DF0TEC station Woltersdorf #JO73CE

If You're keen 2m contest op, You'll probably know the team members of DF0TEC in Woltersdorf, Olli DH8BQA, Uwe DL3BQA and Heiko DG1BHA.

First sight close to QTH already making some sweet ham impressions :-) Probably every one of DX'er dreaming about QTH something like this one :-)
 

 
If You are not 2m op, I am pretty sure You will remember their Baltic 2016 VHF DX ES & LY from various grids under calls ES0UG #KO07/KO08/KO18 and LY2AAM #KO23 square on 6 and 4m.

Delivery of new club antenna was a great occassion to visit the club and meet friends known from RF waves. Unfortunately Olli DH8BQA can't be present (we've missed You Olli ), but we had a great time with Uwe DL3BQA and Heiko DG1BHA assembling the antenna and discussing ham radio stories with home made Radler beer by Uwe :-)

Heiko DG1BHA & me in the DF0TEC club room. Heiko is a master of cables, towers climbing and all hard work :-)

Uwe DL3BQA, ES0UG/LY2AAM Baltic 2016 VHF dxp team leader, and all the essential club stuff manager.


Thanks for great time guys & hope to mee you again ! 

West UN opening on 70MHz July 02.2017

Band came up suddenly with lot's of OIRT traces form East today. At about 06:30UTC waterfall was clear but 2 traces with leading 70.160 Radio Rossija and some minor 70.060MHz same publicistic programm were visible.
The clock of course is wrong :-) distinct pulses were driven by OIRT full hour clock signal at 07:00UTC

Then few minutes later suddenly out of noise 70.175 MHz Sergey UN7IT popped up with CQ between OIRT spurs, signal was varying, with some slight QSB. At 07:11UTC signal rises up to solid 559 between OIRT crashes, and QSO completed.

UN7IT AUDIO 07:15UTC and  12:20UTC
UN3M short CQ (forgot to push recording) ~07:47UTC

The band was open no doubt. At 07:47 solid CQ from Nick UN3M on 70.200MHz, when at the same time UN7IT was down in the noise, Es clouds causing vice-versa copy - few grids between  them.

Map source: maps.google.com

Clouds started to shift Westward and Sergey got his shot with DL stations, mostly around JN48/JN58 grids, some OK2, and SP8 worked him also.

After some break, conditions back again around 11UTC. Just back in shack and see again strange OIRT right on 70.200MHz appeared quite strong. Never heard it in 2016, but this Year 4th time. New one TX?
(Radio clock corrected) 

 At this time Es clouds were located like this :

Map source : vhfdx.com

Some 30-45 minutes later Sergey UN7IT started to be audible again on CW, Interesting - almost  NO OIRT QRM ! this time. Listen to his CQ up on this page.

Then QSY to JT65 and lot's of JT65decodes followed, -20 to -10dB at best.
  

 

Propagation lasted more than hour longer then cndx gone slowly... Hope not last time this Year !

 73 !

6m DX went "DIGI"

That's a fact - and we can't do anything about it. There's strong demand to work any DX on 6m and even "hard hat" community guys went QSY to JT65 also. Not all of  them, some still hesitating and throwing a thunders for all the rest who is enjoying marginal or even better openings.

After a week of silence 6m woke up again, and we had a nice Saturday morning here.

 

There was a real crowd on JTDX waterfall, EU's on even, and JA's/Asia on odd with best wave at 07:07 UTC where 32 ! unique JA's were decoded + DS4EOI :-)

Nice catch was Yoshiharu san, JP1LRT/6, which is QRV from PL24UO grid, rare one, Miyako-jima Island below Okinawa.

Mr. Yoshiharu was QRV from MOBILE ! with 50W only and 6ele Yagi !

This is what JT65 is made for ! 

Picture courtesy of JP1LRT/6, TU !

Hope Es persist and we'll have fun also tommorow, could be one of last occassions this season to have some fun on 6m.

GL!

Phone call worth a beer or TWO !

Crazy afternoon today, probably broke few limits driving home after phone call from Ted SP3OCC with info he just worked Yaser 9K2YM on 70MHz !
Quite rare DX on 70MHz, as we need 2 hops (3610km) to get into Kuwait, and of course operator must be there and QRV!

Thank God my QRL is only 15km away, and no Police patrols along, ugh! :-D


After arriving home there was no 9K2YM heard, but Yaser was still QRV according to spots.
Fortunately it was only Es QSB and after few minutes Yaser appeared with growing signals.

Few minutes more and signal reached -01dB WSJT scale and grow even morewith good level to SSB try, so Yaser went to SSB and shot solid s9 in the peaks !

Probably some QRM/noise his end, but after few calls ( screaming rather :-) ) he got my call and SSB QSO was done - 70MHz DXCC #52.

Recorded audio (sri for quality, wav was OK, bad on YT) :  https://youtu.be/G4dOFyxTiws

Also CW from 9K was great, Yaser worked few EU stations on 70.171 MHz. According to his info setuo is only 20W and 8ele Yagi.

No doubt it was phone call worth beer or even TWO - we need to drink for it next occassion Ted!  big THANKS!




  

Rare DX on 70MHz - Western Sahara S01WS QRV !

For those of You who haven't noticed yesturday's massive Es opening on 4m - there's new DX to hunt for...

