Hello and welcome to my blog,

I will operate EI8GQB between October 21st to November 1st 2017 from a caravan using green energy only.

I am now operating Single Operator 2 Radios (SO2R) with 6 different antennas in portable conditions like disaster/emergency situation. It represents 40 hours of work in order to be fully operational on 5 bands.

With my contest callsign EI1A, I will make part to the CQ WorldWide DX SSB Contest for the 10th continuous participation using mainly green energy.

Also Check my Youtube channel where you can find a lot of videos, please join the channel.

Stay tuned and see below my stories.

73 from Olivier EI8GQB/EI1A/ON4EI

QSL to LOTW or to QSL MANAGER : PA3249 via BURO or via DIRECT to Harry de Jong, Broekdijk 59,7695 TC Bruchterveld,The Netherlands.More details at http://qrzcq.com/call/PA3249 

If you enjoy these stories below, you will also like EJ8GQB, EJ4II and ON4EI stories.

October 2017 EI8GQB/EI1A   CQ WW DX SSB contests activity with green energy FETHARD CLONMELIRELAND

Stay tuned, I will be back to Ireland in order to enjoy the place. I hope not to struggle against weather and broken all my antennas. This year, I am celebrating my 10th continuous participation to the CQ WW DX SSB contest. I really hope to enjoy the contest and the only radio 2 weeks using my green energy conditions. 

July 2017 EI8GQB/EI1A 

For the 1st time since 9 years, I will not make part to the IARU HF World championship and/or IOTA contest during this summer. I changed working company and I do not have enough holiday days to mix family and radio activity this year. I decided to spend left few available days off with my family this summer in order to be able to activate EI8GQB and EI1A during the CQ WW DX SSB in October and celebrate my 10 years continuous participation as single operator low power participant. See you in october.

March 2017 EI8GQB/EI1A  CQ WPX SSB contests activity with green energy FETHARD CLONMEL IRELAND

CQ WPX SSB CONTEST CLAIMED : 500.360 POINTS/ 640 QSO.

Green Energy produced : 428 Ah *12 V = 5,62 KWh ( 42.5 Ah daily average )

Day_01 18/03/2017 (14 Ah) I arrived today on the hill. The caravan is now operational as wel as the wind generator. Several vertical masts are now raised thanks to Hugh EI2HI's help who visited me during the afternoon. Hugh is the president of the Tipperary Amateur Radio Group http://ei7trg.ie. It was blowing a gale but now the weather becomes just very windy. This time I decided to switch the generator in brake mode during the night to avoid noise.

Day_02 19/03/2017 (38 Ah) Today, I worked in the fields during 7 hours, the 3 element inverted V is raised and working well, I made some QSO to test it. I also raised the Inverted L low band with the 32 radials. I am one day ahead on my planning despite windy and rainy weather. Sometimes, during the day, I dreamed about glasses with windscreen wiper.

Day_03 20/03/2017 (60 Ah) Another full day of work in the fields, I assembled the 2 high band beams and prepared the antenna trailer as well as the aluminum mast. The weather is still very windy with rain and sleet.

Day_04 21/03/2017 (33 Ah) The weather is changing and becoming cold, it is impossible to work outside without gloves, fortunately, I finished the main work and the antenna is now on top of the antenna trailer. I am now QRV high bands.

Day_05 22/03/2017 (63 Ah) A special day to day, one year ago, ... Brussels attack. And this time I waked up with a snow storm, it is very cold also inside the caravan despite the gas heater. I plan the minimum service today, impossible to work outside.

Day_06 23/03/2017 (28 Ah) The weather is not with me this time, the wind blow all the time and I may not able to raise the second high bands beam, maybe during the contest as the weather improve only during the week end then back to the storms next week when I will removing the installation.  I finalized and tested all the other antennas and I feel very tired with this physical work.

Day_07 24/03/2017 (27 Ah) The weather was better today and at the end of the day I was able to raise the aluminum mast with the 3 elements beam. All equipment are working well and are ready for the contest. I also refilled the gas cylinder and water tank for two days of non stop radio activity. I am now going to sleep (19:30 UTC) and weak-up at 00:40 UTC to start just after 01:00 UTC. See you with EI1A.   

Day_08 25/03/2017 (68 Ah) Today, I took big decisions, first, as the propagation is now becoming very weak (there is no more opening on 15m and 10m bands) due to the low solar activity and therefore, I am only spending my time to search for stations or to defend my calling frequency. Secondly, I am  reaching this year, 50 years old and physically it becomes very hard to support alone the installation of such a big antenna park (until I find some regular local help). Therefore, I decide to reduce the antenna park with minimum effort and I do not plan any more to compete for a top position.

Day_09 26/03/2017 (40 Ah) I made part to the WPX contest but with no more motivation, I am physically very tired and cannot face the 36 hours of operations.

Day_10 27/03/2017 (52 Ah) I scored 500.000 points, my worst result ever with 640 QSO and started to remove the antenna park.

Day_11 28/03/2017 (43 Ah) I have worked 7 hours to remove the antenna park in the wind between showers.It becomes physically hard again. I left the place this evening to visit EI7TRG amateur radio club fellows.

Day_12 29/03/2017 I continued today to work 4 hours outside in the fields, still windy and some showers. The equipment is now ready to be loaded inside the caravan for tomorrow.

Day_13 30/03/2017 Another 6 hours of works. Cleaning the caravan and washing the kitchen corner, loading all material, emptying toilet cassette and covering the caravan. After wasing the car (inside and outside) full of cow mud, I am now enjoying my first bath since 2 weeks in a hotel in Clonmel. Tomorrow, I flight back to Belgium. This is so much energy for honestly a beginner result. I still remember, the moment of the last solar cycle when I ran a pileup with 120 QSO per hours during non stop 3 hours with North American stations just above 29 MHz as the band was fully crowded.. This time no contact on 10m and a no EU stations on 15m but some opening to South America but with not a lot of people on the other side. Do I have to wait 5 or 6 more years to enjoy low power contest ?. I am thinking more and more to join a contest team like EI7M. Maybe see you in the future .... Olivier

Day_23 28/10/2015 ( Ah) I continued to remove the antenna park and I operated this evening only with the dipole of the 3 elements beam. My last QSO was OY1OF, a new country for EI8GQB. This is now the end of the activity. Many thanks to all of you who are following my activities on this blog. See you in March 2016 for a new one month of radio activity !!! 

Day_22 27/10/2015 (18 Ah) I started at 7:30 am to remove the antenna park and finished at 5:00 pm. The main effort is done !

Day_21 26/10/2015 (11 Ah) I recover from my contest effort and I collected my family at the train station.  The weather is very bad, wind and rain.

Day_19&20 24&25/10/2015 (68 Ah)  CQ WW DX SSB CONTEST (Click here to hear my begining of the contest in SO2R) with a big wind storm at the end and a broken Spiderbeam  just at the end of the contest , high band were closed ;-) It was another nice experience with very good propagation conditions on all the band and low noise conditions (except heavy QRM). The bands were very crowded and it was very difficult to RUN on 40 and 20 meters band with 100W. I am claiming  2,271 millions POINTS/ 2489 QSO/ 99 ZONES / 392 DXCC, it is a lower score than last year (3,107 millions POINTS/ 3321 QSO/ 95 ZONES / 364 DXCC) as last year but I made a new record with the ZONES and the DXCC, I had indeed a lower answer rate on the RUN and I had therefore time to search for new multipliers. This claimed score is not correct as French overseas callsigns are not recognized by the log software, therefore some of the TO1E (Saint Martin Island), TO2M (Martinique Island), TO2A (French Guiana), TO4K (Saint Barthelemy Island), TO90R (Reunion Island) have not been counted for new countries. A lot of other Caribbean Islands were contacted as well as Benin, Western Sahara, Alaska, Hawaii, Hong Kong, Australia, China, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand and several Middle East monarchies.

Day_18 23/10/2015 (51 Ah) At 14:00 UTC, the shack, antennas, computer are now ready to start. I prepare a good meal and the go to sleep. See you during the contest with EI1A. The weather will be windy and wet at the begriming of the contest and then good until Monday.

Day_17 22/10/2015 (33 Ah) Heavy wind during the night and a record of energy produced since my arrival on the hill. 69 Ah have been produced only with the wind generator... I continue to prepare the shack for the contest. I will operate EI150ITU this evening on 40m. Stay tuned.

Day_16 21/10/2015 (69 Ah) The weather has changed, the heavy wind is back but not strong enough to destroy the antenna park just gust up to 65 km/h. I had to strength some ropes. I finished to work on the tuning system on 80m. 

Day_15 20/10/2015 (36 Ah) What an evening on 40m last day, I had a pileup from North American stations with signals up to 20 dB over 9 with only 100 W.  53 stations were worked with very good propagation conditions and low noise on the band. I plan today to finalize the tuning box of the Inverted L antenna.

Day_14 19/10/2015 (15 Ah) After sleeping 17 hours, I am back to life. I plan to make some maintenance of the caravan. The weather is still unbelievable for the season but not a lot of green energy produced.

Day_13 18/10/2015 (5 Ah)  Claiming @ WAG contest / 808 qso / 89 DOK / 216.000 points. There was no wind & sun to support the energy for the contest, I had to use the power generator during the 20/24 hours of contest activity. With the new TX audio settings made with Pierre HB9UQX during last week, the power cable and the 25 Amps fuse were very hot !! This was an excellent experience to prepare the station/ antenna park and my operation for the CQ WW DX SSB contest next weekend. 

Day_12 17/10/2015 (10 Ah)  I prepared the shack for the contest this morning and I was a bit late, so I will start the contest without sleeping.

Day_11 16/10/2015 (13 Ah)  I went to town this morning for shopping and to collect my power generator for maintenance. I also raised the Spiderbeam on the rotatable mast, thanks to no wind I was able to do it alone. I have now built the complete new SO2R antenna park as designed. I still need some fine tuning on the inverted L that can be done during next week.

Day_10 15/10/2015 (13 Ah) Today I worked on the tuning box of the inverted L antenna. The unun balun 18 to 50 Ohms for 160m as well as a new L adaptation network for 80m have been integrated in the tuning box. I made several taps on the inductance in order to cover the full 80m band according to DX traffic or contest traffic. The weather was cloudy, dry and no wind. Last night was very cold and I had to use a second cover on top of my sleeping bag.

