pa0r - travel

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.

Nice qso...

noreply@blogspirit.com (PA0R) — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 20:30:00 +0100

This morning I had only one email waiting on pskmail, a 7k masterpiece from the crew of PI4TUE who were preparing for the PACC contest this weekend. The server at SM0RWO was a stable S7, as always in the late morning hours (we don't get out of bed very early here). So this was to be a piece of cake again.

And indeed, the first bit came in without problems and I enjoyed watching the block size of pskmail going up to 64 characters per block. If you are used to PSK31 or RTTY, that is quite fast, and the protocol overhead is only 6% in this case. But this was sunday morning, and it could not be true. There was an RTTY contest going on HF, and all non-contesters would be on 30 meters?

You bet.... The first intermezzo was a PSK63 signal, S9+20, that came smack on frequency and started to send

"rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" on top of the server. Pskmail got a hicup, but went on as if the rx had been dead during the intervention. 60 seconds later, probably the same station (did not send a call, so must be an unlis...) came back, this time with a lot more creativity: äskdjhnjklssjhhssssrrrrrrrrrrrrsjk,,fffmmklajdshjiwioinbnamjdbnj".

Interesting. The burper was actually communicating!!!

Pskmail went on, now with a block size of 16 chars/block, which makes the text slightly worse to read for an outsider.

Again a few minutes later: '"QRZ QRZ QRZ? What means 2615?""

As the email got really stuck now, and was not ready, I could not answer this interesting question. Meanwhile the number of repeats had triggered PSKmail to reduce the block size further to 8 characters/block, but it was still pushing the text through. The jammer gave up.

5 minutes later, a PSK31 signal came on our channel, exactly zero beat with our frequency, and started calling CQ I guess,at least I cannot imagine that he was in qso, as the SM0RWO server was still pushing text with an S7 signal.

PSkmail could get 1 block through out of 8 during the times the caller was silent.He gave up after another 5 minutes.

After this we only got disturbed by the "pregnant sea cow" living 1.5 kHz higher, supposedly passing packet radio trraffic. This guy (or girl for that matter) is so overmodulated that his signal is 3 kHz wide, and knocks our PSK63 signal out when he vomits on our channel. This normally knocks out only 1 block out of a sequence of 8, but the speed is going down dramatically because of the automatic block length adjustment.

I have made some pictures during this session (yes, this was one 40-minute session!)

This was not all. During the rest of the qso (1 email !) I was jammed by 2 SSB stations (this was 30 meters!!) who started a qso right on top of us, (PSKmail worked during the listening period of the loudest station), and 4 pactor stations, who just switched their burpers on without listening. Some of them started off-frequency, but completely blanketed the signal as soon as they switched to higher bandwidth. At one time I had an SSB qso with a pactor signal on top on our channel!!

But in 40 minutes time I managed to get the email through!!!

What I have learned during this interesting qso?

Don't think any of the digital operators will listen on frequency before transmitting.
Don't think an SSB station will give a damn if he ruins your digital qso
Don't think any pactor 2/3 operator has a clue what he is doing
Don't think he cares a damn about you losing your qso, he doesn't know who you are anyway
When you use a different mode from the other guy you are an ALIEN, which must be shown he is not welcome here.
Don't think ham spirit still exists in the digital sub bands

And this was 30 meters.... outside the WARC bands the RTTY contest was spreading anarchy.

Benicasim

noreply@blogspirit.com (PA0R) — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 12:14:46 +0100

Monday morning. We are in Benicasim, Spain, and it is raining. The temperature is still a nice 10 degrees plus, but it feels a lot colder than yesterday when we had sunshine.

We have been lucky with the weather until now on this trip. On saturday, the main roads in the south of France were closed because there was 20 cm of snow on the autoroute. To prevent such panic situations we had taken the western route through France to get here. Ultimate target for the journey is the Costa del Sol. But it is raining there as well, so we are not in a hurry to get there.

We started on the 18th, and took the route via Antwerp and Brussels. That way we circumvented the very bad roads through the walloon part of Belgium, and the route is flat so we save a lot of fuel. First stop was Soissons, just above Paris. The camp site was almost deserted and very quiet. We will come back there.It was bitter cold in Soissons, somewhere near the freezing point. But at least the sun was shining all day.

On thursday the 19th we made it through Paris to Pons, which is near Saintes, not far from the Atlantic coast. We know a camp site there which is run by a dutch couple. It had been raining quite a lot during the previous week so we got stuck in the mud and a helpful french guy with a pick-up truck proudly pulled us out and we parked the camper on the road.

Friday we took the 'route de 2 mers' to Sigean, just north of Perpignan. The camp site is well known amongst travellers to Spain. It is situated at the entrance of the 'Reserve Africaine', an animal park with thousands of african animals.

