pa0r - blog

Antennaless in Eersel...

noreply@blogspirit.com (PA0R) — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 20:50:00 +0100

We had decided (oh well, the xyl had decided) to clean up the woods where my antennas are intalled. The trees are 15 meters high, and housed a 4 x 40m horizontal loop, and several vertical phased loops for 15, 20 and 40. There is also a home brew full size 40m vertical.

Cleaning up meant take down some 20 trees completly and remove dead wood out of the others.

To make this possible, and help the 3-4 guys with their monstrous equipment do their destructive work I had to take all antennas down, with the exception of the 40m vertical, which they promised not to hurt.

After one week work we now had 20 trees less and a heap of wood which will take us 5 years to fire...

So all problems solved. 20 trees and quite some money out of the pocket, but the "mess" was cleaned. Time to drive to our winter residence in Spain, and forget all trouble and the bad weather.

And indeed, we have 25 degrees C, and no wind, perfect for vacation and more creative ham activities.

Tonite I talked to my son on jabber. He is taking care of the house and the cat. He told us yesterday's storm has taken out 15 trees, 6 of which are lying across the fence to the neighbours, and 2 are on top of the vertical. Which is now rather horizontal. At least I know what to do when we get home again. Looks like the spider beam, which I had taken down to storm (3m) hight is still alive. Time for a new antenna plan!!

You can't win them all....

Antennas, rigs, amps, laptops and brick walls

noreply@blogspirit.com (PA0R) — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 14:00:00 +0100

The 16th was build-up day at 5A7A. Main activity was to set up all the antennas. The weather was excellent and most of the crew started to build the shacks, and the antennas.

The main shack first got a G5RV so we could start operating immediately. The build-up of the 2 spider beams of the main shack was started. They were both on the roof of the building, overlooking the sea.

For shack 3, the four-square for 40m was built on top of the roof of a building near by, and the 80m four square was put up on the beach. Meanwhile another crew had started to put up the HF9V vertical, 5-band spider beam, and the 3-band monster spider for 40-30-20 at shack 2.

Rudi, DK7PE built a Titanex V160E and some receive loops (penants) for the separate 160m shack.

The activities on 6m, 2m and 70cm (EME and MS) were housed in the 160m shack.

Rudi, DK7PE built a Titanex V160E and some receive loops (penants) for the separate 160m shack.

The activities on 6m, 2m and 70cm (EME and MS) were housed in the 160m shack.

The software/networking team consisting of myself, Pirmin HB9BTE, Manfred, DK1BT and Mitch, VE6OH started to build the WiFi network between the shacks and intalling software, drivers and interfaces on the laptops the participants had brought.

Networking@5A7A and the real meaning of "brick walls....''

Mitch had brought 3 linksys units which could be switched to several configurations. The planning had been to have only 3 shacks, so the network layout had to be redone. First we tried to have an access point on the roof of the main building and 2 repeaters at shacks 2 and 3. The access point had a 10dB amplifier at the 13dB gain antenna on the roof.

It took us a day to find out that he max.range of the equipment was at its limit for the 490m between shacks 1 and 2.

But it was impossible to hear the 2.4 GHz signal inside the shacks. We had the same problem at TS7A in 2003, and we think they are using leaded paint on the walls in this part of the world. As soon as we stepped into a room the signal was completely gone.

This meant that we could not connect shack 3 to the network, and it was decided to move the stations from there into the main shack where we have a lot of room.

Meanwhile we experimented with putting a separate wired network into shack 2 and using the linksys units in a bridge configuration. This worked. Luckily Manfred had brought some ethernet hubs so we could connect the stations to it via wire. At this moment, 12 hours before the contest, the network is running fairly stable unless somebody pulls a plug somewhere.

There was no possibility to connect the 160m shack, so they will be isolated during the contest.

I would have liked to show you some photos of the antennas and other equipment here, but the internet connection is so bad that I cannot get the photos into the album from here. Please refer to the 5A7A website for that!!

(...)

5A7A here we come

noreply@blogspirit.com (PA0R) — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 16:15:00 +0100

I was picked up on the 14th around 5 o' clock PM at a fuel station near the German border, not far from Aachen, by Alexander, DK8FD who would join the expedition 1 week later. We got to Frankfurt airport around 19:30 and started looking for the 5A7A crew. We started at the group checkin, desk 314, but the lady at the desk told us there was only two of us, and that was no group. And moreover no groups were scheduled for checkin that evening. We tried the mobile phone. Andy, DJ7IK's number was either occupied or mailboxed.