Day_9 14/10/2015 (48 Ah) I Assembled the Spiderbeam as second high band antenna as no wind is planned for the WAG contest this week-end. I also went to town for food and water refill. I operate a nice pileup during the evening on 40m.

Day_8 13/10/2015 (51 Ah) The wind is now blowing from the north. It is a good sign, as it means for EI a high pressure located on the Atlantic (East) and beautiful weather conditions. I raised and measured the inverted L 160m (16.5 m vertical and 23.5m horizontal) I also installed the UNUN balun 18 to 50 Ohms, see results below. I tested the antenna during the evening and it worked very well ith good signals and feedback.

Day_7 12/10/2015 (47 Ah) Today was an important day, I raised the tower with the new tri band 10-15-20m/dipole 40m antenna, see the SWR curve below, Mosley made a very good job. Very sunny weather conditions and no wind. Yesterday I was able to work outside with only a T-shirt. I spent a wonderful radio evening with Pierre HB9UQX who helped me to optimize my audio TX curve and just after a call from VK6WC. 

Day_6 11/10/2015 (21 Ah) Another 5 hours of work in the fields and finally the antenna is now ready to be installed on the trailer mast. At 5pm, I was too tired and I decided to postpone the installation on the trailer mast to tomorrow, it is now 15 Kg to raise alone and I want to be sure that I can physically manage the installation. I thank, Dave EI6AL, who allowed me to operate EI150ITU during the evening. In 103 minutes, I worked 228 QSO (2.2 QSO/minute), I really appreciated the activity on 40M. Today the weather was lovely with no wind at all and I am concerned about the green energy production as I do not produce enough energy to feed the batteries for the contest next weekend. Yesterday I only produced 8Ah, just enough for caravan light, portable PC and K3 receiver, my daily usage.

Day_5 10/10/2015 (8 Ah) Today I started to assemble the MP33N with TA40KR 40m extension. I worked 5 hours in the fields and I still feel weak due to the antibiotics but throat is now ok and I am recovering slowly the voice.

Day_4 09/10/2015 (14 Ah) Today was cloudy with no wind. I went to town to bring Stefano to the train to Dublin. I also visited the doctor for my throat and he gave me antibiotics. I made some  traffic during the evening on 40M but conditions are really poor for the moment due to a major geomagnetic storm and due to no sunspot on the earth side of the sun.

1/ I plan during October 2015 to install on the trailer mast a high power model of the TA33jr (1), a MP-33 model with a conversion kit TA-40-KR that adds the 40m band on the driven element. My idea is to compare this rotated dipole on 40m (red/1) at 16m high with the 3 elements wire beam with apex at 11m (green/4). The objective is to see if I still need to use the 3 elements inverted V as it takes me almost a day to install the 3 elements inverted V alone. Additionally I will replace in case of very windy conditions the Spiderbeam antenna on the aluminum mast (3) with the old TA33jr.

First I will compare the SWR of the antennas on 40m. The vertical(pink/5) is using a L adaptation circuit. On 40m this comparison is not really relevant as the band is not very wide. 

If we compare the antenna radiation pattern on 40m, we clearly see that the 3 elements wire beam (green/4) is behaving really better than the dipole (red/1) and than the vertical (pink/5). In the past I have been able to compare the 3 elements with the vertical and the difference was very clear, also the front to back of the beam increased the perception in RX where the vertical (pink/5) suffered from taking the noise from all directions. The dipole (red/1) should also be noisier than the 3 elements (green/4) as there is no front to back attenuation. During a contest, transmitting at the same time to Europe and North America is a key element while using in RX the bidirectional beverage (6) to create the necessary front to back and get the call out of the noise.

Regarding the horizontal antenna radiation pattern, we see that when the dipole rotates (red/1) by more than +/- 35° it starts to have more gain over the wire beam (green/4).

Regarding the vertical antenna pattern (pink/5), this "old" antenna solution is showing gain well below the 3 elements wire beam (green/4) and the dipole red/1). I dare to be in the fields in order to make on air comparison.

2/The second change concerns my current vertical antenna which is a 18m vertical fibber glass mast supporting a vertical wire 5/8 lambda on 40m with top loading at 15m (pink). I used this antenna for all the low bands with 32 radials (18m long) and a remote tuning box at the base. I plan to improve the 160 and 80m part with an Inverted L configuration (blue). Reusing the fibber glass mast, I have 2 possibilities A) a quarter wave 160m inverted V with 16.5m vertical and 24 meters horizontal for both bands, 80m will then be a half wave antenna. B) the same kind of configuration but with a trap for 80m band in order to take benefit of  a quarter wave antenna radiation pattern. I need therefore to compare both antenna performances on 80m and on 160m in order to make the best choice. This antenna system will be the main antenna setup for 160 and 80m bands. We see below the effect of the traps in the bandwidth of the Inverted L solution. 

Day_16 19/07/2015 (54 Ah)  This year the propagation was not good at all for the CQ WW VHF contest, only a small opening to EA & CT. My best DX happened during the Saturday evening with PP1CZ 59 in GG99 from to Brazil, he was very loud. I only worked 50 qso/1500 points in comparison to 402 qso/63800 points last year. This year I will not make part to the IOTA contest since 2008 !! as I just got a new job (and it was not really easy to take holidays), secondly, the contest is not giving points for WRTC 2018 qualification & at last, the contest exchange : RST + serial + Island reference is too long to really enjoy the competition.  

Day_15 18/07/2015 (38 Ah)  I am back and I will remove the antenna park and also replace the 3 elements HF with a 5 elements 50 MHz antenna on the trailer tower. The weather is cold and windy.

Day_10-14 13-17/07/2015 (108 Ah)  I took some good time with the family in Spain and I will be back next Friday 17 July evening in order to operate EI1A for the CQ WW VHF (50 MHz) contest during the week end.

Day_8&9 11&12/07/2015 (27 & 31 Ah)  See below the results of my participation to the IARU HF World championship with EI1A. The propagation on 10m was wonderful during the 1st day with strong opening via sporadic E to EU and in the evening via F layer to South America with a total of 236 QSOs but the second day was very very poor with only one qso via F layer to V55HQ/Namibia. I decided for the second day to RUN mainly on 20m and SEARCH on 15m, the solar activity is decreasing and it is clear that strategies are going to change during the following contests. 20m band is going to be more and more crowded, this is not a good news for a low power station where you have to struggle with high power stations in order to find a place to RUN. 

Day_7 10/07/2015 (36 Ah)  Today is a rest day, last shopping for the week end and listening the radio.

Day_6 09/07/2015 (35 Ah)  The Spiderbeam has been raised. The antenna park is now ready for the contest and I am starting to prepare the SO2R shack. I am physically tired by so many hours worked in the fields and I am taking rests during the day in order to prepare myself for a 24 hours non stop contest activity during next weekend. I also enjoyed some QSO in company of my friend Roger ON7TQ.

Day_5 08/07/2015 (47 Ah) Today the weather was dry as expected and my friend Peter visited me. We worked hard in the fields during 5 hours non break to raise the vertical low band as well as the 3 elements Inverted V wire beam. Both antennas are working as usual. There will be no wind tomorrow morning and Peter will come back to help me to raise the Spiderbeam on the aluminum mast. During the evening I had again a big pleasure to operate from the location, specially with the 3 elements inverted V on 40m.

Day_32 31/03/2015 (20 Ah) I spend the day with my in-laws and family and I waited until the end of the afternoon to come back to the caravan, the caravan is still in one piece as the wind was very heavy between bricks in the valley last night ... I cannot imagine what happened on the hill ... I will be QRV on 40m in the evening with the 3 elements inverted V beam.

Day_31 30/03/2015 (20 Ah) I left the caravan as a stronger storm (100 Kph) is planned all the evening and night. I was able to remove the Spiderbeam mast early this morning (no wind window) and put down all antennas as well as the wind generator. I dare to enjoy a bath and a normal bed ... This year, I am experiencing the wroste windy weather conditions in more than 20 activities in EI, I am OK with rain entering into my bones but not OK with wind entering into my brain...

Day_29&30 28&29/03/2015 (125 Ah) WPX 2015 Day 2 A second wind storm happened during the night and at dawn the survival dipole lost one side, the SWR increased to 3-4/1 depending on the band, but I was still able to make contacts with it, not breaking a pileup but enough to collect sufficient new QSO/prefixes. I was waiting for another good opening to NA but a few and a good opening to SA happened, no more question to RUN on a frequency as I am doing for NA but SEARCH was the key to collect the new SA prefixes on 10 and 20m. The wind was so strong that during 6 hours the gas heater entered in safe mode, I had to heat the caravan with the oven WPX 2015 Day 1 When the wind is blowing and move the caravan like a boat during almost 24 hours, it becomes really hard for the psy side. It is also very difficult to sleep in the conditions in order to refill the psy. The windy weather will continue until Wednesday. Additionally, regarding the WPX contest business, the Spiderbeam antenna was broken during the night. Positive point, only the reflector portion was destruct and I have been able to use the dipoles and the directors to support SO2R operation, the SWR increased a little bit but was still under 2/1.But no more question to rotate it. Hard conditions !.

Here is a picture taken during my visit to Tipperary Amateur Radio Group :

The names and callsigns are as follows: Back row standing (left to right) Tommy EI2IT, Andy EI5JF, John EI7IG, Olivier ON4EI/EI8GQB/EI1A. Front row seated John EI2JB, Hugh EI2HI, Paul EI3ENB, Eddie EI3FFB

Day_28 27/03/2015 (42 Ah) Today it is the calm before the storm, I cross my fingers to be able to work SO2R on high band on Saturday as I have no hope for Sunday with constant wind up to 50 Kph and gust up to 85 Kph during 6 hours, the Spiderbeam will no resist for sure. Yesterday evening I visited some local OM from Tipperary amateur radio group, A very nice discovery.

Day_27 26/03/2015 (40 Ah) I checked weather forecasts for the week end and it is sure that I will break the antenna during the contest, gust up to 90 Km/h. I succeeded to capture the mouse and I free s(he) at 600 m from the caravan. I finished to integrate and test the ERC USB kit inside the Yeasu G450C rotator control box http://easy-rotor-control.de. See picture.

Day_26 25/03/2015 (66 Ah) The wind is back. I made some repair and maintenance in the caravan. I also changed the oil in the power generator.

