QTH: Hornisgrinde (JN48CO)

While still active during the weekend of the July Contest we began planning our participation at the September Contest. We decided to alter our station completely. Instead of 2x11el Flexa Yagis we choosed 4x5el DK7ZB Yagis, and two of these on one tower each. As an addition a 17el Cushcraft were used. You can read about the functional details of the switch between the Antennas here. As our short wave tranceiver Icom IC-765 broke down at the July contest, we had to find a substitute for it, too, which turned out to be a Yaesu FT-1000MP. As an amplifier we used an HA8UG with a GS35b tube. To realise all this and many more ideas, the time was running fast until September, so we built and tested literally until the very last minute.

For the first time in our personal contest history we met for the set up already on Friday morning. With a mobile home, a trailer and several cars operators and working material were transported to the summit of the Hornisgrinde, about 1163 m a.s.l. high. We had to work from 11:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. to build up all of the three turnable towers and the station. After that all of us were very excited and curious whether those many new components would really do their job. And indeed, to our big surprise, everything worked fine and we able to perform the first tests and QSOs. The last problem turned out to be the power supply. Unfortunately our generator could not keep up with our equipment: while running the station it only provided 190 V instead of the expected 230 V. Just before the contest beginning on Saturday afternoon we were able to put a second generator in operation and thus solved the problem. We managed to start the contest in time and until Saturday evening it worked out quite good. On Sunday we had to fight heavily with strong QRM caused by two other stations and our QSO entries in our log became a little meagre, which could not be caused by the QRM only. Especially noticeable were the decreased QSO rate towards north. We finished the contest with 739 QSOs and 241k points, a new record for DL0BL. The farthest contact was HG9VHF with a distance of 906 km. Further highlights were TK2KP/p and T72NC. The new contest station did not only work solidly, it also brought us a lot of fun and a step further on the way to the better positions.

We are already planning for 2004…

Thanks a lot for the QSOs and see you on 144.225 MHz.