We visitited the park last year. This time we took a walk and had a glance at the zebras and oistriches from the ouside.

Sigean was sunny, and we stayed there for 3 days. This gave me the opportunity to put up the short wave antenna and get the email from the pskmail server in Stockholm. The server was workable all day from 9:00 untill 17:00 UTC.

On monday the 23rd we had a sunny drive to Sitges, just south of Barcelona. Sitges has a nice microclimate, with lots of sunny days. 3 of which we spent there. We could sit outside in the sun whilst the temperatures at home were going down, down.. Also in Sitges there was no problem at all reaching Per, SM0RWO's server to handle the email. The server was S7 with qsb to S4, sometimes the signal would disappear for a short time. But PSkmail handles all this without problems.

I tried the server of PA0N on 20, 40 and 80 meters, but it turned out there are constant hardware problems, and they are looking for new hardware for the server. It looks like the OMNI VI has been repaired. It had an intermittent contact in the PLL, probably a bad soldering joint. The TRX has been working for quite some time now and we keep the fingers crossed.

Thursday we drove down to Benicasim, our present location. Weather has been nice until today. Yesterday we had a walk down the phantastic beach, and enjoyed the sun. I also had some first test qso's with the client-to-client mode of the pskmail client with Paul, PA0N. We tried 40 and 30 meters, but ended up on 20. The test was succesfull. I have to tweak the timing a bit. Because of theintelligence built into the polling system the clients end up polling in sync, so everybody is transmitting at the same time. I tried to solve the problem but, I set poll time of one client to 10 + 5, and the other to 10 * 1.5 seconds which did not help obviously. I really should take more time for these things....

This morning I managed to get the list of email headers from SM0RWO, but that was it. I guess the power supply of the server needs a reset because the server had beaconed to the aprs-is ok. First time I used the wifi to get my email...

Yes, this modern camp site has Wifi, and I can use the internet from the camper. But you have to buy a card for 10 Euros per 120 minutes. At least I can now download the february issue of Scientific American from here.

Today it is raining. I think I will read a book.

Autumn trip

noreply@blogspirit.com (PA0R) — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 14:15:00 +0100

We are back home from our autumn trip. We started thursday 3rd November with nice, warm, sunny weather as we are used to. First planned stop was Calais. We had heard rumours that you could stay at Bleriot Plage near the ferry terminal free of charge. Which happened to be true. We stayed at a large parking lot reserved for campers, with service.

Quite a new experience to see the big ferries come in and leaving in 15 minute intervals. The only drawback was the noise of the big diesel engines when they turned around in harbour. There was no possibility for shopping within walking range.

We started to our favourite spot at the french coast, Honfleur, on friday. Last year we had taken the scenic route along the coast, but we have learned in the mean time that taking the autoroute saves time and (fuel) cost, even if you take the payed routes. The numerous village passages and roundabouts take an enormous amount of time and nerves. The mobile home parking in Honfleur was still open and we managed to get a power socket.

First thing to do was put up the new short wave antenna, which now also operates on 80 meters. I tried to get my email from PI4TUE in Eindhoven, but I could not hear the server. Also the beacon of SM0RWO on 30 meters could not be heard.

I tried my own server on 80 meters but also here complete silence! I gave up. Fighting hardware is like fighting windmills. They always win.

Honfleur was pleasant as usual, and we decided to stay over the weekend. The weather was quite nice. 16 degrees Celcius and no rain. Actually, the sun was shining until 15:00 hrs.

On saturday I managed to get my son to look at the server at home. It turned out that it was 1 kHz off frequency. After that was corrected I managed to get my email... with the execption of some mails containing attachments (one of them 3.5 MB, wo9uld have taken a day to get that in..). The ~KEEP function really showed its value here, I was able to shift those mails into webmail territory.

On saturday afternoon we went to the Cyber bar in Honfleur which has meanwhile changed its owner. I mailed Per, SM0RWO that I could not reach the server. On sunday the problem was solved, it had QSY'ed tom 3595 kHz... From sunday onwards I could use the server with S3 to S8 signals, and PSKmail worked flawlessly.

On thursday we went south, the final target being Carnac at the coast of south Brittany. We wanted to take a look at the famous megalith alignments there.

We did not quite make it, and spent the night in Redon, near the 'Port de Playsance'. It was a noisy place, near a major traffic route, but we were tired enough to get a good night of sleep.

From Redon it took us only 1 hour to reach the megalith site at Carnac. There a part of the parking lot is now reserved for mobile homes... We had a look at one of the oldest public domain hardware displays of Europe. 30.000 stones nicely aligned for some unknown purpose.