Day_25 24/03/2015 (50 Ah) I went to town and made some shopping to refill the fridge. I worked again EI90IARU during a 3 hours non stop pile up and finished my EI90IARU activation with 766 QSO on 40m.I recorded it and you will find a sample here : EI90IARU.mp3

Day_24 23/03/2015 (50 Ah) I cannot sleep anymore and waked up early, I am listening to US stations on 40m while I am updating the QRZ web page. During this evening, I will also operate EI90IARU and I am expecting again another huge pile-up.

Day_23 22/03/2015 (63 Ah) Yes Yes Yes Another nice contest experience, I slept around 1h30 (one sleep cycle) as the traffic in the middle of the night was very very low on low bands. I claim 3,177 millions points, 1304 QSO, 226 Oblasts and 192 DXCC countries. During the contest I had a visit in the caravan, I saw a mouse running among the cables ... (s)he stopped to watch me and disappeared ... I bought 2 mouse traps just after the contest.

Day_22 21/03/2015 (64 Ah sun only) I am ready one hour before the beginning of the contest and I take the time to update the blog. The weather will be very nice mainly sunny and I plan to run with green energy only during the 24 hours, the batteries are full. Last but not least, the P3 arrived yesterday from repair from Italy, perfect timing !!!

Day_21 20/03/2015 (55 Ah) Today I raised the trailer mast and checked the antenna park. I operated in the evening EI90IARU on 40m with a huge pile-up, it was a good experience in pile-up management.

Day_20 19/03/2015 (40 Ah) I rebuilt the broken Spiderbeam and erected it on the aluminum mast. It took an half day under the sun and 14°C. Very good conditions to work in the fields. I also found a 2mm Kevlar rope part of the antenna structure broken during the storm.

Day_19 18/03/2015 (25 Ah half day of sun only)  I am back on the hill and erected all the low band antennas. Weather is wonderful, spring is there. 

Day_12 11/03/2015 I had to give the priority to my family during a week, I will be radio active and continue to update the blog from next Wednesday 18th March to beginning April. See you then.

Day_11 10/03/2015 (40 Ah) I added a statistics analysis of the ARRL Int SSB contest and you can see that I have been very lazy with only 28h40 minutes of activity and 1698 Qso, an average of 0.987 QSO/min. It represents a one million points result. I was not able to repair the Spiderbeam during the contest,  fortunately the runs rate on the high band was high enough in order not t need another station. I also had during this last evening a very nice radio discussion with F5RAG /Iniaky.

Day_10 09/03/2015 (37 Ah) What a windy night, it is the third big storm I am experiencing with gust up to 80-90 kph. Surfing on the wind, I traveled through all the US states in my dreams. It is really difficult to work in the fields today.The wind generator stayed mainly in brake mode.

Day_9 08/03/2015 (34 Ah) The contest is over and I really enjoyed my first participation to the ARRL Int DX Contest with 1.044.270 points, 1698 QSO and 205 states.

Day_8 07/03/2015 (45 Ah)  This the first day of the ARRL Int. contest and the second day of heavy continuous wind. The wind render me crazy, the caravan is moving a lot and the noise is high. Fortunately I have my headphone on my ear and my brain in the contest. Very hard conditions.After the first day of contest,  I reached 1033 QSO, 182 states and  561.000 points. I go to sleep. A picture of shack with the band pass filter at the rear side in order to reduce the SO2R inter station interference (In this case only during my low band activity as my second high band HF spiderbeam is just looking as a garland !! And i made some QSO, as I was able with the tuner to get a good SWR... ). See also the spectrum window on the computer to replace the defect P3. It is NAP3 software running the FunCube Dongle.

Day_7 06/03/2015 (58 Ah) Heavy wind this morning. At 1 pm, the Spiderbeam broken under heavy gusts and it is impossible to repair before the contest for security reasons. I lost my best weapon for 10m as it is a 4 element full size on 10m. Positive point, I had a hot shower. I will continue to prepare the shack for the contest. Rests and no physical effort.

Day_6 05/03/2015 (47 Ah) The trailer mast is now erected with the TH3jr and the inverted V low band dipole. The antenna park is now ready, I can enjoy 6 different antennas. I also started to build the SO2R configuration with new equipment.

Day_5 04/03/2015 (30 Ah) Very beautiful weather conditions today, a blue sky and less wind. After winter season yesterday, it is spring today. It is The Day  to raise the Spiderbeam mast, as you can see on the picture. Yes Yes Yes, I succeed to raise the mast  alone taking benefit of a no wind period at around 5 pm. The caravan rug is now dry as well as the floor. The leak is managed but the all weather silicone does not do the job. I will have to go to town and look for a better product.

Day_4 03/03/2015 (44 Ah) This morning the fields were covered with 2cm of snow. I also find a water leak from the hot water tank and the caravan rug was wet, I spent the whole day to dry the rug and fix the leak. It is the 220V heating part (that I do not use) with a rusty nut, I covered it with a all weather silicone and I hope to solve the problem. Yesterday evening I got details from Elecraft about the LCD screen P3 problem and it must be replaced. I went today to the post office to send it for repair to Carlo Bianconi, and I hope this could be fixed before the WPX contest. There is only one "No Wind" window when I could raise alone the Spiderbeam mast, it is Wednesday at around 5 PM. Yesterday evening I also had a nice run on 40m with a small pileup and I met some old fellows.

Day_3 02/03/2015 (51 Ah) It was hard to work outside as the temperature  was not more than 4°C and I enjoyed sleet falls. I succeed to assemble the TH3JR and prepared the trailer mast. Early this morning, I went to the village to replace my main gas cylinder, as the spare one was empty for morning coffee and for a warm wake-up.

03/10/2014 During my next activity, I will experiment different improvements in order to reduce SO2R inter-station interference. I will first add common mode filters on all the antenna cables, the filters are made following GM3SEK design. Secondly, I plan to add bandpass filters on the RUN station. And last but not least, I will finalize the remote directional switching system for the 3 elements 40 meters inverted V  wirebeam. The relay boxes, installed at the top of the masts supporting the parasitic elements, will switch between director or reflector by adding a U shape wire.

IARU HF CONTEST CLAIMED: 1,403 millions POINTS/ 1761 QSO/176 Mult/ 81 ITU Zones. Result: probably 1st Europe/2nd World.

CQ WW VHF CONTEST CLAIMED: 63.832 POINTS/ 404 QSO/158 Mult. Result: I dubble my score versus 2013.

IOTA CONTEST CLAIMED: 1,913 millions POINTS/ 1200 QSO/184 Mult. Result: 1st World.

Green Energy produced : 1200 Ah *12 V = 14.4 KWh

KX3  Elecraft : Despite reception and transmission excellence, the KX3 is very sensitive to external RF interference and I was surprised to hear my mobile phone "tagda tagda tagda" = "Cell relocation signal" into the rig as well as QRM from my new PC charger. I never experienced that with the K3 / TS2000. It seems that the KX3 case is very weak to EMI as I experienced also this problem with a dummy load. Additional my SO2R simulations tests showed that I cannot use the K3 as SEARCH station due to too sensitive interference from the RUN station in comparison to what I experienced with other rigs.

New Windows 8 PC :First, it took time to update all my usual software and the FTDI driver created an ERROR CODE 10 if you plug the USB RS232 cable, the error disappeared if you restart the computer with the USB cable connected, it is good to know to avoid some stress.... while you are alone on the hill and trying to setup...

Contest : Again a new wonderful contest experience where I confirm my European leading position in the IARU HF World championship and IOTA contest after the WPX SSB contest.  One left to win is the CQ WW DX SSB in October.

What's next : In October 2014, for the CQ WW DX SSB contest, I will celebrate my 20 th activity from Ireland in 6 years time.

Day 26_30/07/2014 The caravan can stay one more day in the field, I will operate for a last evening on 40m with a dipole.

Day 25_29/07/2014 (66 Ah) The antenna park is now removed and all parts are ready to be loaded tomorrow in the caravan. The weather is ideal for working in the fields, 19°C, dry and cloudy. Only the 3 elements 40m is still raised and I had a nice evening with Hannes DK1NO and company. 

Day 24_28/07/2014 (36 Ah) Working in the fields all the day to remove the antenna park and welcome my twins daughter Clara & Lily for the night in the caravan. 

Day 22_26/07/2014 (73 Ah) & Day 23_27/07/2014 (76 Ah) Contest IOTA 2014 where my objective was a 4-in-a-row with victory. (2011-2014). I felt the propagation conditions were a little bit lower this year versus last years. I scored 1.9 millions points instead of 2.1 last year and it is still an extra result for  SOABLP category. The main reason is no sporadic E opening from my side at the end of the contest on 10 meters which gives a lot of new multipliers and wake-up the operator after a long night of operation. This is what I call the IOTA "cherry on the cake". But no cherry for me this year and I am sure I would be able to improve by 10 to 20% my results if I had that cherry. The second reason is my small 1 hour rest in the Sunday early morning. The 10 m band was well opened but not from EI. There was indeed a nice opening on 10m but from LA,SM and OH to the center of Europe and I had to listen sadly these 5 Nordic stations enjoying their huge pile-up. Aaarrrghhh!  See the comparison of the Es opening maps during the last contest hour (Sunday) for 2013 and 2014. See also the number of QSOs made on 40m band with the 3 elements Inverted V antenna, mainly G stations with 15 points QSO...  this is the best strategy from EI country to optimize points score.

Day 21_25/07/2014 (50 Ah) 26°C today , I finished today to silicone a half side of the caravan (2 sealant tubes !!), the caravan is 10 years old and I need to replace all the joints. I really feel  on holidays, but I stay fully concentrated on the contest preparation.

Day 20_24/07/2014 (43 Ah sun only/no wind) I built today a SO2R contest configuration with the K3 and KX3 in order to analyze the possible interference from the K3 to the KX3 as I found the KX3 very sensitive regarding external interference like my PC charger or my mobile phone "tagda tagda tagda" . Unfortunately, my feeling was the good one, I cannot use the KX3 setup as a SEARCH station as the signal of the RUN station overload the reception and the KX3 enters in RX protection mode. My first conclusion I have the choice to 1/ experiment the setup with band filters, but it is additional things to manipulate during the contest when you change the band, 2/continue with the TS2000  and forget energy savings as this solution proved it works very well. I may then sell my KX3 and KXPA1000 and buy a new TS2000 for the satellite at home and forget to add a spectrum view, what a deception... 3/ Same as 2 but I buy an other HF transceiver with a spectrum display that also has a strong isolation like the TS2000. But which one ? and how to test it before in my situation in order to avoid the same story as the KX3 ? A a new challenge !!!

