Dear LF group,
This weekend i will be active with my kite vertical antenna on 137 kHz
out of France, near Verdun, JN29PD.
Background:
The local ham radio club (http://www.f42.info/) where i am member of
belongs to the city of Griesheim (near Darmstadt). This city has a
friendship to Bar-le-duc, in France. Bar-le-duc has a ham radio club as
well (http://f6kup.free.fr/). Those two radio clubs have started a
friendship before about 20 years. Since almost 20 years the two clubs
are doing the VHF/2m contest on a hill in JN29PD while camping and
enjoying the friendship together.
This year i will have been there the 10th time.
Since 2008 i am taking my kite antenna to the hill. It is much more
easy than having a 10m aluminium mast (in segments) into the car and
allows to built much more effective antennas for 7 Mhz and below.
Normally there is not too poor wind. Last year i was QRV on 160 m using
a J-antenna. but this year i will be active on 2200 m. And: There is a
mains connection, so i don't need the generator. Last year the wind
pulled my kite for more than 24 hours without a break, means
during sleeping in the night.
If the WX is OK i plan to start the activity on friday night. I will be
QRV until sunday, about 12 UTC. One interest is to do some CW QSOs ( my
sequencer allows semi-bk) so if there are some stations in a region of
1500 km with a suitable signal, please give me a chance! The french
radio club has already announced that i will be active on 137 so maybe
there will be some LF interested OM/YL who could become new stations on
LF! It would be fine if i can show them more than just noise, hi.
Of course, i will be QRV in DFCW-3 as well. Some transmissions in
DFCW-60 are planned too. Maybe this could be interesting for the DX
stations? If the propagation allows it, you should copy my signal.
On the hill, there is no internet so i cannot use any grabbers or so. A
feedback can be given via CW, just like in the (good?) old times. I
hope for e.g. Markus/DF6NM to be active in CW to give some news what's
going on on the reflector and/or the grabbers ;-)
Wind is essential of course but in contrast to VLF there is not that
problem with rain since the loading coil is rather small, produces just
some kV (<10) and can be covered by a trash bag.
CW activiy is planned on 136.8 kHz (if no QRM there)
QRSS-3 on 137.7 kHz +-0.02 kHz
QRSS-60 (beacon mode) on 136.319 kHz (if you want another range, please
tell me!)
For RX is try to use the K2 and the 706 in combination with the TX
antenna and several 10 dB attenuation. Additionally i will try my 44
turns RX loop antenna , coupled by a fiber optic cable to the K2. When
using the RX loop i will de-tune the TX antenna of course ;-)
For TX i have the 1 kW class-E PA (running in QRP mode, of course) and
a second 12V class-E PA with 40/120 W (running in QRP mode as well, of
course). If i can find the time i will built a third PA (class-D) which
is not so sensitive to mismatch, running at about 50 V DC using some
IRFP-260. This PA could be used for a night beacon transmission while i
am sleeping.
So, i hope for a nice LF activity this weekend and am looking forward
with interest :-)
Best 73 and gd DX!
Stefan/DK7FC
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