milliwatts, using an attenuator.
Or the number of QSO's made with more than 1000 Miles per Watt.
Or a QSO that I made with South America, during the CQMM DX with just 2.5 W
But this can take quite some time to calculate the Miles per Watt and to write about it.

75 Characters
The Cabrillo file of the SP DX was immediately accepted.
The Cabrillo file for the CQMM DX was rejected at first.
The Soapbox line which are restricted to 75 characters in a line, so they were tooo long. hi.

Notes on paper
In the SP DX contests I made notes on paper during the contest.
I had great fun with QRP and QRPp in both contests.
So I wanted to catch these special moments, that I experienced,
while using the lowest possible power in these contest QSO's.      (Click to See the Notes)

Armando in Oud Amelisweerd

Detail - Chinees behang

In 2012 bezocht ik een tijdelijke tentoonstelling van Armado in Landhuis Oud Amelisweerd. Het Chinees behang op de beletage is een van de bezienswaardigheden van het huis.
Nadien is het landhuis is prachtig gerestaureerd en als museum in gericht.

China aan de Kromme Rijn, de restauratie van het Chinees behang in Oud-Amelisweerd - Klik voor bekijken van de video (28min)

Sinds kort is wordt in Oud Amelisweerd werk van de veelzijdig kunstenaar Armando geëxposeerd.
Armando in het woud is de openingstentoonstelling van MOA | Museum Oud Amelisweerd
Het mooi ingerichte, ruim opgezette museum, is geopend door prinses Beatrix.

Schilderij                Twee litho's 

De verdieping

De verdieping, die zich op de zolder bevindt geeft informatie over Oud Amelisweerd en biedt de mogelijkheid om het geschreven werk van Armando in te zien.

Klik op de foto, om te zien wat ik lees.

Het tijdelijke onderkomen van de Veldkeuken

In achtertuin van het Landhuis is een gezellig, 

tijdelijk onderkomen, voor de Veldkeuken ingericht.

Zoals je ziet is het gezellig druk. 

Ik heb genoten van het museum en de Veldkeuken. 

Klik op de foto's om deze te vergroten.

Achter het groene onderkomen is het begin van de Beeldenlaan zichtbaar. 

Armando in Oud Amelisweerd

Detail - Chinees behang

In 2012 bezocht ik een tijdelijke tentoonstelling van Armado in Landhuis Oud Amelisweerd. Het Chinees behang op de beletage is een van de bezienswaardigheden van het huis.
Nadien is het landhuis is prachtig gerestaureerd en als museum in gericht.

China aan de Kromme Rijn, de restauratie van het Chinees behang in Oud-Amelisweerd - Klik voor bekijken van de video (28min)

Sinds kort is wordt in Oud Amelisweerd werk van de veelzijdig kunstenaar Armando geëxposeerd.
Armando in het woud is de openingstentoonstelling van MOA | Museum Oud Amelisweerd
Het mooi ingerichte, ruim opgezette museum, is geopend door prinses Beatrix.

Schilderij                Twee litho's 

De verdieping

De verdieping, die zich op de zolder bevindt geeft informatie over Oud Amelisweerd en biedt de mogelijkheid om het geschreven werk van Armando in te zien.

Klik op de foto, om te zien wat ik lees.

Het tijdelijke onderkomen van de Veldkeuken

In achtertuin van het Landhuis is een gezellig, 

tijdelijk onderkomen, voor de Veldkeuken ingericht.

Zoals je ziet is het gezellig druk. 

Ik heb genoten van het museum en de Veldkeuken. 

Klik op de foto's om deze te vergroten.

Achter het groene onderkomen is het begin van de Beeldlaan zichtbaar. 

South America in the CQMM DX with my crippeled Inverted Vee

I was looking forward to the CQMM DX contest.
It is a very fine contest with a lot of activity from South America.
I know from earlier contests, that I could still make QSO's with  Europe, Asia and North America with low power, with my crippled antenna.
On Saturday I made 9 QSO's with Europe with a power of 5 watts down to 100 mW.