Day 19_23/07/2014 (50 Ah sun only/no wind) I took a solar shower by heating all the day a black water tank on the top of the caravan. Weather trends :  sunnier and warmer. I continued to silicone the caravan.

Day 18_22/07/2014 (57Ah sun only/no wind) Still no wind, the weather is nice, temperature reached 24°C. I tested the KX3 again with great satisfaction. I replaced the 5 ele/6m by the 3 ele/HF beam on the antenna trailer. I also started to replace some silicone on the caravan joints to protect it from the rain. 

Day 17_21/07/2014 (35h sun only/no wind) The objective of the day is to install the KX3 Elecraft transceiver with the KXPA100 amplifier and configure it for N1MM. I plan to replace the TS2000 by this new configuration adding also spectrum panadapter for the SEARCH station. This gives a view of the band and with my touch screen PC allows me to move on frequency quickly according to the presence of a station. Additionally, the TS2000 receiver consumption is 3 Amps and the new system consumes only 0.64 Amp. As SEARCH station, I only use it in TX during 5% of the time maximum, this means that on 1 hour of activity, I am saving more or less 2.36 Amps, and on a 10h period around 23.6 Ah, this is an important saving for the batteries regarding the TS2000 solution. I plan to use the TS2000 at home (Brussel) to work via satellite as this service becomes more and more interesting due to the increase number of satellite transponder launched around the earth. 

You can see on the picture the experimental setup with the KX3 / KXPA100, Steinberg UR22 USB audio interface 24bit/192 KHz and a ASUS touch screen Windows 8 OS running NAP3 panadapter software. I plan to use this new setup in October for the CQ WW SSB contest as SEARCH station. I still have to reduce some noise from the the 12V to 19V PC charger, it creates 1S point noise on the KX3 (not experienced this with the K3) and I also need  to add audio isolator to reduce the DC peak. I am very satisfied about the first result. 

Day 16_20/07/2014 (45h sun only/no wind) CQ WW VHF CONTEST, What a run and what a nice propagation ver all Europe. I more than double my last year results. The signals were really strong and almost all central Europe locator squares have been contacted. I really enjoyed the contest.

Day 15_19/07/2014 (26 Ah sun only/no wind) I had a nice week with the family only and I am now back to business. Today, I had the great pleasure to have the EI4JT visit. He helped me a lot to build the 6m 5 elements beam and to raise the antenna on the trailer mast which is a real physical effort. Thank you Wieslaw for this nice afternoon spent with you to share amateur radio passion and for your great help. I am now ready for the CQ WW VHF contest.

Day 10_14/07/2014 to Day 14_18/07/2014 (135 Ah only one solar panel) No radio activity.

Day 6_10/07/2014 (33 Ah) I have built the SO2R shack and spent a lot of time on the new Windows 8 PC to configure N1MM software. Low altitude clouds all the day but dry and 20°C. produced not a lot of Ah.

Day 5_09/07/2014 (75 Ah) Today I raised the trailer mast with the 3 elements Tri band antenna. You can see on the picture the switching box at the mast head in order to select the 3 elements beam or the 160/80/40m and inverted V dipole. The commutation is done from my switching box in the caravan, I use a spare wire from the rotator cable. 

Day 4_08/07/2014 (67 Ah Sun and wind) I built the 3 elements triband beam today and I will raise it on the trailer tomorrow.  I spent also a lot of time on my new portable PC, it is a Windows 8 that replaces the old one using XP OS... I need to fine tune the configuration, specially for N1MM log (programmed keys, SO2R configuration..) Weather is still beautiful for Ireland, 19-20°C partly cloudy with 1 or 2 showers during the day. Wonderfully sky if you like photography. The beverage antenna is now also installed and will certainly help the reception on 40m with the heavy background QRN noise. My batteries start to be fully refilled and the wind generator is going sometimes into brake mode to protect the installation. Again nice weather conditions today. I got a nice evening, meeting old fellows on 40m band.

Day 3_07/07/2014 (83 Ah Sun and wind) Today I installed the radiating wire on the vertical mast and also 32 radials 20m long on the ground. The vertical low band is now operational. I also prepared the antenna trailer to be raised. The weather was wonderful to work in the field and this evening I feel some sunburn on the head. I made also shopping to refill fridge and wine cave ;-) I will spend time to cook this evening an Irish Tbone with salad and fries .The 40m band was very QRN today and I tried 15m to North America with success. 

Day 2_06/07/2014 (66 Ah Solar panels only) Today I worked  7 hours non stop in the fields with my friend Peter who came to help me. All the main physical work is done and the main antennas are raised. I can now continue to work alone during the week in order to finalized the complete antenna park. The vertical has been raised but without the radiating wire and radials. It is now lying on the ground. The Spiderbeam is raised at 13m as well as the the 3 elements Inverted V wirebeam, both are fully operational. I made a lot of QSOs during the evening on 40m to Europe with a small pile-up, I had also good times on 20m to North America. My last hard work of the day was the installation of the wind generator, the green energy installation is now working 100%.                                                          

Day 1_05/07/2014 Just arrived on the hill and Mmmhhh, no semi final for Belgium !, I really struggle to follow the competition from the fields, I bought a voucher to top up my internet broadband, as I do usually, but the guy at the pump station gave me a Vodafone voucher instead of 3 network as I asked him. Grrrrr ! Conclusion, 20 Euros lost and I missed the first half game as I had to go back to the village to buy new voucher. No antenna have been raised this evening, I preferred to focus on comfort and caravan setup. I will work tomorrow all the day in the fields and plan to raise the spiderbeam and the low band vertical. Weather is more or less ok for Ireland, 19 C and sometime a shower, just to remind you that you are not in Spain... 

On the way to WRTC 2018 (World Radio Team Championship) qualifications  !!. This year the WRTC 2014 will happen with the best world contesters. Unfortunately, I am not part of it, as I was not able to qualify myself based on my 4 years last results. I should say that I am just a new comer at the Top European level. Qualifications for such a competition are based on 4 years results and I just reached my best results ever last year. Within 4 years time, I will reach 50 years old (hugh!!) and I really plan to be part of it in 2018. It is really one of my life objective. By the way, this year I am supporting Belgium at World Cup Soccer !! This is the second time Belgium is going to quarter final.

The quarter final against Argentina will happened on Saturday 5th July 2014 16 UTC, just when I will be busy to raised my antenna park in the Irish fields. My main challenge is to build the antenna park while listening to the football match.

Day 12_02/04/2014 Last hours of work in the field under heavy showers and I will back to the civilization and business. Very happy of this experience and I am already thinking about my next venue in July for the IARU HF, CQWW VHF and IOTA contests. And I am still in the field this evening, the farmer's 4x4 vehicle never succeed to tract the caravan and the antenna trailer out of the field, I will spent one more night in the mud. He will come back tomorrow morning with a tractor...

Day 11_01/04/2014 (72 Ah wind) I had a good day of work yesterday with no wind and rain. the high band antennas are packed and the trailer is ready to be towed to the farm. The weather will stay dry today, which is good as no wet material will be stored in the caravan until my return in July. According to the weather forecast it will rain a major part of tomorrow, so I decided to load all the equipment in the caravan today. It was a little more work than planned but less stress for tomorrow. I just ran out of gas, I used for my stay a full 25kg gas cylinder feeding fridge, heater and cooker. Fortunately I always have a small 5kg gas cylinder as backup. In my previous expedition I already experienced this and I decided to get backup small cylinder as this first experience was not very happy ... See above only a part of the equipment ready to be loaded in the caravan, and my special rope dryer ;-) at the left side of the picture.

Day 10_31/03/2014 (24 Ah wind) Yes, Yes, Yes, I made my best ever contest of my live, 2370 QSO/1007 prefixes and a claimed score of 5 millions (last year I claimed 3 millions and was 1st Europe and 6th World). The propagation was perfect. I had all the contest a target rate of 60 QSO/hour, with a nice pile-up from JA stations in the morning and wonderful runs to NA on 10 and 15m bands in the afternoon and the evening. I added a pedal to my second transceiver and SO2R operation was also physically simpler, but with 2 pedals one for left foot (RUN TX) and one for right foot (SEARCH TX), it becomes like driving a car ;-). I now have a good sleeping strategy that gives a lot of pleasure and good result; For the 2 runs 19h and 17h I start, with flakes and one coffee, then only water and bananas. No sugar at all as this make sleeping. Regarding green energy, I only ran 26 hours on the 36 with green energy (70% of the time) as I had not enough wind/sun to refill the batteries during the contest. I had to start the power generator for 10 hours. Now, it is the less motivating part of the expedition as I have to spent 2 days to work in the field to remove the antennas.

Day 8_29/03/2014 and Day 9_30/03/2014 (60 Ah + 26 Ah) CQ WW WPX SSB Contest : After 19h of non stop operation in the CQ WPX Contest, I take my break, I already have 1361 QSO / 726 prefixes and just above 2 millions points, on a very good way to improve my last year result. I stopped 10h and start now for 17h non stop and plan to stop one hour before the end of the contest to fulfill my 36h of operations.

Day 7_28/03/2014 (50 Ah wind) Lazy day today, I will finalize the shack for SO2R operation, and re-check all antennas mechanic and electric aspects.I will say hello to the in laws family and go to sleep at 6 pm. I will wake up at midnight and start the contest at 1 UTC. As single operator, we are only allowed to operate 36 hours. Therefore I never start at the beginning of the contest, people are too excited and I prefer to enter while the game is running. You can also spent time to listen before starting, it helps to choose the good band to start. And a good start in the contest is a lot of psycho points. Then almost 19-20 hours non stop operation up to the next day. See my sleeping strategy analysis made two years ago, well below on this page.