Anyway, after half an hour we got through and were directed to counter 532. And indeed, part of the group was happily waiting for things to happen.We met Dave, K3LP, Krasi, K1LZ , and most of the TS7N participants of 2004, including Pirmin, HB9DTE, Franz, DF6QV and Guenter, DL9CB. And about half the equipment, nicely divided across about 20 bagage carts.It was a big hello, and everybody was glad to see the others. It was a bit like coming home.

Checkin was at counter 314. The whole process was rather slow, but all overweight kilograms disappeared into the bagage system. Lufthansa had even provided a special pallet for the oversize packages like antennas etc.
We were also able to check in, and there was an invitation letter from Lybia and a list of passport numbers. Mine was not on it. I had been forced to buy a new passport because the old one would have had its validity date exceeded by more than 6 month. Oh well, at least I had a boarding ticket...

We went to Alex's home, had some beers and I went to sleep on the couch. Alex promised to keep the owner of the house, a siberian tomcat, quiet. Like so many snow-white cats it is deaf, and makes a terrible noise when necessary.

Early rise

after a short but nice breakfast we made it into the car at 6:30 AM. Dietzenbach is only 30 minutes away from the airport and we had planned to reconvene with the group at 7:00 AM.

Now the whole crew was there.... and we restarted the checkin, shoving another 400 kg overweight into the plane.

The rest was child's play. I had to show our Lybian invitation to the airline rep. and I could even show him my name was on the list of passport numbers. Unbureaucraticly (how do you spell that?) they let me through, just in time to board the plane.
During the quiet flight to Tripolis we had our last beers and champaigne... it took us 2 and a half hours to fly down to our destination. Weather was nice, and we had some stunning views of the alps on the way. We flew over 9H3 and IG9, and soon hit the 5A coast.

Getting in

After boarding we were hoarded to a seperate spot in no-man's land where we had to pay 80 Euros for a visum (well not exactly only for the visum, everything would be included, including the fun social programs during our stay). The passport/visa checking took about 1 and a half hours, with many meetings and deliberation... our baggage arrived from the plane. They took our passports away. Then suddenly we were allowed to move the baggage out through customs. There were no checks and every piece was Xrayed 3 times. After some 2 hours after getting off the plane we were in the arrival hall waiting for a bus and a lorry to take us to the hotel. We also bought some Lybian money, as credit cards are not used in 5A The ride down to the hotel took us through the suburbs of Tripolis to the Janzour village, where we entered the hotel complex through a well guarded gate. We certainly would not have worry about security during our stay.

Getting a room

The hotel had 5 single rooms and 13 double, where we had ordered 5 double rooms and 13 single. Unfortunately it was fully booked, and no more single rooms were available. After 1 and a half our of negotiations everybody had what he/she wanted, and we could happily move into our rooms and start building up 5A7A for the big pileups...

(...)

Activating Lybia...

noreply@blogspirit.com (PA0R) — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 16:45:00 +0100

We are travelling to Frankfurt. Nicoletta is bringing me to the DL/PA0 border, where I will be picked up by Alexander, DK8FD, who has volunteered to rpovide boarding for the night. I am armed with 2 laptops, a CW keyer paddle, my favourite headphones and UTP cable. Tonite the bagage will be checked in at Franfurt airport (if we make it in time), and tomorrow morning 9:30 we will be flying to Tropolis. In Janzour, a suburb of Tripolis a quiet beach hotel is waiting for an invasion they won't easilly forget:) There will be spiderbeams all over the hotel, a 4-square for 80m, a Titanex vertical for 160... and over 30 crazy people talking about strange things and sitting behind strange equipment... And oh yes, the lights will flicker in a weird rhitm.

We have ordered an ADSL connection for internet so I hope I can update the blog during my stay. And of course I have taken the pskmail client with me, just in case.

Wish us luck....

The 5A7A hotel in Janzour, directly at the beach

Montenegro and back...

noreply@blogspirit.com (PA0R) — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 17:05:00 +0200

First time I heard from the Montenegro DX festival was during the Ham Radio fair in Friedrichshafen, end of June. The idea was good, bringing a new DXCC country on the air with a 'big bang'. Still we decided we would probably not go. We put the boat into the water early May, and we haven't used it.

By the time we got home from Friedrichshafen the temptation grew bigger, and on the 28th of July I filled in the application form telling we would join the party for the first week (you bet...) and mailed it to YT6A.I did not get a confirmation on the email so I sent it again, this time to Hans, PB2T, who appeared to be somewhere in W4, and told me he had forwarded the application to Martti, OH2BH, who would do the coordination. This sure was going to be an international affair, and apparently it was in good hands.

