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Next activities of S65X and S61FD
SARTS was active as S65X again during the WPX cw contest May 27/28, 2006. We made 1166 QSOs (9V1CW op.). Conditions were reasonable,
considering the phase of the solar cycle. 15m enjoyed the best runs with a nice opening to NA Sunday evening (local). A few patchy openings on 10m completed the fun.
17 hours of operating time were spent on this contest. The S65X logsearch has been updated.
We will also be active with the same call during the IARU HF contest
on July 8/9, 2006. This activity will be combined with another local fieldday.
For non-contest QSOs we will use our fieldday call S61FD.
Some hardware added to the shack ...
To celebrate my 50th birthday (ouch !!), my wife had ordered a Begali Signature paddle for me. It arrived Saturday, May 13th.
It calls for a simple "Wow !". Very nice and extremely smooth to operate.
Antenna system beefed up ...
As the G5RVjr guywires kept snapping, I decided to install a 30/40m 1/4 wave wire vertical. It is basically
a short aluminium pole with a fishing rod on top with two wires running side-by-side along it. 3 radials for 40m
and one for 30m. It works really well on 40m, but on 30m it is not very effective. Maybe I need to string out a few more radials for that band too.
And ... finally the Cushcraft MA5B is up (25 feb) !! Pete, 9V1PC and Mike, 9V1VK, were of invaluable help in getting it done. It was a mini-fieldday on the roof again under the cooking hot sun.
Unfortunately conditions are just very lousy right now so no idea on how this thing is going to improve my signal.
Singapore active during PACC (11/12-Feb-2006): S65X
The local authorities allowed SARTS per Jan 13th to use the callsign S65X for contest purposes. It was first used during the PACC
from Pete's shack (9V1PC) who has a 3 ele tri-bander.
We also built a 40m vertical which appeared to put out a solid signal to Europe, and we erected an inverted L for 80m. Conditions were not
very good. Only 20m yielded reasonable signals as well as 40m around sunset in Europe. 80m was a disaster mainly due to the fact that the inverted L did not work
as expected. 15m only enjoyed a short, weak opening on Sunday morning (EU). 109 QSOs were made in the contest. See the on-line log.
QSLs will be sent out by PA0KHS to all stations worked (no need to send a card).
Band Mode QSOs Pts Cty
3.5 CW 2 2 2
7 CW 23 23 9
14 CW 46 46 9
14 USB 18 18 2
21 CW 18 18 8
21 USB 2 2 2
Total Both 109 109 32
Score : 3,488
Enno trying to squeeze out one more Dutchman as S65X during the PACC at Pete's shack, 9V1PC
Malaysian island groups aired in Oct/Nov 2005 by 9M2/PF5X
2 small DXpeditions were undertaken to:
- Pulau Langkawi (Perlis/Kedah State group, AS-058) on October 29 to November 5.
The Langkawi Village resort is situated at the South-West point of the island. It is the same place Richard, G4ZFE, visited in the past. Our cottage was not at the
beach front, but close enough to suggest the take-off would be reasonable towards Europe. USA and JA are over land but there are no close-by hills in that direction.
There are many 12-15m high palm trees. These are just too high to throw a rope over the crown of it (why didn't I ask to borrow 9V1PC's slingshot ?).
So, I tied my fishing poles along the trees with the 30m delta loop and a 40/20/17m combi dipole. The last one appeared to be not working well at all. I rebuilt it later as a vertical
which appeared to be working better.
Condition were varying to a large extent. Good openings on 30m to EU, but the next day almost nothing ... The last fews days yielded some propagation on 15m to JA and for a short period I even could work
some EU stations. However, if you are not spotted you do not stand a chance as "little pistol" DX station. People are not tuning anymore it seems, and rely
totally upon what the cluster shows them. Start listening and tuning again, folks, DX needs to be chased !
I ended up with 650 QSOs in about 20 hours of operation. Somewhat disappointing, but then again, we are at the bottom of the cycle making it not easy
if you can't put up decent low-band antennas.
Life is "heavy" at Chenang beach in front of Langkawi Village Resort.
- Pulau Sibu (Pahang/Johor State East group, AS-046) on October 8, 9 and 10.
The Sea Gipsy Resort is great for kids and has a very friendly staff. The beach is absolutely superb. Unfortunately
the location is almost useless for Europe as it is completely shielded off in NE direction by a
200m hill lying immediately behind the resort. Direction JA had a clear take-off over water. The Western part of the USA was in the clear too, but due North for Eastern USA
again was partly shielded by the hill. As the family had priority anyway, I decided to string out only my 30m delta loop.
Only 3 evenings were available for radio activities. Conditions were mediocre and the interest in AS-046 was a little disappointing.
Maybe my signal was just not strong enough (100W from my IC-706). The QSO total ended at 217. Majority of contacts were with Japan as expected.