Day 6_27/03/2014 (24 Ah) Yes ! Wake up early (6 am) no wind at all, therefore also less energy produced today. And I was able to raise the Spiderbeam mast alone. A big physical effort. The complete antenna park is now finally operational. Propagation is very good, I can hear JA,YB and NA stations on 15m at the same time. I spent a lot of time to listen to the band and made a very good run on 15m to NA at the end of the afternoon. This is the best period in the contest as you add a lot of new prefixes (NA stations) while being very tired after 15 hours non stop traffic. If you miss this (by not finding a good running frequency) you loose points and psycho for the rest of the contest. Ho ! yes ! I forgot, I also enjoyed my first shower...

Day 5_26/03/2014 (32 Ah Sunny) Blue sky all the morning and beautiful and important day. I raised the TA33 Mosley 3 elements beam on the trailer mast.It is fully raised. The SWR is ok on the 3 bands, I tested it on the air and I got a good answer rate on 15m this afternoon from North American stations. I repaired and reassembled the broken Spiderbeam. Tomorrow morning there is a "now wind" window where I can try to raise the mast alone. Yes, finally with the TA 33, I am at last QRV on the higher bands.

Day 4_25/03/2014 (55 Ah wind an sun) This morning I waked up early to take benefit of a small "no wind" window in order to put down the Spiderbeam mast. See the broken tube on the selfie picture. I also finished to assemble the TA33 Mosley 3 elements beam. I will test it tomorrow as I need to solder connectors. While testing the power generator this evening I will connect the soldering iron. Finally I prepared another Spiderbeam fibber glass tube. Weather conditions are now better and better.

Day 3_24/03/2014 (40 Ah Too windy) Stormy conditions this morning, It was difficult to do something outside, rain and very heavy wind. During this kind of event, the wind is so strong that the wind generator enters in brake mode regularly. Conclusion, I do not produce energy, frustrating isn't it ?. All the antennas are suffering. I saw the Spiderbeam moving and bending in all direction, ready to broke AND ANOTHER BROKEN SPIDERBEAM. I am a Spiderbeam killer ! Fortunately I still have 5 days to repair it. I also assembled the TA 33 Mosley beam and I installed the beverage antenna in the afternoon when the rain stopped.

Day 2_23/03/2014 (58 Ah Sun and small wind) It was the second best weather conditions I experienced to set up the antenna park. No rain all the day and no wind at the end allowed to raise easily the Spiderbeam (one rebuilt with the 2 broken antenna from St Jude storm in October 2013).

Day 1_22/03/2014 (40 Ah windy) Well arrived on the hill it is windy and cold. I flew from Brussels to Dublin this morning, then 2h30 driving to the location. I started to setup the caravan and I am now full green energy. It was not possible to raise a dipole on 40m before darkness. This year I studied a solution for replacing one Spiderbeam by a 3 element aluminum tri-band antennas. I will install it on top of my telescopic tower and still use one Spiderbeam on my telescopic mast. My choice went to the Mosley TA 33 JRN. The antenna has been delivered to Ireland in February. See below the antenna comparison.

3 Elements tri-bander beams comparison :

EI1A 2013 Contests Results (SOABLP/SSB) :

(Low Power / Single Operator / Non assisted category)

1st Europe CQ WPX SSB (6th World)

1st Europe IARU World Championship HF SSB (3rd World)

1st Europe IOTA SSB (1st World & World Record)

4th Europe CQ WW VHF (6m)

16th Europe CQ WW DX SSB (broken antennas by Saint Jude Storm)

Day 12_30/10/2013 Last day and it is now time for appraisal of the expedition. First, I generated more than 400 Ah/ 5 KWh green energy and used only 15 liters of petrol during the 10 days stay. I experienced a new low band inverted V dipole to improve SO2R operation on low band with now 3 different antennas (18m vertical for 160-80-40m, inverted V 3 elements beam for 40m and 160-80-40m inverted V dipole). I broken my 2 Spiderbeams antennas 11 hours after the beginning of the contest, therefore I was not able to score a top 3 Europe result as planned. I also experienced high SWR on 10m on one Spiderbeam during the stay. When I removed the antenna, I opened the balun box and saw a broken connection, I was then running on "one leg" on 10m band (see picture). I also decided for the next activity to use a metallic 3 elements tri-band beam antenna to avoid 2 broken antennas at the same time.

At the end of this expedition, I was very disappointed by the difficult conditions I experienced. I suffered from very bad weather conditions, I broken the 2 high bands antennas and therefore got results very far from what I planned. I asked my self if I will continue this kind of activity in the future; I sometimes suffering physically and it cost me money and day off. And after the expedition, I received so many support and compliments from the amateur radio community that my motivation comes back and I am now ready again for new challenges.

Day 11_29/10/2013 (40 Ah windy) The temperature is going down, I had to add a second cover and I also had to put my head inside the cover as it becomes really cold. I think this storm announces the winter.The second Spiderbeam on the aluminum mast was still raised this morning and I had to wait until the end of the afternoon that the wind stop to blow. This was my last difficult (insecure) task. I also removed the vertical and the beverage antennas and started to load the caravan with boxes. I spent around 5 hours in the wind and rain, I feel happy this evening as the main work has been achieved.

Day 10_28/10/2013 (78 Ah windy) Despite the situation I have been able to realize 1608 QSO (2690 last year), contacted 93 zones (97 last year) and 295 countries (341 last year). Not so bad in only 20 hours of activity. I contacted so many JA ,ZL, 10m was fully worldwide opened. On 160 m band, I worked several NA stations, in 5 years of contest, it was the first time that I was called by NA stations or when I called them they answered me. Yes I feel that the propagation was absolutely wonderful. We see on the illustration (right) that there was a lot of solar flares M level during the whole week-end, it seems the sun solar activity is on its way to reach the second maximum activity peak. I spent today the whole day in the fields to remove antenna park.

Day 8_26/10/2013 (92 Ah Storm) & Day 9_27/10/2013 (33 Ah windy) CQ WW DX SSB CONTEST 2013 :Wind higher than 80 Km/h broken the 2 Spiderbeams at 11:00 UT on the first day. With already 900 QSO I was on the way to my best performance ever with outstanding propagation conditions.

Day 7_25/10/2013(19 Ah) Just waked up and I am checking the bands; 15m is full of JA/ZL what a propagation we have this week, unbelievable. I also see that the sun activity is back with X1.7 solar flare. I finished to prepare the contest shack and made some test, SO2R operation needs careful preparation...

Day 6_24/10/2013(46 Ah wind only) The antenna park is now finalized and all 5 antennas have been tuned, tested. On the low bands, I compared the antenna bandwidth between the multi-band inverted V (NEW in red) and the vertical 18m high (32 radials 20m long) We clearly see on 80m the small bandwidth of the Inverted V. On 160m band I moved down the resonance frequency of the Inverted V in order to have a system that allow me to transmit from 1830 to 1885 with SWR below 2/1. As reference, a SWR of 3/1 is a lost of 25% of power, it is best to minimize that if you play in low power category. It is near midnight local time and I can still hear a lot of NA stations rag chewing on 20 meters. By the way rag chewing is totally the opposite to contesting .... Those guys have only 24 hours left before the chaos on the bands and they will be obliged to give points or to give up.

Day 5_23/10/2013 (64 Ah mix of sun and wind) This morning I can see a nice blue sky, sun will be there all the day and it will be colder. This morning the 10m band is full of pile-up from Asian countries, and the sunspot number raised 220 !!. I am sure we will have a very crowded 10m band during the contest and huge pile-up to break with my low power conditions. I really don't like that as it decreases your rate, but it is part of the game and what a feeling when you hear your call back after one or two call. Today I erected the trailer mast with the second Spiderbeam and the inverted V 160/80/40m. All antennas are working perfectly despite very narrow band on 80m and 160m. You can see on the picture below the mast head with the switching unit. I remotely control the switching box via a non used wire in the rotor cable. The ground is provided trough the coax cable. This night I heard a D44AC station on 160m with both antennas.

Day 4_22/10/2013(40Ah wind only) Stormy weather during the night with heavy showers and antennas are still there, the weather will be dry during the 2 following days, I setup the beverage and assembled the second Spiderbeam today.

Day 3_21/10/2013 (47Ah wind only) I checked the Spiderbeam antenna on 15m and the signals are very strong, I got good rates to NA yesterday evening and to East this morning with VK stations answering to my calls with S9 signals. The propagation seems to be very very good on the higher bands. I have a problem on 10m, I cannot tune the antenna correctly with SWR up to 3/1. 20m is okay, I think that I inverted the dipole connection on the balun for 10m and I cannot correct it as it was already very difficult to raise it at 16m AGL with external help and I will be alone all the week. This is not a major problem as I plan to raise a second Spiderbeam on the antenna trailer to operate SO2R. Today it was rainy and windy, I made food shopping and added all the radials at the base of the vertical.

Day 2_20/10/2013 (23 Ah wind only - half day) Today I erected the wind generator, the Spiderbeam 1 and the vertical, there was heavy gusts in the morning and I had to wait the end of the day to raise the Spiderbeam with less wind but the weather was clear I only got one or two showers and a magnificent double rainbow. Here dusk happens around 18:00 UT, I should be on air from this moment as I cannot work outside anymore. I now have filled the water tank, and start to find some comfort. Temperature are good with 13-14 degrees during the day.

Day 1_19/10/2013 Good journey from Brussels to Ireland despite very heavy showers on the road and beautiful rainbows. In the afternoon the weather was good to start the setup and I only erected the 3 element inverted V before dusk in order to operate 40m. I do not have yet the wind generator fully installed, the mast is ready, and it is now dark.I will run on batteries only during the evening. The 40m band was crowded due to German contest and it was not easy to find a free calling frequency as signals where well above S9.

On the graph (left) we see the number of QSO made by band for the top 5 Europe stations CQ WW DX SSB 2012.In black the average of the 5 stations. I circled in color when there was a negative (red) difference or positive difference (green) with my result. We see that my strengths are on higher bands like 15m and 10m and that I could do better on 160m and 80m and 20m.

On 160m and 80m my low results are only due to too much sleeping time in the Saturday / Sunday night.Low result on 20m are due to crowded band and difficulties to find a calling frequency. It is indeed easier to find a free frequency on the higher bands, specially when 10m and 15m are fully opened to North america, this is why I spent more time on these bands and get one of the best result on 10m.