July 11

I got a copy of an email from PB2T to YT6Y saying that he would not be coming by car and that the FT2000 could possibly travel with PA0R, who would be coming by camper.I informed Martti I would indeed come by camper but I would have to leave on the 13th as we would need about a week to manage the 2000 km trip.

It was decided I would pick up the rig at Schiphol and take it to Montenegro.

July 13

I drove to Schiphol early morning, a 2 hour affair. Unfortunately the car nav system did not recognize the street name, I probably fed it with the wrong city name or something. It took me three quarters of an hour to find YAESU (or Vertex as they call themselves nowadays). The temperature in the car had meanwhile risen to 42 degrees C (I drive a dark blue audi A4, also called 'fastest greenhouse in town', and in Holland you don't normally need an airco for the 2 days of hot weather per year). The handover of the FT2000 took 5 minutes. They had even provided a paper for customs stating that 'this equipment had no commercial value and was taken to the Montenegro ham festival by Mr. Soandso, a Dutch citizen'.

At three o'clock in the afternoon we had the camper packed and we were heading towards our first stop, Wertheim in Germany. We know that place quite well by now, there is a large parking lot for 40 campers on the bank of the river Tauber. Including all facilities for water, sewage etc., and not too far from the shops and pubs in town.

There were a lot of roadworks in the Frankfurt area, and it took us until 21:30 to get there.About 2 hours before arrival, in the middle of a road block, we got a telephone call from ON5TS, who wanted us to take some more equipment to Montenegro...

I decided to take an early night and not put up the email antenna...

July 14, Murphy is on vacation

I hate the A3 in Germany. It is one steep hill after another, and the camper is under-motorized (3.4 tons with a 2.5 litre diesel engine). It was also obvious that a large part of Germany and Holland was on its way to their holiday locations in the south. It was one of those days German radio calls 'black Friday'. And indeed, the amount of traffic was unbelievable. Thousands of people wanting to reach their holiday destinations NOW!!. Add to that the high temperature outside (29 degrees C) and inside (...), and you get a terrible mess.

We decided to take it easy and set our target to Plattling, a small city between Regensburg and Passau, about 40 kilometers from the Austrian border.

Just after Regensburg we were hit by a stone (or a meteorite, you never know), leaving a nice small crack in our wind shield. By the time we reached our destination, the crack had extended to some 30 cm and it was obvious we had to do something about it. It was Friday afternoon, and 15:30. Time was becoming a leading factor now...

So we parked the camper, took the bikes off and cycled into town, to find a suitable garage. We found a Boschdienst Service within 10 minutes. These people were very friendly and immediately phoned the local car glass service for us who happened to have the proper wind shield in stock. Just that all their people were either on the way home or still working off site and then driving home. But if we could drive the camper down there they would try to arrange something...By 17:30 we were sitting in the camper in front of the car glass service shop waiting for the glue of our new wind shield to dry. The shop was closed now. Murphy must have had an off-day.Half an hour later and it would have cost us two days time!!

In Plattling there is room for some 20 campers behind the swimming facility. There is fresh water, sewage dump, and electricity. One of the sockets was live, and we did not have to pay (Murphy, where are you...). It was time to run the airco (230 V only), as the temperature inside had meanwhile risen to 35 degrees C.

Nicoletta went swimming. I put up the antenna and was in time to get the email via pskmail. The signal on 20 meters was a stable S8, and I could close the session within half an hour.

July 15, Dig the blues?

The Saturday again brought us phantastic travelling weather with 27 degrees C. I had found a camper site in Gamlitz, in South Steyermark. It is just 6 km from the motorway, near the Slovenian border. It is one of the "Wine lovers' sites where you can camp freely and taste wine and have good food.

After driving through the whole of Austria (53 km of tunnel included) we arrived safely in Gamlitz at around 16:00, and parked the camper just beside the full parking lot of 'Schloss Gamlitz'. Only after half an hour we noticed the large signs 'Blues at the Schloss', 14-15 July.

Within an hour we were surrounded by parking cars coming from all over Austria (Graz, Wien, even Innsbruck). The restaurant was closed. The concert started 18:00 and with the windows open we could have made a recording with excellent quality of Willy deVille et al.

Good blues until 00:30....

July 16, Down to the coast

We made an early start on Sunday, as we had planned to drive through Slovenia and Croatia down to Split. There were supposed to be motorways all the way down, so we could easily master the 580 km in one day.