(QSL cards will be made available after my Palau Langkawi trip). Check the log.
PF5X in operating position on the veranda of the cottage.
"Shack" at Pulau SIbu. You can just see the black DK9SQ carbon fiber mast in the middle.
Fieldday Singapore style: BIG success !!
August 26-29 the Singapore Amateur Radio Transmitting Society (SARTS) has held its a local field day at St. John's Island
(sorry not separate for IOTA, just AS-019) using the special callsign S61FD !!
We were able to make 1725 QSOs.
Now, that might not seem a lot for a 3 nights operations, but you have to realize that the bands normally do not open up before local darkness. The daytime is usually worthless.
A pleasant exception was Sunday afternoon (August 28) when we enjoyed a good opening on 15m towards Japan. The band stayed open towards Europe and East coast USA until
almost local midnight !!
We conducted some experiments with the "Buddipole" portable dipole/vertical. Though the concept might look good on first sight and it sure makes
"buddies" given the needed amount of beer to try and understand why this thing does not tune well to 50 Ohm (it is simply way too short and for sure way too low -> 3m, ha, ha),
we soon concluded that a piece of wire, a palm tree and some other very simple hardware will do a much better (and cheaper) job. E.g. we used simple wire dipoles and a full-size 30m delta loop.
The delta loop yielded an extremely good signal with only 100W. Many European station have been worked on this band.
Unfortunalety our inverted L for 80m did not work out well, mainly due to lack of decent propagation.
Here are some statistics:
SSB CW RTTY band
--------------------------------------
80m 0 1 0 1
40m 6 36 0 42
30m 0 501 0 501
20m 211 242 14 467
17m 0 92 0 92
15m 166 453 3 622
--------------------------------------
mode 383 1325 17 1725
1-Band QSOs: 1279
2-Band QSOs: 151
3-Band QSOs: 28
4-Band QSOs: 2
Check out the log ...
This is the QSL card. We will do a 100% QSL job via the bureau. However, if you want the S61FD QSL faster, then send your card to PAØKHS, and you get one in return soon
(provided you added an SAE + sufficient postage).
Upper left picture: top L. to R.: Mike - 9V1VK, Jaya - 9V1VS, Kamal - SWL, David - WA3SCM, Alex - 9V1AL; bottom L. to R.: Martin - 9V1MS, Enno - 9V1CW,
Selva - 9V1UV, Peter - 9V1PC, Rene - 9V1DU.
First 6 meter opening
Today, May 29th, I had my first 6 meter opening. From 09.13 until 09.39 utc I worked 13 Japanese and 1 South-Korean station with multi-hop sporadic E.
Signals were quite weak with a lot of QSB, so it was quite difficult at times to get the callsign correctly in the log. The opening was short, but at least
it proved me that Es contacts are possible even when you are located on the geo-magnetic equator ... I will consider upgrading my antenna, as
obviously a beam would immediately increase my signal strength as well increase the signal to noise ratio during reception. However, time is limited ...
RTTY and PSK31
The purchase of a microKEYER all-in-one keyer/digital interface
gives me now the capability to run RTTY and PSK contacts. The build-in WinKey also interfaces nicely to N1MM through a single USB port.
No more hassle with LPT and COM ports and no more RFI issues. One box, one cable set and that's it !
Six Meters, it's a go !!
My IC-736 has been inspected on Mar 28, so I am allowed use 6 meters now. Max. permitted power is 50 watts and there are some no-go frequencies (50.025, 50.050, etc.).
I have no real clue what to expect on 6 here, on the equator. Apparently the e-skip season in in the May-June time frame
towards Japan (and again another e-skip season around December towards the South), but I hope I can use some TEP propagation as well. Meanwhile I bought
a 5/8 lambda vertical (Diamond DGH-60, see picture below in test set-up). It is on the roof now on top of a 4.8m alu pole (=> approx. 18m above street level).
DGH-60 in test position
- We were on holiday in West-Australia (Perth and Geographe Bay area) in February 2005. I was able to obtain a license as VK6ERA (took 30 min at the ACA office in Perth. Great service !!)
The main purpose of my activity was the PACC contest. A simple set-up did the job: IC706MKII, 20/40m dipole at 10m and a MFJ901B to tune the antenna to 15m as well.
Between February 11 and 14 I managed to work 58 PA stations and made 42 QSOs outside the contest (mainly on 40m).
Also for this call: QSL via PAØKHS.
This is what the QSL will look like. The main picture is an impression of the Pinnacle Desert, about 250 km North of Perth.
 
SARTS meets every 4th Thursday of the months in the SAFRA Toa Payoh clubhouse. This is the venue for meeting fellow Singapore hams.
See the picture below of last January meeting.
Meanwhile Alan, 9V1DX, is back in Perth, Australia, and Bob, 9V1GO, is now on Batam Island, YB5AQB.
Photo: courtesy Ian, 9V1WD
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