The graph (right) illustrates the number of multipliers (Zone + Countries) amongst top10 Europe and we clearly see that I have the lowest multiplier result with 428 multi well below the 523 average. This is the result of not enough time on the low band where I can easily contact new countries and zones. I must also take more time to hunt multipliers and put a priority on the SEARCH station by contacting only new countries/zones.

Remark : More time on the low band means also that I need to improve my low band antennas, not improving efficiency but allowing me to take full benefit of SO2R operation. Currently I have one top loaded vertical for 40/80/160 and the 3 elements inverted V 40m. I cannot operate full SO2R on 160/80 as it is on the same antenna.Current SO2R antenna combinations are 160/40 and 80/40. I really need to add 160/80 by erecting an antenna on one of these bands.I still have a Kelemen 160/80/40 multi-band trap dipole antenna as spare and I could install it on the top of my antenna trailer mast (16m) supporting one of my Spiderbeam in inverted V configuration. I also have a remote coaxial relay that will allow me to use only one 50 ohms feed line for both antenna. With this configuration I expect to be able to improve the number of multipliers at the condition that I do not sleep too much during the night.

Sleeping strategy:

In order to address this main point,I realized a small software to analyse logs in order to highlight the periods with no QSO during more than 15 minutes (in gray). I calculated the sum of all those no activity periods (the total is illustrated at the right of the callsign). You can also see the time of the longest period of no activity which must correspond to the sleeping time (in black).

We see that the winner OE4A, slept only 2 times 40 minutes !! This is certainly the price to win. On the other side, I (EI1A, red circle) slept 8h31 minutes, it is certainly the major point to improve in my strategy for this next contest.

In the middle of the results, we see LY9A and DJ5MW who slept both around 3h40 minutes at the same time period around 1h00 to 4h30 UT. It is the strategy I want to follow with 2 complete sleeping cycles. We can also clearly see that the score position is immediately linked to the sleeping duration.

Another point to improve is the number of gray periods (> 15 minutes no QSO). I must reduce it from 11 to maximum 4-5 in my case (EI1A). Those gray periods corresponds to bad band change, going to loo, eating, visit of the farmer ...

Improvements to do :

1/ Add a new antenna for 80m and/or 160m band.

2/ Adapt my SEARCH strategy and look in priority for new multipliers.

3/ Spend more time on the low bands to collect more multipliers.

4/ Sleep 2 full sleeping cycles (2 times 1h30) from 1h00 to 4h30 UT.

Day 27_01/08/2013( 22 Ah heavy wind and heavy rain) During the stay, I produced with solar panels and wind generator almost 22 KWhour of energy and had never experienced any power problem, same after 24 hours contest. The weather conditions were optimum with a clear sky during the first 15 days and very windy at the end of the stay.

Day 26_31/07/2013( 50 Ah heavy wind and heavy rain) removing antenna park

Day 25_30/07/2013( 96 Ah heavy wind) removing antenna park

Day 24_29/07/2013( 75 Ah covered heavy wind) "OMNE ANIMAL POST COITUM TRISTE"; this sentence reflects my current feeling regarding these 3 last weeks of radio. Everything was above my expectations and my personal objectives. This not only on technical point of view and contest achievement, but also on social and human aspects with nice talk with some OM, specially on 40m band and also locally. The weather was also outstanding at the beginning and as expected at the end. The removal of the antenna park has now started , one Spiderbeam and the vertical antenna are already removed very early this morning as showers are expected during the day; the main problem is to store equipment dry.

Day 21_26/07/2013( 98 Ah some sun and wind) Today I was not active at all. Before a contest, I never spent my time on the air, I just start 15 minutes before the contest. Usually I sleep before and check all the antennas as well as the temporary shack/water/coffee/food. I also prepare energy backup with a power supply connected to a power generator fully filled and ready to start in case the batteries cannot support the requested load. It takes me less than 2 minutes to switch on the power generator. This may happen some times during a 48 hours contest but never during 24 hours, 500 Ah battery bank system are enough.

Day 20_25/07/2013( 55 Ah rainy and some wind) Today,I had a big problem with my N1MM log and lost a big part of the data;I had to wok in the .mdb database file to recover the table and import it to xls. I then formatted the data to create an ADIF file from scratch and imported back into N1MM software. It took me a half day to do this, so now all contact information are back to a new N1MM database and also sent to my QSL manager Harry. I also removed the 5 elements 6 meters antenna and replaced it with the second Spiderbeam antenna for SO2R operation for the IOTA contest next week-end. So 6m is over for me this year and after 8 days of activity the results of the 6m operation are 900 contacts/ 41 countries/ 230 grids.

Day 18_23/07/2013 ( 42 Ah cloudy and some wind) It is 4 UTC and I am testing the 3 elements Inverted V wirebeam on 40 m, in direction to NA. Comparing to my vertical 5/8 Lambda, I have sometimes 5 to 15 dB better signals. Today I processed my CQ WW VHF contest log and I am claiming 30.456 points with 282 QSO/108 GRIDS/31 DXCC including 7 QSO in JT6M; for a very first experience I am happy despite average propagation conditions.

Day 17_22/07/2013 ( 21 Ah cloudy and no wind) As I said weather is changing and the 21 Ah reflects this change comparing to previous conditions. Today was a maintenance day, emptying toilets cassette, refilling water tank, going to laundry... so almost no radio activity today. My mind is now focussed on the next week end, I remind that I plan to reach the 2 millions points and beat my previous record.

Day 16_21/07/2013( 45 Ah cloudy and no wind)I ran the contest during a part of the night and made 6 JT6M Meteor Scatter QSOs. This morning I had a very nice opening, closing around noon, but allowed me to work more than 250 stations and 100 grid squares. The sky is covered and temperature are around 20 C and it is still warm in the caravan. It is also the worst day regarding the energy produced. Yes, the weather and conditions are changing.

Day 15_20/07/2013 ( 125 Ah sun and wind ) I think 125 Ah is the maximum energy produced for a long time good wind + sun and the weather is now changing, high pressure leave Ireland to go to north Scandinavia. Tomorrow it will be a normal Irish summer with 20 c max and sometimes rain. Regarding radio I started the CQ WW VHF contest, no big propagation opening despite I have been able to contact more than 45 squares and stations. I also confirmed MS QSO's but a few.

Day 14_19/07/2013 (109 Ah sun and wind ) I made my first Meteor Scatter QSO in JT6M on 6m, many thanks to OZ1AXG who was my 1st station and SP7SZG to confirm that I was not just lucky. I need to manage this kind of QSO for the CQ WW VHF contest tomorrow during the night and or in case of no Es opening.

Day 13_18/07/2013 (91 Ah sun only) I made some video test with the AR. Drone Parrot and you will find my first tests in the video showing a panorama view . Nice location isn't it ?

Day 11_16/07/2013 (62 Ah sun only) Yesterday I replaced the Spiderbeam by the 5 elements 6m beam but it still does not give a good SWR, minimum is 1.8/1. When I wanted to work on the antenna and solve this I checked the band before and saw it fully opened. It was the opening I was expected since last week. I ran 145 QSO and 100 QRA locators. The antenna proved it worked correctly despite the SWR.I really enjoyed the opening.Here is a visual map of the opening made from my ADIF file uploaded on http://www.levinecentral.com/adif2map/

Day 10_15/07/2013 (53 Ah wind mainly) See above the details of my contest results made using green energy only!. I found good running free frequencies specially to North America (5 points per contact) on 20m in the evening and also on 40m band in the morning. For the first time I tried just before and after sunset on 40m calling with the 3 elements inverted V in direction to NA, this gave me dozens of US stations. It is very difficult to call during the night as the band is fully crowded by big guns stations. I am low power and same if I reach S8-S9, it is sometimes not enough to be understood. You see very good hourly rates specially the last hour on 10m. The band was fully opened to central Europe and also with very short skip, I have been able to contact the east coast of UK, which is less than 700 Km. This is my best result ever made for a 24 hours contest with the higher hourly rates achieved. This thanks to short report (RST+ ITU zone). For the IOTA contest, at the end of this month, same if I will become a multiplier, I do not think to improve the hourly rate as the report is longer (RST + Serial Number + Island reference).

Day 9_14/07/2013 (98 Ah sun mainly) and Day 8_13/07/2013 (103 Ah sun only) Participation to the HF IARU Worldchampionship with EI1A callsing in SOABLP SSB non assisted category. I ran the contest using only green energy from batteries, sun and wind !!!

Day 7_12/07/2013 (122 Ah sun only) No clouds at all, I oriented regularly the solar panels and reached, I think, the maximum possible energy produced by 2 times 90W solar panels. Today I replaced the 5 elements 6 meters by the second Spiderbeam in order to operate SO2R (single operator 2 radios) for the contest; it takes me the half day to do it as it was very very hot and any physical effort was difficult. I also finished the beverage and prepared the shack for tomorrow. Next week I will have more time to add more pictures and movie of the set-up. I am quite tired by the work and heat. See you during the contest with EI1A.

Day 6_11/07/2013 (50 Ah sun only) This morning I left early to visit my family at the coast and spend the day on a crowded beach. I left earlier than expected in order to look for a 12V to 220V converter. I found one and it is now working as I can recharge the PC and update the blog, but it creates more RF interference as the burned one. Fortunately, after a complete check, the explosion did not created any other damages on connected equipment(PC charger, rotator and battery booster). Regarding the 50 Ah , it is really a low energy production today because I left the solar panels directed to the morning sun direction and forgot to modify it to noon. We clearly see that we can loose the half of the energy produced if you do not optimize the direction of the solar panels with the sun position.

Day 5_10/07/2013 (123 Ah sun only) Another great day, sunshine, blue sky and 30 degrees, I spent the day wearing only a short. It is another world or planet regarding last year weather conditions where the field was so wet that I had to wait to install the caravan. Last year it was Club Mud, this year it is Club Med in Ireland. Today, I assembled the second Spiderbeam antenna ready to replace the 6m antenna on the 18m Versatower for the week end contest. I also started to install the beverage antenna. I am only working in the fields from 6 pm as it is really too hot, and this is not a complain !!. At the time I am updating the blog, my 12V to 220V converter just exploded, a big bang, no fire and no injuries, just a big burn smelt. I need to find a new one for the contest otherwise no rotator and PC recharge. It is part of the game. Regarding radio operation, I am still waiting for a nice opening on 6 meters. I made also QSO's on 40m with 59+10 to 20dB signals to center Europe.