We passed the Slovanian order without problems, actually there was nobody who could have stopped us.

After Maribor the motorway stopped and we were left on a road which clearly has not seen any subsidy from the EU yet. This went on until halfway the Croatian border and Zagreb.

Again, we had no problems entering Croatia. The people looked friendly, and pleased that we would visit their country.

Driving through Croatia brought us stunning views. The motorways are in good shape and it was a real pleasure to drive. The food and the beer ('Pivo') were excellent.

When you come close to Zadar the motorway takes you quite high into the mountains, which was a difficult task for our engine. But it did its duty fine.

Between Zadar and Split the brand new motorway is ready, leading through something they would call a 'desert' in Australia. Endless bushes and some scattered houses on hilltops. But every 30 km there is a gas station with refreshments. Truely a remarkable place...

We passed Split around 16:00, and went looking for a camp site near the sea. We ended up in Monis, some 20 km south. Kamp Galeb is a very large site with its own sandy beach. We found a shadowy place for the camper and did some eating and drinking in the beach bar. Felt a bit like holidays....

I set up the pskmail system and sent the beacon to SM0RWO.
It looks like: PA0R>PSKAPRS,TCPIP*,qAS,SM0RWO:!4326.41N/01640.84E@9A/PA0R/P pskmail

Here is the resulting picture:

You can see clearly why it did not work well, the location is completely screened to the north by a high, steep mountain ridge.

July 17, Through Bosnia to Dubrovnik

The Monday took us to Orasac, some 12 km north of Dubrovnik. The road takes you along the coast and delivers phantastic views of the Adriatic, if you feel like looking that is. The traffic was quite heavy and the average speed was around 50 km, as the road is taking you in serpentines along the side of the mountains from village to village. You have to take your time for this.
We had to cross the Bosnian border twice, which gave no trouble. The road through Bosnia is only 8 km, and there is one town called 'Neun', which is clearly focussing on tourism. Hopefully they will use the money to repair the road...
We arrived in Orasac at 15:00 where we found the camp site 'Rudine' easily. We camped under a large tree as the sun was abundant. Local temperature was in the high 30s (C). We did some shopping and went to the beach which could be reached via 50 meter long stairs.

July 18, Finding Klinsi. Roads, road, roa, ro...

Tuesday, another bright day. We started at 10:00 for our final destination, Klinsi on the Bay of Kotor.
We had instructions how to get there from Dubrovnik, so it would not be a problem. The landscape remained the same, a winding road along the mountains, with phantastic 'scenic outlooks'. We reached the Montenegro border and we were asked to show passports and green insurance card for the camper. We took the ferry at Tivat which got us across the bay quickly. Just after passing the end of the runway of the airport we took the coastal road to Radovici, and took a narrow local road down to the coast, with lots of parked cars on the side. At the bottom of the road there was a small restaurant where I asked if that was the road to Klinsi. Although it was a bit difficult because the people only spoke Serbian, they were quite helpful but could not tell me the way to Klinsi. So we decided to drive back up the hill through the narrow road and follow the wider road.

After some 100 meters we noticed we were in Radovici, which was too far so we turned and went down again. Now we took a deep breath and followed the road past the restaurant, which was apparently not meant for use by campers 2.20 meters wide.
This appeared to be a wrong point of view, as in the next village we were confronted with a water truck coming our way which was at least as wide as our camper and who was apparently quite happy to use this road.

Some people guided us to the entrance to a new house they were building, so we could make room for the truck. It was quite steep and I did not believe we would pursuade the camper to go up there, but it did it without moaning. The truck got past and we returned to the road.

After some 5 km of trees scratching the sides of the camper we got to Krasici. Krasici is a tourist village, and the streets were blocked by tourists, cars of tourists, shops with wares hanging into the street, and a BUS. Meanwhile we were used to the game so we managed to find a spot where the bus could just pass us when we removed the left hand rear mirror.

At the end of the seemingly endless village we asked some men who were sitting in front of a pub, one of them with 'YT7Y Contest team' on his T-shirt if they knew if this was the right way to Klinsi. 'No problem', they said just drive up this steep hill here (12% slope) and go on for 8 km ('11 km' said the other man), 'and you will be there'.

We took the hill in second gear, and after that the road was narrow, but fairly straight. There was no sign of Klinsi. Suddenly, the road stopped. There were 2 ways to proceed, down to 'Zanice beach' and down to 'Rose'.
The paper describing the route had said something about everybody knowing the way to 'the famous Zanice beach', so we decided to go down there.