But I was wondering if I could make a QSO's with South America.

On Sunday afternoon, after I switched to 28 MHz, I heard a station from South America.
At that time, I did not know whether the distance would be more than 5000 miles,
so I decided to use 2.5 W.
I use 2.5 watts and I used a lot of patience to make a QSO with PW2D.
The frequency must be absolutely clear, so I had to stay cool for a long time. hi

With a distance of far more than 2500 miles, this QSO is a more than 1000 Miles per Watt QSO.
Later I heard other stations from South America, but they could not hear me, even with 5 watts. hi
The changes in propagation, are more important than the antenna.
So I say thanks to the fine operators of PW2D.

Lekke antilekband

Het kan dus wel

Het was toch mis

Er klonk een zacht gesis. 

(Een vingerhoedje vol emotie. Maar t'is geen "HighKoe" of 俳句 )

Eerste paasdag

Nieuwsgierig veulentje.

Na het paasontbijt met paasstol met spijs en warme, volkoren  bolletjes, zijn we met de eFiets, even naar plas Middelwaard gefiets.
De hooglanders en de paarden stonden op het toegankelijke deel,
zodat we makkelijk foto's kon maken.
Mijn vrouw schoot dit mooie plaatje van het nieuwsgierige veulen.

Pfffff
Slechts honderd meter op de terugweg, hoorde ik een tikkend geluid, bij het voorwiel. Toen ik stopte zag ik een takje met doorntjes op de band zitten.

Hooglander met de hoeven in het water.

De doorntjes op het loopvlak waren plat en hadden geen schade aangericht.
Maar . . . één van de doorntjes prikte naast het loopvlak,
langs de zijkant, in de zijkant, van de band.
Dit doorntje zat behoorlijk vast en liet zich moezaam verwijderen.
Het was toch mis, er klonk een zacht gesis.
Toen we thuis aankwamen, was de band wel zacht,
maar nog niet leeg.

Daarna ben ik verder gegaan in de CQMM DX contest, tot 1 uur 's nachts. hi

CQMM DX coming up this weekend

Starts: 1200 UTC Saturday
Ends: 2359 UTC Sunday

This weekend there will be much activity
from South America, so join the fun
in the CQMM DX in which you can work every station.

In 2011,  2012  and 2013,
I had great fun with QRP in the CQMM DX contest.
Look at the:  
Blog entry of 2011.    Blog entry 2012     Blog entry 2013

In the CQMM DX contest of 2011, I was suprised by the excellent propagation, which made it possible to work with stations in South America and North America with just 1 W or 2.5 W.

QRP
In the CQMM DX contest a QRP station is recognized by it's exchange.
My exchange will be EUQ meaning continent Europe and QRP.
So as a QRP station, I immediately known that the QSO
is a 2 way QRP QSO when you receive such an exchange.

CQMM DX coming up, this weekend.

Rules 2014
Click for    Rules 2014   or the CQMM DX website

Ribbon of the Inverted Vee damaged

Last year the top of my Inverted Vee broke.
I fixed the antenna temporarily, so the height of the antenna was reduced with 2 meters.
When I wanted to replace the broken stick by a new one, I noticed that the
300 ohm ribbon was damaged.
Obviously the ribbon had made contact with the rough tiles.
Wear by continually moving over the rough tiles by the wind took its toll.
One wire of the ribbon was completely gone over a length of 5 cm. (2 inches)
So only one wire  of the inverted vee is connected.
Actually my antenna is just one wire of 10 m.

"WSPR Propagation Analysis" for WSPR spots of G3XBM on 10 m

Roger, G3XBM wrote:
Nothing at all was seen until mid-afternoon and then the band just opened wide!  
K9AN (6505km) last spotted my 2W signal at 2308z, which is after midnight local time and HOURS after the band has normally died out. It had been dark for hours. One wonders if this was F2 or even multi-hop Es? I wonder what was happening on 6m transatlantic?  I must check.
(Spots made on 2014-04-08) Click to visit the article.