Please note they have two different QTH :
Bir Lehlu #IL56HB, and Tifariti #IL46RD

After extensive opening to whole EA from N to S, including EA6, EA8 and big sigs from CT band was starting to calm a bit around 18UTC.
But it was only a short break !

 Map source: www.dxmaps.com

Possibly nothing more to work left. Only Joe CT1HZE was still audible at s7 working DL's.

Then BANG ! 18:19UTC Sjoerd PA3DOL spotted QSO with S01WS on 4m.
First thought - maybe wrong QRG, WS is well known from 6m - but no!
Sjoerd confirmed his QSO with S01WS. Followed by Rob PA0RDY and "some" DL stations.

After quick tune at 185 there was nothing except weak birdie, after applying the notch unreadable voices, almost EME level were heard ! Then after 5-6 minutes first time S01WS came audible with CQ, but what a pity - he did not respond to call... More than 5 min with repetable CQ 4, without even QRZ...

Worse nightmare when You heard DX, and he is not !     

Nevertheless, hope this opening will encourage S01 guys to be more active.
At the time no more info about their antenna and RIG used on 4. If no any improvement they still could be QRV on wire dipole used on 6m and HF.

More info to come soon, I hope.

GL !

HA/SP7VC rare grid KN17AV - UPDATED

On behalf of Mek SP7VC I am announcing his another rare 50/70 MHz grid activation, this time KN17AU.
Most part of the KN17 square belongs to UR and YO, and almost no activity from there, but small part is still in HA.

Operation will start June 15 in the afternoon, as usual MS on FSK441. If Es will occur please call him SSB on TX frequency to change mode.

If no Es HA/SP7VC will ALWAYS transmit 1st period with standard 30s duration FSK441 mode.

Frequency 70.174 MHz  (DL part of band)

Some hot pics from KN17AV (changed from planned KN17AU)

4m LOG (raw data):

MS/FSK/JT6M

OM5KM,SP9HWY,OZ2OE,SP3RNZ,PF7M,DJ5MN,PA0RDY,DJ2QV,OK1TEH,S51DI
S57A,SP2JYR,ON4PS,PA2IP,SP1MVG,DD3SP,OK1DIG,OK1VBN,SP8WJW,OZ8ZS
S51DI,9A1Z, S51ZO

Es/SSB
June 15.2017

G4FUF,G3MXH,G4YHF,G3YDY,PA3DOL,G4CAJ,G0HIK,G8FUD,ON7GB,M5AFG

G0JHC,PA3EAQ,GW4ZAR,G0CER,G4MKF,PG5V,G3TDH,PA4EL,G4GIR,G3FYX

G1PPA/P,PA5Y,G0CHE,G7RAU,M0IEP,M1SWH,G4YBI,GW4ZHI,G4IOQ,ON5CD

GW4HBK,G0AUI,G4PDS,G4DKE,G6GEI,G4YPC,G8GRS,G8FMC,G4WWH,ON7CL

G4CXQ,G3UEY,ON5LT,DF8IK,G4EZV,DF6WE,DL8FBD,HA1YA,GU6EFB

G4YUP/P,G0HEL,G3TCT,ON4PS,G4BRU,G8CUL,M0IEP,G4ASR,GW4JQP/P

M0BUX,G8FUO,G4SBX,G4JED,G4GFI,G4YPC,GM4JJJ,G3WCB/P,G4PDS
GJ4CLA/P,G3ORX,GM4IDJ,GU8FBD,GM4YBF,ON5SA,GU6EFB,G4WEY,G3PFM
OF1XT,G8FMC,G0VVE,GW4BVE,G0CER,GW6TEO,G4FEV,GW4JQP/P,G6KWA
G4SDM/P,G3MXH,G1YBB/P,GW8ASD,G6DKK,G8BFV,EA3GP

June 16.2017

PE1COS,PA0RDY,PA7GS,PA4K,ES2MC,PA2GP,PC7B,OH2OAA,PI4DB,OV3T,

OZ2OE,G3NPI,OZ1JXY,DL4OL,G6CQC,PE1NAO,PA3ANG,PC2F,G8EEM,PA5HR,

G4BAO,OH1AXT,PE1MPZ,M0UKR,OH1ND,OH1LA,G4JCG,DF5VAE,OZ8UW,

DG0KW,G4EHD,OZ3ZW,DJ2XW,G0AUI,DK2AY,OH2FNR,PA3ANG,OZ2BPS, 
ES1II/8,GM4FVM,PA4VHF,DJ9YE,PC9C,YL2CA,OH1LEU,ES1CW,OH7RJ,
OF3BCX,OH3MHA,OH1QX,OH2BYJ

June 17.2017

4m 
Es: EI4GNB,EA1HRR,GW4ZHI,GI4SNA,GI4E?A ?????
6m Es:G4R,IZ0EGA,IT9FXY,F4AQG,F6BCO,IW0HLZ,I0KNQ,EA3HJO
IS0BSR,OE3K,HA6W,TM6V,UR7DWW,GM8IEM,HB9AOF
HB9OCR,EE2W,DH8GV,GM6NX,PA3MRF 

New JT65 dedicated cluster DL9GTB

As per information by Max DK1MAX posted today on KST chat, growing DIGI community got new tool to monitor JT65 frequencies.
New cluster can be entered via telnet at port 8500, under address

cluster.dl9gtb.de

You can use ordinary black command DOS screen, or any telnet software. Can be added to cluster list under standard log's i.e UCXLog

below filtered 6m band few minutes a go :

Vy 73