The road got narrower and narrower, to a point where the wheels of the camper would just fit it, with holes on the side of the road some 50 cm deep beside the concrete. Trees scratching from both sides. We went on for some 8 km and there was nowhere a place to turn. This could not be right.

I stopped at a farm house and managed to turn the camper, overlooking the holes it had to go through.
There were some people coming out of the farm, obviously curious, as they had never seen a vehicle like this.
I asked them the way to Klinsi. 'Yes, yes,' was the answer 'Klinsi 11 km'. '3 km' said the 13 year old girl.
I asked 'on the way to Rose?'. 'Yes, yes,' they said, so we went on up until the split in the road and went down to Rose. And you bet, we did meet the water truck on the way up.

This was 'easy' after the treat we had gotten. A serpentine leading down the hill. We did not get to Klinsi though. At the end of the road was Rose, and the road stopped. All parking places were occupied, so we parked on the harbour mole. There was a sign saying something in Serbian about a 'bus', but we could not read it.

I decided to call for help. Dragan, YT6Y promised to send a rescue squad within 10 minutes, and we were probably only 4 km from Klinsi, if we would look up the hill we could see the antennas. We looked up and saw nothing.

We waited half an hour and the bus came. Fortunately somebody had left his parking lot and with some effort we could manoeuvre the camper into the slot so the bus could use the mole to turn...

We waited another 15 minutes and were picked up by a friendly Serbian soldier and a friendly man named Nicola who guided us up the hill to the military compound where we would stay for a week.

Until then we had not realized we were 1 day earlier than planned. Time looses its meaning when you are adventuring. We could choose our own parking location on the compound, got our electricity cable out for the airco (it was some 38 C outside) and the fridge, and got fed with lots of bread and pivo.

July 18, Up to Obostnik

Around 18:00 Ranko, YT6A called. We would drive up to his contest location on top of the hill, in Obostnik and spend the night there. Obostnik was to be one of the locations for the Dxpedition. We were promised a shower, food and a good night's rest, so Nicoletta gathered some necessities and around 21:00 we were packed into a 4x4 Landrover and got going.

You would not believe the condition of the road leading up to Obostnik. It took the Landrover 45 minutes to span the 300 m of height difference (our German friends DL3DXX and DL7FER did it one day later walking in 1 hour). Huge boulders and deep holes made it a super cake walk.

For contesting Obostnik is the hilltop location you have always dreamed of. A roof full of antennas, a radio room fitted for several stations, accomodation for at least 10 people, kitchen, large bathroom with shower and a view over the Adriatic sea which takes your breath. And internet facilities, so I could kill the spam which had gathered during the week.

We were told that if we took care about the snakes and the scorpions this is one of the safest places on earth. We took a good night's sleep in a large double bed and went down after breakfast the next morning. This was an experience we will not easily forget.

July 19, The Day Before

We spent the day on the commpound, taking a day's rest before the big event. I put the antenna up on the camper and got the station going on pskmail. Signals were excellent and I could work SM0RWO on 20 and 30 meters without problems.
Also the APRS beacon worked quite well. I can check with the 'GET POSITION' function in the client which tells me the last location 'Findu' has got and when it was received. I let the beacon run on 30 meters all day...

There are 4 dogs on the Klinsi site. A german shepherd with 2 pitch black puppys and 'Ugly Dog'. Ugly consists of mainly 4 legs, a head and a tail. The rest of the dog is hidden somehow. When we came he was scared and did not come anywhere near any human. By the time we left 'Ugly' was sleeping underneath the camper and took part in our meals.

2 more cars were supposed to arrive during the evening. One of them, belonging to Marcus DJ7EO actually arrived. By the same procedure, he was picked up somewhere, he already did a complete tour of the peninsula (He went on to Zanice, and from then on back to Tivat by the other side). The others were advised to stay in Tivat and come the next day.

July 20,3-2-1-GO MONTENEGRO

In the afternoon we were invited to a fish restaurant in Tivat, on the side of the bay, to celebrate the start of the event. There were several official speeches (the press releases will tell you the content) and good food and drinks. We also met the other participants there.

We were back at Klinsi around 17:00, and the raising of the antennas, the finding of cables with the right connectors, the installation of the radios and computers could start.