I was interested, so I made an WSPR Propagation Analysis of the spots on that day and the days before. The second table shows the last spot at 23:08 UTC, but also reveals the rapid change in propagation around 22:20 UTC.

How to read the table 
In the analysis above, I show the "Calculated Lowest possible Power" in milliwatt and the hours of the day in UTC. The lower the "Calculated Lowest Possible Power", the better the propagation.

To compare the propagation over several days, 

I included 2014-03-28 till 2014-04-08.


Roger is refering to WSPR spots made on 2014-04-08.
At the bottom of the table above.
From 10 UTC to 22 UTC the propagation gets better.
The best propagation occurred in the spot with the red star made on 22:20 UTC.



Even more spectacular
The best propagation on 2014-03-28, at the top of the table, occurred between 13:00 and 15:59 UTC in the aftenoon.
But even more spectacular is the change in propagation in the 3 spots * that were made between 22:00 and 22:22 UTC, that show a very rapid chang in propagation. (See the red arrows)

Thanks to Roger for the interesting experiments with WSPR.

/QRP

I always use QRP, which is 5 watts or less in CW.  But I never use the tag /QRP.
In contest QSO's in CW, I rather send my call a second time in stead of /QRP.
In the BSCI contest I made a QSO with a station that was not in the contest.
I met a station from Guensey (GU) which is rather rare.

The signal was very strong, so I immediately reduced my power to 50 mW.
The FT-817 was set to 500 mW and I switched in the 10 dB attenuator.
The 10 dB attenuator reduces the power with a factor 10.
So my power was 500 mW diveded by 10 = 50 mW.
I received the usual 599 and I was happy to log MU0RGU.

But when I looked again at the S-meter after the QSO, I was surprised by the signal strenght.
Then I realized that I could have made the QSO with 5 mW.
In a contest it's (almost) impossible to make a second QSO (dupe).
But I decided to give it a try, because this was no contest QSO.
I switched in the 20 dB attenuator and gave my call PA1B/QRP, now using the tag /QRP,
now with just 5 mW.
To increase my luck, I decided to use the tag /QRP for a second QSO.
I thought that if I did not use the /QRP, I could not make the dupe, but MU0GRU came back for me
and I could make the second QSO, now with 5 mW. hi
Thanks to the friendly operator of MU0RGU.

I hope to receive a QSL. Until now I received a card for a QSO with 500 mW from Guensey.

CQ WPX SSB

On Saturday I made 7 QSO's in the CQ WPX SSB.
I wondered if I could make QSO's in phone with my crippled inverted V.
Last year the top broke.
I temporarily repaired the antenna, but one wire lays flat on the roof.
In the last months, I noticed that I need more power than before in CW contest QSO's.
Also I had to rediscover the "tuner settings" for each band, after the antenna had changed.

SSB also works
Using SSB in stead of CW gives a lot more QRM in the house.
Sometime I want to hold the microphone to my ear, to listen. hi
Saturday afternoon I had one hour to operate, in which I made 5 QSO's on 21 MHz with
LZ, IS0, I and EU.    I responded to signals that were S+.

Tuning
In the evening I went on, but could not be heard. The in coming signals were S+, thus strong enough, but my QRP signal could not be heard. After not being heard by 3 different very loud stations I checked my power.
After tuning with CW, as I always do, I had forgotten to switch back to SSB, so I had no power at all.
After that I made two additional QSO's. Then I had to QRT, since the XYL went to bed.

Your signal is weak
On Sunday morning I easily made 5 QSO's on 7 MHz over short distances with DL, ON , PA and G.
Many operators told me that my signal was weak. But I have no tower, no Yagi, a less than perfect Inverted Vee and QRP and still managed to make QSO's, somtimes pushing the operating pratice to the limit at both ends.
Using QRP and a simple antenna, shows that Progation is more important than the Antenna. hi.

