Whoop whoop!

I’m very please to be part of the team who have established the UK BOTA Awards scheme. Look us up on www.bunkersontheair.org and https://www.facebook.com/groups/bunkersontheair

Tested only on 20m and 40m so far. 200mW power. Pretty cool to be heard in Australia on 0.2W, huh!

This Ultimate 3 is based on the mostly completed one I picked up at the Newbury Rally.

Enjoy rally / radio flea market this morning at the Newbury Showground.

Very hot, must have been over 30deg C by the late part of the morning. Picked up a few baragins, pictures to follow:

• Heil Pro Set Elite headset (for Icom) with adapter cable
• Daiwa DC7055 rotator controller, for the 6m beam and to replace an identical controller in the shack which recently went kaput!
• Small Wonders Labs 40m QRP CW transceiver
• QRP Labs Ultimate 3, don’t really need another and this was a bargain, think I may put this one on 630m
• 70cm transverter
• A massive bag of capacitors (for £1!)
• A few vintage ARRL books
• Mini ATU Kit
• A fex project enclosures
• A bag of used 18650 batteries
• A WAB Book, mug and newsletter sub
• DG1JAN Balun PCB

eQSL received from my Japanese ‘namesake’ JA4ICR in Hiroshima, Japan.

Tuning across 20m this morning and trying to work MM0PLX/P in the Shetland Islands, probably a bit close at the moment for 20m. Nevertheless, tuning across the band I was very pleased to find Peter in Jamestown, St Helena. Good copy 54 both ways.

St Helena …

DXpedition 20 to 27th May 23.

Market Reef, or Märket, is a small reef with a lighthouse on the Swedish/Finnish border, just outside Åland in the Baltic sea. The border zig-zags through the island, making it a special DX entity. The OJ0 callsign prefix was issued in 1973, and has since that day been wanted in the logbooks of many DXers. At the time of writing, it currently holds the #162 on ClubLog’s DXCC most wanted list.

In May 2023 a team of four Norwegian operators will activate the entity once again, and hopefully give many operators world-wide a new (or maybe ATNO) contact with OJ0.

The HF bands have been pretty dire so I thought I’d fire up the old FT991 and see if I could get anywhere with Yaesu System Fusion, I’ve tried before with only limited sucess. The limitation was that whilst I could seem to work folks on the local repeater using CTFM I couldn’t manage to connect to the WIRES-X network. Apart from this my only other success on CTFM was a direct QSO with my old friend Dave G8LZE, who is new very sadly SK, Dave lived less than 1Km from my QTH.

Pulling my hair out with frustration unable to connect to WIRES-X I resorted to a google search. Very quikcly I found a helpful YouTube video by Jonathan Creaser, M0XXJ. According to Jonathan’s advice the Squelch (SQL) on the FT991 needs to be set at ’20’, don’t ask me why!

Still learning the ropes but good to have digital QSO with New Aealand and USA today.

I’ve loaded up a few node ID onto the 991 including: CQ-UK, Southern Fusion, NWFG and Z-AUCKLANDLINK.

Apart from the occassional FT8 QSO with European station I’ve been a bit slow off the mark this year with regards 6m and Sporadic E. This afternoon I noticed that Brazilian stations were being spotted by UK stations on 50.313. Neither the 5 ele YU7EF beam or the Moxon are up at the moment, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I had a go with my 80m EFHW (which I only put up last week to see how it compares with my G7FEK inverted L for 80m). Imagine my surprise when not only was I heard by at least 4 stations in the Sao Paulo area, I actually completed a QSO with one of them. Well, blow me down!

Maps from PSK Reporter

287 QSO in the UK/EI DX CW contest, not bad for a CW rookie.

Most QSOs made on 40m and 20m with a smattering on the other bands. Not many G or EI stations worked (67, so just under 25%) which will mean low multipliers but I guess inter-G (and EI) conditions have been far from ideal. A couple of QSO including PV2K Brazil on 10m rounded things off Sunday lunchtime. The most frustrating thing was the Swiss contest running at the same time (with different exchanges!), a number (most) HB9 stations were not willing to work stations in the EU/EI contest.

QSO totals with DXCC in brackets:
80m: 38 (18)
40m: 128 (28)
20m: 91 (29)
15m: 20 (13)
10m: 9 (9)

https://www.ukeicc.com/

After the frankly terrible conditions on the lower HF bands over the last few days (with the Kp Index reaching 8 yesterday), it was good to see 6m (50MHz)open for Sporadic E propagation. Nothing spectucular worked but it is good to have the following in the log: Spain, Portugal, Italy, Andorra, France, Germany, Poland and Lithuanina – admitedly all with FT8 – nothing heard on USB. I did see some UK stations working South Africa, Brazil, Chile and Argentina, no such luck here on the Moxon at just 4m height but it’s still a good start to ‘the season’ 🙂

I popped onto the Parks on the Air website and I was very pleased to find this award waiting for me!