As there was no station operational yet it was decided that I would start working from the camper. Around 17:00 UTC I had configured Tlf for dxpedition mode, tuned the FT897 to 30 meters and called CQ. 2 times. Then the pile-up was there, rapidly growing to 3 kHz, and allowing rates of > 100 per hour. After some time necessary to adapt to the pile-up going was fine, and I enjoyed one of the greatest runs in my life. I was able to work JA, W/K and PY through the Europeans. One of the stations I worked was K1ZZ, who joined our party together with his XYL Linda a few days later. I stopped around 22:50 UTC with 620 qso's in the log.

July 21, Run, run, run

3 stations had been installed in the shack at Klinsi. A CW station from Dietmar, DL3DXX, and SSB station from Marcus, DJ7EO and another SSB station from Robert, SP5XVY (of 3Y0X fame).
Meanwhile also the Titanex vertical and some wire antennas had been erected.

Everybody is working...

After breakfast I took over the shift from Dietmar, and went on working CW on 30 and 15 meters. The runs just did not stop, and 30 meters remained open all day. I worked for 6 hours and gave the key(board) to Jan, Z35G.
Meanwhile Martti (OH2BH) and Robert (SP5XVY) were helping to set up a Stepp-IR beam for a WARC band station which was located near the sleeping quarters. Bruce, W6OSP was working SSB on 15.
The evening was long and full of talk and beers.

July 22, Run, run, run

I started my shift at 4 UTC, and worked CW on 30 and 20 for 6 hours. Rates were still above 150/hr.
Leena, the XYL of OH2BH visited Nicoletta, and they had great fun together.

Nicoletta spent most of her time reading...

The evening was again long, and this time full of talk and white wine.

July 23, Run, run run

Again I started at 4 UTC, finding 20 CW wide open. After that the vertical was tuned to 17 meters, and I started the cw pile-up. I worked 6 hours with just a pause for lunch which was served somewhere between 11:00 and 14:00. Rates were still > 100/hr
We went down to Tivat for dinner (you need some variation...) where we could pay with VIP coupons.
The evening was long, Robert had organized some nice red wine and Dietmar got to 160m just in time for the gray line opening.

July 24, Run, run, run

This time we got up very late, and I took over from Dietmar around 7:00 UTC, I worked CW on 20 and 30 until lunch, which happened to take place at 13:00 local. The pile-ups just would not stop!
In the afternoon I hesitatedly got to do some CW work on the WARC station, which used writelog. It worked o.k., only the repeats sent partials instead of full calls, which I think is no good for dxpeditions. 12 meters was hot! The JA's were not loud but workable and again the pileup did not stop. 2 hours, 240 qso's...
In the evening we had heated discussions with Emir, 9A6AA, about giving other than 599 reports, and we had some beer.

(DL3DXX working them on SSB)

July 25,
I cannot possibly remember, only that Leena and Nicoletta spend the day together again.

The Stepp-IR, the Titanex and the beam in Klinsi

July 26, Run, run

This was supposed to be our last day.
Felix, DL7FER and Jan, Z35G had returned from their stay in Obostnik, so there were enough CW ops around.
I worked a few hours on the CW station, on 15 and 17 meters. Still pileups, 1 cq was enough to set the alarm of...

Here is Robert, SP5XVY heating up the warc bands

In the late afternoon we went to the restaurant for dinner, as Robert had invited us for a farewell party.
We were joint by Hans, PB2T, and Dave K1ZZ with his XYL Linda.
Meanwhile, we had decided to stay 1 day longer, to be present during the cruise on Kotor bay Thursday evening. The evening was long. There was champaigne and lots of talk.

July 27, Linux/RTTY day

As there had been no RTTY activity yet, and I had the only working digital station, it was decided that I would do some RTTY from the camper on the last day.

I used a combination of tlf and gMFSK, and that worked fine. I first tried 30 meters, but there was nobody listening. Then I went on 20 and the pile-up started. I worked from 7:30 UTC until 16:00 UTC, with a pause for lunch and had to close down because I had to pack the camper for the return trip the next morning.

I made 285 qso's. I prefer to work CW, the computer had problems to dig the calls out of the pile.

During the evenening we had a nice dinner trip on the bay with a large cruise boat. There were official speeches which you will certainly read in the press releases. Dinner was excellent and we had a great time with our German and Polish friends.

After returning to Klinsi we had some more beers and went to bed. Enough is enough.

July 28, Return to Croatia

After breakfast we had the camper packed. Robert had parked his car in front of the camper, as he wanted us to stay one day longer. Nicoletta could pursuade him to remove the vehicle, so we could leave.
We said goodbye to everybody and left. The weather was perfect for travel. 32 degrees C and some clouds.