Pacemaker

De pacemaker heeft vanaf 1958 een enorme ontwikkeling doorgemaakt, zowel in de electronica als de behuizing. De eerste pacemakers waren uitwendig en waren uitgevoerd met buizen, in kasten op wieltjes.
Later kwamen de uitvoeringen met transisitoren, die toen nog op het lichaam gedragen werden.

Nostalgie
Net als mijn eerste zelfgebouwde radio, de Philips Pionier, waren de eerste getransistoriseerde pacemakers met PNP transistors uitgevoerd.

Schema van een pacemaker met PNP transistoren

Uitwendige pacemaker in Kiwi schoensmeer doosje 1958

Nu
De huidige pacemakers bevatten een complete computer, uiteraard zonder toetsenbord en monitor en worden in het lichaam gedragen. De computer maakt de pacemaker programmeerbaar en stelt deze in staat om onregelmatigheden in de hartslag op te merken en op te slaan in het geheugen. Zodat deze info later tijdens het bezoek een aan het ziekenhuis uigelezen kan worden. De pacemaker bevat een batterij, omdat deze langer mee gaat dan een accu.

Voor het verbinden van de pacemaker met het hart worden twee elektroden gebruikt.

De elektrode

Uitvoeringsvormen van de punt van de elektrode 

De foto's zijn gemaakt tijdens de zeer informatieve bijeenkomst voor pacemakerdragers in het st Antonius ziekenhuis in Nieuwegein.  Ik heb mij hier beperkt, tot het ,voor het "radio" Blog, interessante gedeelte.

Homebrew 10 watt dummy load

For years I use a very simple homebrew 50 ohm - 10 watt dummy load.
At a moment, I realized that 20 resistor of 1000 ohm in parallel, form a resistor of 50 ohms.

So I bought twenty 1000 ohm - 1/2 watt resistors and soldered them on a PL 259 connector.
Through the green tube runs a wire, to connect the wires of the resistors to the left, with the
center conductor of the connector.
The twenty resistors can dissipate a power of 10 watts.

The dummy was measured in a workshop of Rohde & Schwarz.
At the moment I can not find the report of the measurement.
I first wrote that the dummy load was 49.9 ohms, but I now remember
that it was 49.8 ohms.
I was surprised the resistors had an accuracy of better then 1%. hi

10 watts - 50 ohm HF dummy load

  

Spring

Looks like it will be spring.
We have very nice temperatures.
Yesterday my wife and I went for a walk in Rhijnauwen, along the Kromme Rijn.

Langs de Kromme Rijn

Sneeuwklokjes

Guust is 57

Guust

Guust is 57.
Wat een verassing.
Zo'n 40 Jaar geleden was Guust mijn favoriete stripfiguur.
De boeken zitten in een doos op zolder,
maar mogen (nog) niet weg.

Toen ik de Google doedel zag, moest ik ook aan de meeuw, juffrouw Jannie en de flaterfoon denken. Hi.

Flaterfoon

HA-DX contest 2014

I had great fun with low power in the HA-DX contest.

I had to rediscover, what my Inverted vee would do.
In earlier contest I experienced, that I would need the full power
on 7 MHz and 3.5 MHz.

From the Cabrillo log:
SOAPBOX:       I fixed my Inverted Vee temporarily after a storm last year
SOAPBOX:       One wire is flat on the roof, but I still make QSO's
SOAPBOX:       Had great fun with QRPp and QRP from 100 mW to 5 watts
SOAPBOX:       Thanks for the activity in the contest

On 14 MHz my antenna is still working well.

In many QSO's on 40 m and 15 m, I had to use the full power of the FT-817.
But when the S-meters goes up, I can reduce the power.
I could also make QSO's with QRPp.
I had a remarkable QSO with HG8C.
When I gave my call with 500 mW, there were other stations also calling, but he came back for me.
This doesn't happen often. hi. Most of the time I must wait, till the frequency is clear.
I even had a QSO with 50 mW with RM22HD outside the contest.