PA0O ham radio

Running LOW power SO CW  with K3 and  Flex6500   Steppir 3 ele  beam was frozen al week with freezing N-E wind was just intime operational again and I could place  a shorted Dipole for 40-10m  to have a spare if anything would happen to the Steppir .. In January, the northern part of the Netherlands faced arctic winds from the northeast and subzero temperatures, while the south felt more like spring. Finally, the temperature rose above zero and the Steppir tuned again, but now we’re surrounded by fog. EU zones offer plenty of multipliers that make this contest exciting, and I’m in NL05. The scoring clearly favors the EU, giving EU contacts 10 points while those outside get only 3. G, HB9, LA, YU, and E7 are all worth just 3 points. It feels a bit odd to have the FOC activity on the same weekend as a completely separate event. Nigel TK/G3TXF, a well-known DX-peditioner, was running EU-DX instead of FOC—remarkable that he was on our side! FB, Nigel. ` I ...

Using a 100W K3 with an L antenna and a small loop RX antenna sometimes helped a bit.   Almost all contacts were within Europe. Propagation was poor, with only a brief window on Saturday morning at 07 UTC when some USA signals were heard and workable  and PJ2T  No signals from Asia,                      Ranking at closing, shifting up and down from 16th to 9th place.

To the south, where city lights interfere, the clouds appeared bright and dynamic, changing within seconds from glowing intensely to fading away. The green and red colors were visible only in camera pictures, while to the bare eye almost no color effects could be seen.

  Not seen that much snow in long time Strong  cold north east wind. the day before the 3cm XVTR was removed to prevent damage.