We had timed our return trip perfectly. Too late for the people driving to work and too early for the tourists to clobber the street. Of course we did meet the bus.
We drove to the camp site at Orasac and stayed there for a long night.

July 29-31, Kamp Galeb, Monis

After driving back to Monis on Saturday we saw that the sky was cloudy for the first time and decided to stay 1 more day to take a rest.
I tried to get the email connection going but the site is no good for a connection to Stockholm. I did get an APRS position through, but could not load the list of email headers (which had grown quite long in the mean time) so I gave up. Too much multi-path which destroyed almost 100% of the shortest packets.

I did work 4O3T on 20 meters CW. And had a qso with DL1EKC on 40 CW, who told me he has repaired my K2 during my absence.
We did some shopping in the tourist area, and Nicoletta swam in the Adriatic sea. Nice days after all.

August 1, Gamlitz, Austria

The return to Austria went smoothly. All borders were wide open. At the border between Croatia and Slovenia we were stopped because the chief of customs wanted to know the price of my electical bike. Not to let me pay taxes, but because he would like to buy one!
By the time we parked the camper in Gamlitz it started to rain. We had a nice dinner with good wine at Schloss Gamlitz (the open air rock festival was next weekend). Some other time I will tell you how we came to drink some 27 year old wines...

August 2, Tunnel views

On wednesday we crossed Austria, which was rainy for most part. Good thing we had to go through 53 km of tunnel again. We landed in Plattling, where electricity was still free, now on socket nr. 3. Amazing. We also cleared the tanks and took fresh water.

August 3, Back home

After we left Plattling to drive up to Worms (there is a nice restaurant in Worms quite near the camper parking) we heard on the radio about 'black friday' on the 4th, as Baden Wuerttemberg would start holidays and Northrhein Westphalen would come back home.
We decided to drive back all the way home, which took us 10 hours, mainly through the rain.
After some emailing we went to sleep. Enough is enough.

World's slowest interface to Google...

noreply@blogspirit.com (PA0R) — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 19:40:00 +0100

One of the things you can do with pskmail is search Google. Just open the webpage interface and enter:

http://www.google.com/search?q=searchphrase

where 'searchphrase'is anything you had always wanted to know', but never dared to ask....

Tnx Per, SM0RWO for this info!!

I am sure this will get us into the "Guinness Book Of Records" for supplying the slowest Google interface without using an internet connection.

Sea cow pinpointed

noreply@blogspirit.com (PA0R) — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 19:33:47 +0100

Congratulations to Per, SM0RWO who decoded the callsign of the pregnant sea cow which has been haunting the 30 meters frequency where we carry out our pskmail and aprs experiments. It turned out to be one of the gateways on the APRS net on 30 meters...

Per, the beer (a famous Belgian Brand) is yours!!

Now, the transport problem...

The discovery of the 'time leak effect' (TM)

noreply@blogspirit.com (PA0R) — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 23:20:00 +0100

I have just discovered the time leak effect. After the gas leak, the fresh water leak, the oil pipeline leak and the famous memory leak (what?? you still program in C++?) the time leak is one of the the biggest nuisances you can come across. We have to fight it on a daily basis here (we are still in Spain, and the sun is rewarding us for it every day now).

When I still had to work for someone else there was no such thing. You had your diary and your local time on the Palm, and except for the days when you were 'completely interrupt driven', you followed the path your secretary had written into your machine, and in the end your boss was happy, you were happy and your xyl was reasonably happy. Especially when you were away for a contest weekend. And you had the feeling time did not exist,it was just a figure (8 divided by 15) on the front page of your Palm (TM).

Now that I do my own planning there seems to be a constant lack of time. The xyl is of the opinion that my planning skills are not on par with what I try to achieve, but it must be something else. When we drove down to the South of Europe I had a todo list for tlf and for PSKmail. I also wanted to write a database program (in PERL of course) for the locations we can park the camper for a free overnight stay, so I can feed them into gpsdrive. It was a waste of time. The planning that is...

Until now I have spent all my time on testing pskmail. Writing additions and changing stuff so it works even better. This camp ground is an excellent test bed for the program. I am 2200 km from the server and the internet facility (4 old desktop computers with W98 of which 3 are constantly out of service because some virus has to be removed) is in use all the time. At least at the occasions when you could fit in into your planning.