Day 4_09/07/2013(82 Ah sun only) When I waked up this morning, I checked the solar panel/wind generator charge controller and it displayed 8 Volts instead of 12V.I reset it and still get that voltage. Once I disconnected the battery charge separator, the voltage came back to 12V. I bypassed it in order to protect the other batteries and will make the selection manually until I solve the problem.I operated 15m band with a dozen of JA stations with good S7-S8 signals and a good run on 20 meter band too At the end of the afternoon, I erected the vertical antenna for the lower band with the 32 radials lying on the ground.

Day 3_08/07/2013 (93 Ah sun only) I made some shopping in town, and also operate some QSO with EA on 6 meters (shy opening) around noon. I tested the 1st Spiderbeam with good signals on 20 meters. I waited the evening to build and to erect the 40m 3 elements inverted V. Again I just finished the installation just before darkness. I tested the 3 elements during the night and it performs very well as usual. I now start to live during the night as temperature is fresher.

Day 2_07/07/2013 (40 Ah sun only) I am measuring the daily energy produced and will indicate it after the date of my daily report. Today,I worked almost 12 hours under the sun, my neck is burned and I succeed to raise the first Spiderbeam as well as assemble the 5 elements 6m and raise it on the Versatower at 8 meters; I still need to fine tune the hairpin dimension as the SWR is not better than 1.8/1. I finished just before darkness and I continued to work inside the caravan up to 2 hours in the morning, enjoying fresher temperature. I think to work in the field during the evening only as it is very hard during the day. We have more than 28?C , no wind and clouds, it is the best conditions I ever met in Ireland since 5 years...

Day 1_06/07/2013 Well arrived in Ireland, perfect journey and weather conditions (30C blue sky, never experienced that since 5 years..). But when I wanted to open the caravan door, I remarked that I forgot the keys on my desk at home... ( not very proud) but as any previous expeditions, the game is to fight any problem, conclusion, with a screw driver, I succeeded to open a window and enter into the caravan, I also asked that someone in Belgium send me the keys by post. Second challenge, the farmer forgot my venue (after 3 sms...) and I will not be able to install the caravan in the field and start antenna installation before tomorrow morning. As I use the field during 3 weeks, the farmer asked me to let the cows in the field to finish to eat all the grass and fill it with cow mud, this is why I am so lucky during the contests ;-). I will only be operational tomorrow evening.

Expedition preparation -This year, I am celebrating my 5th HF contest activity anniversary. Within this time period, I became a green energy top contester, probably the most ecological in the World !!! (see my results above). I am now preparing my longest radio activity of the year in Ireland in order to beat new competition results and maybe break my last IOTA world record.

Recently, I jumped into VOACAP radio propagation software and I can now visualize the propagation evolution, see some results below (click on the pictures to see the animations).

During summer period, sporadic E propagation is very often possible and I need more understanding at it can make a big difference in contest result. A 28MHz Es opening during a contest gives a lot of new multipliers. According to the height and density of the Es clouds, we can define 2 circles around the station position where radio signals will be refracted back to the earth's surface. The first "reflection area"show distances between 781 to 2140 Km, data based on the 400 QSOs I made during the years 2009 to 2012 IOTA contest operation. The year 2010 has no QSO on 28MHz due to no opening. See the picture below...

For 40m band I used the bidirectional pattern of my 3 elements inverted V beam; for the higher bands I used the Spiderbeam antenna pattern diagram (best vertical profile for 360 degrees); SSN=80 and RX antenna is isotropic antenna, TX power is 100 Watts.

The 28MHz simulation illustrate the propagation and QSO made during the IOTA contest between 2009 to 2012.

Day 12 _03/04/2013 : The antenna farm is now removed, only the 3 elements inverted V is still raised for a last radio evening on 40 meters. My contest log has also been sent to the WPX. Regarding the green energy, 800 Ah (9.6KWh) have been produced by the wind generator and solar panels in 11 days, an average of 70 Ah per day due to constant east wind and 2 full days of sun. I was able to run SO2R operation during the contest mainly using green energy. I only used the petrol generator during the last 5 hours of the 48h as the batteries voltage went down below 11 Volts (my personal level of protection for the batteries).

Day 11_02/04/2013 : I started to remove the antenna park. We see below the good RUN on 20m and 15m, the best ever to Europe, but to North America, I made a better run in 2011 on 15 meter band due to better propagation conditions.

Day 10_01/04/2013 : The contest is now over and again another very good result with big improvement from last year (3.1 millions versus 2.2, 2K QSO versus 1.6K QSO and 867 prefixes versus 767 last year). The propagation was worst than last year specially on Saterday. On Sunday, I was able to find good calling frequencies in the evening on 15 and 20 meters and achieved very good runs to NA, this gave me a lot points and new multipliers. Below a post analysis of the QSO rate and band usage where we see the good RUN on 20m and 15m bands to European Saturday and to North America on Sunday.

Day 8-9 - CQ WW WPX SSB contest.

Day 7_29/03/2013 : The 2nd mast and Spiderbeam are now raised but I broken 4 fibber glass tubes while installing the antenna on the mast, I did all the job alone and it was a big physical effort, the day just before the beginning of the contest... Not a good idea but I had no choice. The shack is now ready for the contest SO2R operation; I also rented a power generator just for the weekend in case I run out of battery during the contest.

Day 6_28/03/2013 : I found a way to place the rotor at the head of the mast, mechanics is now OK and I assembled the second Spiderbeam today.

Day 5_27/03/2013 : Already the 5th day and my second Spiderbeam is still not yet up and operational. I plan to install it on my new trailer 18m Versatower mast. I had a Murphy day, my petrol generator is not working well, I started it in order to solder the connector of the new rotor and every 5 minutes it stop to run. I spent almost 1h30 to solder 7 pin on a connector... I can't use my 12V to 230V power converter for this task. Additonally, I ran out of gas, it is 4C during the day and -2C during the night, I had to go to the city in order to refill my spare gas cylinder, another hour lost.

Day 4_26/03/2013 : I prepared the erection of my new 20m Versatower antenna trailer delivered here in January. It is a refurbished model and some small mechanics was missing. I lost a big part of the day to look for missing pieces and find a solution to install the rotor at the head of the mast. No so radio active as I visited my in laws during the evening.

Day 3_25/03/2013 : Today I put 32 radials at the base of the vertical and built the beverage RX antenna, both are working well as usual. Another nice evening on 40 meters, 2h30 non stop pile-up and 194 qso mainly from Europe with 2 nice surprises VK2AC and JH1AJT. QSO rate is 1.29 QSO/minutes, no so bad for a EI station with 100W !! Regarding my green energy installation, in 2 days of working, the wind generator produced 150Ah, a 3.14 Ah average, the best result I ever experienced due to continuous east wind around 25-30 Km/h.

Day 2_24/03/2013 : Heavy field working day; 8 hours non stop in the wind and cold to erect the Spiderbeam antenna (see video below), the vertical and the 3 elements inverted V 40m. I operated a nice 3 hours pile-up on 40m, the inverted V is a booming antenna with 213 QSO. Around 1.18 QSO/minutes, the kind QSO rate I am looking for the contest next week-end.

Expedition preparation -Following my continuous improvement approach before any competition, I have started some studies in order to improve my signals on the higher bands by finding the best antenna height, secondly modify my home made tunning box to increase the bandwidth on the lower bands (80 and 160m) and finalize my SO2R hardware locking system to avoid the possibility to transmit on both TX at the same time.

1/ What is the best antenna height for my 2 spiderbeam antennas according to my main traffic target areas : Europe and North Amercia/US ? : In order to answer the question, the first point is to understand the effect of the vertical radiation pattern according to the antenna height above the ground level, I therefore made a lot of simulations on 4NEC2 software in order to visualize the different lobes appearing according to the antenna height. Simulations have been made over flat terrain profile and using pastoral, low hills, rich soil ground parameters with dielectric constant = 14 and conductivity =0.01 S/m.The 4NEC2 file of the Spiderbeam can be downloaded here :4NEC2 Spiderbeam model. In the 4NEC2 software Edit window, frequency and antenna height are defined as parameters and can be easily changed. I created 3 animation .gif files for 20m,15m and 10m bands with heights evolving from 8 to 22 meters.

Antenna height

20 meter band

15 meter band

10 meter band

With HFTA software provided with the ARRL antenna book, I made several simulations using different terrain profiles and the results show that the maximum and nulls are in majority located at the same angle as with a flat terrain. This is quite logical as the main interaction happens with the ground just below the antenna. Generally, the terrain is only changing the maximum of the first lobe and not the main shape. Additionally the nulls and maximum are located at the same angle independently of the number of elements of the yagi/dipole.

Now we have learned that the vertical pattern is changing with height, we must now understand the concept of arrival/takeoff angle (TOA) according to our target areas. To visualize it, the work done by N6BV (available in the ARRL Antenna Book CD) shows the statistical probability (% of the time) of the optimum TOA angle for various propagation paths, in my case from EI to EU and EI to NA. The TOA signal distribution is different according to the frequency band and change with the distance. We can see that Europe has 2 different levels of TOA and is more spread than signals coming from North America with more concentrated lower angle, this is logical as the longer the distance, the lower the angle to reflect on the ionosphere layers. Click on the picture below to see animations between antenna height and take of angle distribution.

We clearly see that traffic to NA10m is very different from March (WPX/red) to October(WW/blue). October is well known for the East-West propagation path and the band during high sun activity is usually fully opened on 10m with traffic up to the 29MHz frequencies, it is for a low power station like mine very easy to find a free calling frequency. In March (WPX/red) the band is not opened to NA and major traffic happens only on 15m band. If you cannot find a good running frequency on 15m (which was my case in WPX2012) you have no other choice to hunt south american station on 10m band, March month is the best period to south-west path propagation.You can also see that running NA on 20m is also not easy during all the contests as the band is fully crowded with big gun power contest stations. For my antenna height decision, I must therefore take a priority on 15m band for NA and 20m for EU. Position 2 and 3 fulfill this choice.

As this study is only theoretical and experience on the field must be done to confirm the approach. I plan to measure my antenna lobes with a helium balloon or kite or quadricopter supporting a light weight RF generator. I plan to record the received level via a receiver connected to the antenna. The measurement will be collected with W8WWV S Meter Lite software. Decision is not yet taken on the elevation method and the light weight RF generator is still under construction. I plan to measure the antenna lobes diagram during my 2013 one month summer expedition.

