The 450m wire antenna at OE5ODL, Ossi, is still up! Ossi had already
worked OK1FIG earlier this day. Meanwhile he has added some more radial
wires across the neighboring fields. We have made some antenna current
measurements with a non calibrated ampere meter, which showed a relative
improvement (absolute numbers not known).

At 1445 we went on the air and heared the finals of a QSO between DJ1ZB
and DK6NI. I called DK6NI but he was already gone. DJ1ZB, Ha-Jo, came
back and I also heared G3KEV (rst 539) calling CQ in the background when
DJ1ZB was not transmitting. I gave G3KEV several calls but no success.
At abt. 1455 I heared G4GVC cq-ing (rst 429), also no success. We then
wired up a second power supply in series to increase input voltage of
the final to 27VDC.

At 1630 I started cq-ing and worked DK6NI, Gerhard from Erlangen with
some difficulty (rst 339, he gave us 539). Thanks for your patience
Gerhard! Both G-stations heared before were stronger than DK6NI at the
time of our QSO. At 1645 I heared HB9ASB cq-ing and called him. He came
back to G3KEV and gave him a 579 report. No copy of G3KEV here at this
point of time. At our next cq the output transformer of the final arced
with a spectacular flash and went up in smoke.

In total we were on the air for maybe 2 hours of operating time, but
what excitement it was! I am going to wind a new transformer. I think
that with the increased output power a QSO between OE and G should be
possible. In general it seems that we have better ears than we have
voice. We certainly will have to upgrade our transmitter and we hope to
be on the air the next weekend. At least Ossi will be back as soon as I
get the transmitter fixed. It is a 45min drive from my home to OE5ODL
but I never regret doing the trip.

73 Heinz, OE5EEP
<[email protected]>