The pskmail link to Stockholm works all day. From 8:00 UTC (no use getting out of bed early because the bread shop is not open before that time) until sometimes 22:00 UTC. During mail sessions I use 80 Watts and in between my APRS beacon roars along with 20 Watts input. If the computer is not in use for something else :)

Then we have to go shopping. There are 3 supermarkets in walking distance, so we tend to buy a lot of stuff which I have to carry back to the camper (a bottle of good wine weighs just short of 1 kilogram). Then we have to go walk on the fantastic beach, and watch the sand castle artist rebuild his castle which has been ruined by the dogs during the previous evening. Then we've got to have lunch, mostly sitting outside in the sun. With a glass of good cheap wine. After that we have to do the spanish lessons. We have 3 different courses on CD, DVD and accompanying books.

Then the weather is so fine that it would be a shame to go sit inside to write some software, so we sit outside in the sun and I do some reading in my favourite books (Programming PERL and PERL Cookbook). After that it is time for a drink and some nice food, and we go to the beach again. When we come back it is time to download the second email batch and start preparing dinner.

Somehow I have the feeling something is missing. The 4th dimension strikes back. Time has leaked away without any positive effect on mankind. Or has it?

I noticed this time leak thing has a positive effect on creativity. It tends to make your todo lists longer, thereby creating the need for more time. Which is not a circular reference; I am afraid it is a recursive function without a return condition...

One positive outcome has been a so-called crapmail filter for pskmail, which filters out all references to MIME stuff and advertizing and please unsubscribe this and that and our ADSL service is faster than yours...

This has already saved lots of time downloading the mail...

Free beer for capture of sea cow!!

noreply@blogspirit.com (PA0R) — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 20:05:00 +0100

On special request I present a screen shot of our faithful visitor on 10.148 MHz, we call it the pregnant sea cow because of the characteristic sound. This screen shot was taken this morning while getting the mail from SM0RWO. The whitest bits are S7, and this time pskmail won the battle...
The signal is a distortion product from an active packet forwarding station about 1200 Hz up. The FT897 RX has AGC off, and DSP on the most narrow position (1000 Hz for both Low pass and high pass).
This sick signal has been here for months now, and I think the operator (?) of this station is deaf, dumb and blind.

I will donate a free beer at the next hamradio exhitbition in Friedrichshafen for the person who is the first to tell me what station I am talking about!! Maybe we can persuade him to stop this pollution (if he knows what that is).

The packet center frequency is around 10.149 MHz, and you cannot miss him.... he has been 3 kHz wide since I started monitoring this frequency!!

The Rent-An-Antenna project

noreply@blogspirit.com (PA0R) — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 20:00:10 +0100

I came across a splendid idea the other day. One contest group has now installed a receiving antenna in a remote location. The connection to the station (K2 of course) is not via a coax cable, but via a broadband internet connection. Antenna direction switching and RX frequency setting can be done via the internet link (Tlf has been doing it for years), and a web cam makes sure you know immediately if the cows damage the antenna. The argumentation was: "we have too much noise at our contest location".

This set my mind off, and when that is the case there is no stopping...

I have seen a lot of nice, noise free locations on our various trips, one of my favourites being in the middle of the "Waddensea". You can hear the grass growing on Mars in that location (electro-magnetically spoken).

What if I hired one of those fancy satellite internet installations during a major contest, and auctioned the spot on EBAY!! Think about it. You are somewhere in California and you have tried to win the CQWW-SSB for the last 10 years but these darned guys in Aruba, HC8 or CT3 always win the pot....

This is your chance!!! You rent my antenna installation for the duration of the contest and you are the only one who can hear those thousands of low power and qrpp basterds in Europe who do not even bother to put up a decent antenna for the contest!! You can not imagine the pile up...

Now of course there is this rule that your antenna must be no further away from your main location than 500 meters, unless you own the property?

The solution is very simple. On the 1st of April I will offer you the opportunity to become co-owner of a small piece of land in the middle of Europe. I will auction ownership certificates on Ebay, and the bidding will start at $1000 per station per contest.

I will undertake to put an antenna on the piece of land, and facilitate a 1 MB/sec TCP socket to connect your station to. Stations in California will get 10% rebate as they are in a disadvantage anyway.

Of course we could strike a deal beforehand... If you don't want your competitor to grab this fantastic offer you can email me via pskmail...

Now how could I make this work for a M/M station? Could I organize an antenna for the Europeans which is located in Japan? Let's see. I would need to build 6 K2's, the satellite connection would cost Euro 90 for a month, .... And what about auctioning the roof of the camper including the fishing rod and the wire, that would make... There is a lot of mileage in this idea.

The financial aspects of my next vacation are settled!!!