PA0O ham radio

TX5EU in the Pacific BG66ED has been coming in with remarkably good signals from Austral Island, even now with the SFI dropping just above 100. The radio path from JO33 is QTF 316, sometimes on 20m directly over the North Pole. I missed the peaks on 80m and 10m, and now with a K=6 magnetic disturbance and a tropical storm affecting them, conditions are tough. I’ve worked 9 slots so far. The 60m contact was special, made with my Windom antenna, SWR 1:5, tuned and barefoot at 100W FT8—very surprised TX5EU came back after just a few calls.   Other bands required much more patience, though I prefer CW.   Twice I had SPLIT off—sorry about that, it was brief. I usually stop calling when a QSO is pending to avoid unnecessary QRM, but many callers just keep transmitting during an pending contact, even when the operator asks them to stop. On top of that, there’s often a lot of DQRM, which is pointless to respond to—it only makes things worse. Great operation! Excellent signal...

 Was weer een heel evenement veel pileups. Helaas besloot mijn Steppir niet mee te werken en kon niet worden gebruikt dat was een behoorlijke aderlating natuurlijk dat deze beam uitgerekend tijdens de PACC niet werkte.  Onder voorbehoud preliminary result PACC low (100W) CW SINGLE-OP ALL LOW CW --------------------   1.          PA4O     432900   Electronic Log   2.          PA0O     325728   Electronic Log   3.        PA3GPX     187510   Electronic Log   4.        PA3ARM     186200   Electronic Log   5.         PA4PA     166374   Electronic Log   6.          PA8R     118872   Electronic Log   7.          PA2W     1172...

**“ The ARRL contests have been my favourites for a very long time. Back in 1980 we operated in the Multi category as PA0GN logging was done by hand. No computers, hand logging. I used the memory keyer , built from WB4VVF 's article in QST. Still have that keyer on the shelf.. The ARRL CW and SSB contests then took two full weekends — 48 hours each. Paper logs and dupe sheets had to be send by air mail in a big envelope and many months later we could read the result in QST..…”** Nowadays, with the help of cluster spots that highlight workable new calls on the bandmap, I can work more stations on my own than we ever managed in the 1980s with multiple operators. This weekend Saturday morning brought exceptionally good 40m propagation strong signals from W6, W7, VE7, and VE6. ( map below) But the next day the K‑index rose to 5, and the higher bands closed early. **“I ended place 4 on the realtime contest scoreboard. section SO LOW ALL Europe I had been in 3rd place, but by th...

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.