We decided to go back north on the same day. The goal was to spend the night in Cancale, on the north coast of Brittany. When we got there it turned out that the parking for mobile homes was closed and the city was full of signs stating "forbidden for campers". Nice welcome. As it was near to getting dark we decided to find another place for the night. We found it in Sains near the N175. This small village has a small park devoted to campers (6 places, free of charge, with service (4 euros for 1 hour of electrical power)). We have not heard silence so deep for 30 years. And at 23:00 local all the lights went out, spending darkness unseen by modern humans.

At 8 o'clock the next morning one of the campers started a generator, tearing the silence apart. Which I though was a strange behaviour with respect to the local population. We really felt like guests in this village with unmatched hospitality. Some people obviously don't feel like that.

When we returned to Honfleur friday afternoon we were astonished to find the camper parking (capacity 140 mobile homes) completely filled. Good thing we had visited a supermarket in the morning, as it turned out to be 11.11, a french national holiday.

As the weather forecast was quite bad for the coming week we decided to drive home on saturday. We did the trip from Honfleur to Eersel in 7 hours, and are now again ready for continued chaos.

Radio log

noreply@blogspirit.com (PA0R) — Sat, 16 Jul 2005 21:55:00 +0200

On monday morning, the 11th of July we left Eersel with target Cap Blanc Nez, near Calais. We put the camper full of Diesel and headed south. Blue sky and 25 degrees C. We, that was my son Thomas and myself. Thomas had never been to France, and we wanted to use the short trip to enjoy all the goodies of Normandy (like bread, wine and sausages) combined with a series of live tests of the PSKmail system. After a trip of 3 hours via Brussels (the roads in Belgium are comparable to those in Russia, only the wholes are deeper... WHY CAN'T WE HAVE A TUNNEL FROM HOLLAND TO FRANCE?) we hit the French/Belgian border near Lille and stopped for a first enjoyment....

As soon as we reached France the skies became cloudy and temperatures dropped to about 20 degrees. Which was good, as we planned to spend the night at Blanc Nez (a high cliff overlooking the English Channel), and there would be no power to run the airconditioner. After a pleasant trip we reached our destination and parked the camper amidst some 10 others. There are always strong winds at this high location on top of the cliff. Nevertheless there was heavy fog coming in from the sea.

We put up the antenna and set up the station at the back of the camper. We tried to connect the server on 10.148 kHz every hour, but there was no sign of it being alive. Frustrated I made a PSK31 qso with R3/DL2GM, Gena in Moscow. He assured me that there was no problem with the signal from the camper, reports were 599/599.

The next morning we drove 5 hours south to Honfleur, at the southern bank of the Seine, one of my favourite places in Europe. In expectation of the French National Holiday, July 14th, the camper parking was full (we had over 100 neighbours from all over Europe... from F, ON, PA0, G, DL, SM, LA, I, SV to name a few countries), but we managed to grab a nice "spot with a view" and set up the radio.

July 12, 19:30 UTC
Success!! The server answers the first connect request, and the signal is 559 to 589. There are 5 emails waiting for download. The first is from Skip Teller, KH6TY. What a coincedence! Skip is the "father of PSK63", He gets the first return mail via the server. I am also able to update the APRS position via findu.com, and send an email to the XYL. I also try to update the weblog via PSKmail. Then the signal of the server starts getting thin (less than S 0) and the server disappears completely.

July 13, 07:45 UTC
Success!! This time 7 connect requests are needed to make the connection. The signal is S4 maximum with strong, fast, fading which completely cancels the signal. I can't get a download going, as the block length (64 characters) is too long. Unfortunately it is fixed at the server side. For this case a block length of 16 characters would be ideal. First item for the todo list..... I can download 1 email before the connection dies completely within a time frame of 5 minutes! We go visit the city and the beach, as the weather has changed into the blue sky necessary to charge the batteries (there are only 4 power outlets on this parking lot, and first come first served.... we will have to run the fridge, transmitter and computer on solar power for the next few days).

July 13, 19:00 UTC No signal from the server

July 13, 20:00 UTC No signal from the server, 9+20 dB QRM. The neighbours, 3 metres away, have started their TV and their DC/AC convertor is giving a nice strong signal every 100 Hz, quarz controlled!!

July 14, 07:00 UTC
Success!! Immediate connect, excellent signal (S8), and 3 emails waiting. One of them is from blogspirit.com, refusing the blog update. Don't know why. 2 mails from KH6TY, and I start downloading the first.
It turns out to be a rather big picture in base64 encoding. Nice stuff for testing.
Download starts with few repeats until:

July 14, 07:14 UTC
The signal starts to become messy again.... strong QSB, completely cancelling the signal. I also get a jammer on frequency who apparently doesn't know what is going on. Probably can't receive PSK63, as the system automatically sends the calls every 10 minutes to indicate this is about HAM RADIO. The jammer gives up after 5 minutes, and the connection is still alive although 6 out of 8 blocks have to be repeated....

