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.