I also notice a principle error in the protocol. The time-out is fixed, which is no good for a varicode system.
The picture contains a lot of CAPITALS, and when it gets a heavy block the client polls in the middle of a block transmission by the server. This does not stop the flow, but it does provoke a lot of repeats. For the todo list!!
Also I feel the need to include a byte count in the mail headers so I am warned in future that a file of 56k is waiting :) => Todo list.

July 14, 07:42 UTC
The signal disappears completely in the middle of a download. The system times out and connect request cannot revive the connection.

July 14, 18:00 UTC
No signal

July 14, 19:00 UTC
No signal

July 14, 20:00 UTC
No signal

JUly 14, 20:30 UTC
Weak signal, no connect possible

July 14, 20:40 UTC
Signal disappears completely. Moreover the battery voltage is going low, better conserve some energy to keep the fridge going. We are rewarded with a splendid fireworks display outside. Well done Honfleur!!

We drove back yesterday, the 15th of July, loaded with a supply of bottles of wine to cover the enjoyment bit for the next few weeks.

This was good stuff!! The main lesson from all this was that we are dealing with RADIO here. For the 450 km distance probably the 30 metres band is not optimal. And a beacon transmission every half hour would be a good indicator for useability of the connection. Work to do!!

Friedrichshafen 2005

noreply@blogspirit.com (PA0R) — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 15:35:00 +0200

Back home. The trip to Friedrichshafen was nice as usual. Unlike the last 5 years we did not stay in the hotel in Kressbron, but we took the camper to the parking lot at the Messe.

We left on the 18th of june early morning (9:30) for a 350 km drive to Worms, our first destination, via the A61. Worms has a special parking/service area for campers which is right on the banks of the river Rhine (49.63455 N, 8.37537 E) and 300 meters from a number of interesting Restaurants. We had sun all day and the temperature was around the 25 degrees mark. We had dinner at the Hagenbraeu restaurant (I had Schweinshackse with dark beer) at the Rhine promenade. This is also the place for the camper service.
We spent the rest of the day looking at the ships passing through.

On the sunday morning we drove to Friedrichshafen via A61, A6 (until Heilbronn), and the A81, again with excellent travelling weather. We made the 280 km in 4 hours. Friedrichshafen also has a parking/service area for campers (47.65010 N, 9.49617 E), 50 metres from the Bodensee. The parking area has room for some 20 campers. One place was in the shade, and we were glad to take it over from the UK couple who left at the time we arrived. We spent the rest of the day at the border of the lake.

Monday morning we moved to the parking area of the exhibition, and we were astonished to see that there were already 50 campers and caravans. The sanitary installation was already working, and people told us that most had taken their spot already on sunday morning. We connected to the 220V mains (important for the airco) and took our seats in the shade of the camper... We had hell of a time. Temperatures were between the 25 and 30 degrees C marks all week, and we had only one thunderstorm on the wednesday evening. Strange. Other years it was always on the thursday.

Friday to sunday we were at the Ham Radio exhibition, partly representating the European DX Foundation at their exhibition stand. During the exhibition and the RRDXA DX dinner at the Adler we met lots of old friends. We will be back...

On the 27th of june we drove north to Baunatal, near Kassel to visit some old friends we had not seen since the last 10 years. We had excellent travelling weather and enjoyed the 6 hour trip.
Baunatal has a parking area for campers (51.25465 N, 9.42042 E), with a nearby service point which is clearly indicated. The parking is at the end of the Altenbaunaer Strasse, near the sport fields in Altenritte. We settled for a different parking area, because the official one is on top of a rainwater basin which did not smell too well....

Problem solved.

noreply@blogspirit.com (PA0R) — Wed, 27 Apr 2005 15:15:00 +0200

Thanks to the help of Joerg Ostertag from the gpsdrive team, I have been able to locate the problem in gpsdrive. The hickup is probably caused by the gpilotd deamon trying to access the tty at the same time as gpsdrive, which hasn't been 'hardened' against a case like this. The gpsd (GPS deamon) is immune against it, so when I use the daemon instead of the direct serial connection I can now use the program again. This is a big relief, as we tend to use it a lot. I thought I only upgraded UBUNTU since our last trip, but after a lot of logical thinking (which programs use the tty?) and checking (what's running?) the villain was demasked. I use the Palm for reading ebooks, and I needed the pilot link to get the books on it... I can now switch gpsd on and off without killing gpsdrive. And even better, gpsdrive is now running at 20% CPU without moaning... which is good for the batteries.