2/ How to modify my tuning box in order to increase my bandwidth on 80m and 160m ? : My current home made tuner is using a T520-2 amidon core to support the inductor in the adaptation circuit. I plan to change the inductor by an air wound one to decrease the Q factor and hope to get a bigger bandwidth than 32 KHz for SWR 2:1.

3/ SO2R hardware locking system to prevent 2 transmitted signals at the same time : New contest rules oblige the SO2R operators to set up a hardware protection system in order to avoid 2 transmitted signals at the same time, in my case, as I am using green energy and batteries,I already have "hardware" limitation by my battery booster to 30 AMPS, so transmitting with the TS2000 and K3 is impossible and could destruct the battery booster. But rules are rules and I decided to study a simple solution. You will find below the illustration of the system. The TS2000 when transmitting provides 12Vdc on PIN7 of the remote connector. This voltage is converted to 5Vdc via a 78L05 system and a1KOhms resistor limits the current. The K3 PIN 7 ACC connector inhibits the K3 to transmit when the state is high. The K3 must be configured for this behaviour via the K3 function TX INH set to High. The TS2000 is master and K3 slave. This means that the K3 cannot start to transmit while the TS2000 is in TX mode. If transmitting on K3, and the TS2000 starts to transmit, the K3 will switch to RX state. All the components are inside the DB15 connector.

Here are the conclusion of this new wonderful expedition : regarding my 3 objectives :

-Running green energy objective is achieved at 95% as I only ran the power generator during 10 hours during the contest. The batteries voltage when below 10.2V and I did not want to destroy them. But all my stay and a major part of the contest was supported by sun and wind producing 350 Ah (4.2 KWh).

-Inverted L 160m experimentation is not really a success, as it totally de-tuned the vertical, so I removed it. But the vertical performed very well during the contest as only 2 stations 3V8BB and CN3R never heard me. I also heard on the beverage 3 north American stations but to weak to work.

-Score amongst the TOP10 Europe should be achieved with almost 2 millions points score and I may expect to enter in the TOP5 Europe.

Regarding the radio operation you will find below the details of the contest activity:

Day 11_30/10/2012 :I removed the Spiderbeams, vertical and beverage yesterday, today, the 3 elements and the green energy installation. Then I will store all the equipment in the caravan, transmitters excluded in a safer place. The caravan will be covered and prepared for the winter. I plan to let one solar panel on the roof in order to refill the batteries for my next venue in March 2013 for the WPX SSB contest.

Day 10_29/10/2012 :Too tired to update the blog, but this contest was a new experience in SO2R and thanks to the wonderful propagation (we will reach the solar peak in mid 2013) , stories will follow. I am claiming 1.997.280 points - 97 zones - 341 countries with EI1A for the CQ WW SSB contest 2012 (according to the 2011 score results, I can expect a top5 Europe position). Now stop to dream, I have 2 days of hard work in order to remove the antenna park and I will be on Air on 40m Monday 29th evening. By the way , I ran out of gas, I never expected to use a 5kg gas cylinder within 2 days... So no more heating, but I still have 2 small camping gas cylinder left from the Saltee Islands expedition in order to get hot water for coffee. My eyes cannot stay anymore on the screen, I shut down.

Day 8-9 CQ WW DX SSB contest

Day 7_26/10/2012 :Last day before the contest, I am doing some maintenance of the caravan, the wind blows and the sun is shining, very low temperature this morning around 2-3 ?C. I took some picture of the electrical installation see below. Last day I have been able to produce 70Ah ! After collecting my wife and my twins daughters at Cork airport, I checked the station, changed the gas cylinder as it always happen that I need to change it during the contest, refill the water tank, .. nothing can interfere with the operation of the contest. I got my first sunset of the week, as the week was cloudy. See you during the contest and look for EI1A. My next update will be Sunday after the contest.

Day 2_21/10/2012 : Today, with my friend Peter, we raised the 3 elements 40m and prepared the main Spiderbeam, but due to wind gusts up to 9 m/s, I decided to postpone the erection of the Spiderbeam (15 meters high) to tomorrow as there will be no more wind. It will be easier to raise the mast. So I will not be QRV on higher band before 22nd October dawn. I produced today 30 Ah from a mix of wind and sun and I spent the late evening on 40m to check conditions and test the 3 element 40m wirebeam, thanks to Gerald (PA3GEG) you can hear my traffic on 40m band : http://www.vandenbalck.eu/webdata/EI8GQB_PA3GEG.mp3 while scanning my blog.

Day 1_20/10/2012 : Well arrived in Ireland, the journey was very nice, despite heavy turbulence during the flight. The caravan has been towed to the fields and antenna installation started. This evening the vertical is erected as well as the wind generator, but there is no wind for the moment and according to the weather forecast, there will be no wind during the week. Tomorrow, I will install the solar panels, but cloudy weather expected too. I think, unfortunately, I will have to use the power generator. The positive point, there will be no rain at all during my stay, which is very unusual for Ireland.

14/10/2011 just received the results of the IOTA contest and for the third year, I scored first world and beat a new World record with 1.820.780 points, see details at http://iotacontest.com/contest/iota/2012/finalScore.php?c1=if&c2=su&c3=s&c4=2&c5=l This really boost me for the next week contest.

Below the description of my preparation analysis for this new expedition with the answer to 3 questions !

Question 1 : How to improve my 160 meter band conditions ?. In 2009 , I designed and built the 5/8 lambda 40 meter band top-loaded vertical, see the details (French only) at http://vandenbalck.eu/webdata/3semainesenirlandeet2contests.pdf.I used the antenna during the major HF contests and, on long distance contacts, it performs very very well on 40 meter and 80 meter. With my 100 Watts low power conditions, when I call, strong signals are usual from all part of the world, people are often surprised when I detail my 100W low power conditions. My location is also playing a major role too. But on 160 m band, the bandwidth is so narrow (32KHz < 2:1SWR, 18 KHz < 1,5:1) that my transceiver tuner must adapt SWR higher than 3. This means at least 25% lost of radiated power. I have tried to use the CG-3000 antenna tuner to tune the vertical on 160m, but the system never found correct adaptation and low SWR. I think the antenna resistance is to low for the tuner. As my strategy is to gain any possible decibel in the transmission chain, I decide for this new expedition to try an Inverted L antenna for 160m described with the graph below. Does this configuration improve the bandwidth and what is the radiation pattern difference versus the vertical antenna ? Does the tuner will work ?. With 4NEC2 antenna simulator, I will try to answer to these questions in order to take the best decision while I will be testing the antennas in the fields. Additionally, I will study 2 different L antenna design, one based on antenna resonance (fres= 1.85 MHz with jX=0) INVL1/4 and one based on impedance Z=50+jX, INVL50. The last one can be tuned easily with a series capacitor =-jX. The first one need a 1:4 unun balun or a matching network to provide with a good 50 ohms line adaptation. The use of the CG3000 is just for antenna comparison testing purposes as I plan to modify the 160m band matching system in my home made tuner if the bandwidth is wide enough.

We see that the longer horizontal length of the INVL50 antenna impacts the radiation pattern to the sky (2dB @ 90?),with the widest bandwidth (51 KHz). The best compromise is to choose the INVL1/4 model where bandwidth (34KHz to 43 KHz) and impedance(9.26 to 14.8 Ohms) increase vs the vertical; This will allow the automatic tuner to support this low impedance. Additionally, it can also be adapted with a 1:4 unun balun.

The 4NEC2 antenna simulation files are available here : INVL50Ohms- INVL1/4Lambda- Vertical

Question 2 : When is the best moment to sleep during the CQ world wide DX SSB contest ?. Thanks to Stan / EI6DX traffic contest analysis Website, I am able to answer to this question : http://www.ei6DX.com/cqww-contest-analysis/cqww-activity-analyzer/

The 2 graphs represent the number of contacts made with other continents during the 48-hour contest. The data are recorded every 30 minutes. When I contact Europe it is worth 1 point. However, when I contact other continents, it is worth 3 points. In order to have the best result, I must operate when it is the best moment to reach the other continents and sleep when activity is lower (between 1 and 2).

On both graphs, we clearly see that the traffic decrease (lower contact rate) is always linked to the end of the 20m band opening (1) with some variation due to the sun activity. I planned 6 hours max of sleep starting from that moment. Then wake up (2),later, when daylight comes (3), it is mandatory to show your face to the sun in order to switch your body into daylight mode. And another day of calling "CQ contest..." and hunting for new countries and multipliers trying to improve your score from last year...Then, darkness comes back again and with the lack of sleep, you start to enter into a second stage where your brain is disconnected from the reality and only bands and callsigns (worked or not yet worked ?) are the energy to drive you to the next stage, the shaman level (4). And when the contest is over,it is impossible to sleep and you continue to comments the claimed result and conditions on the air, until the bottle of wine you opened to celebrate your new contest record definitively bring you to bed. The 2 following days are very hard, not due to the wine, but due to the physical work needed to remove the temporary antenna park from the field and store the equipment back in the caravan for the next contest activity.

Question 3: I have 32 radials, 19m long. What is the distance between radials ends ?

As I install 32 radials below the vertical antenna, I do this 3 times a year and, each time the question is, what is the distance between radials end ? Specially for my friend Peter who helps me with this task, I can now answer 3,7m. See below the calculations.

Best moments :

July 14-15th: EI80IRTS callsign activation on 40m SSB with Bernard EI4II on 20m CW as HQ (Headquarter) station during the IARU World Championship.

July 21st-22nd: EI80IRTS callsign activation. The special callsign,celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Irish Radio Transmitters Society. Operation under green energy only in order to gather experience for the IOTA contest.

July 28-29th: EI1A, my new special contest callsign activated during the IOTA contest. I ran with solar panel and wind generator only. I scored 1st world in 2009 & 2011 and I am claiming a new IOTA record with 2 millions points.

Day 23_29/07/2012 End of the IOTA contest 2012 with EI1A. I am claiming a 2 millions score result (1247 QSO/201 Islands) in SOABLP unassisted island category, this is a new world record, last one was 1.6 millions see IOTA Hall of fame. I operated 22 hours non stop, without moving from my seat and slept 2 hours only. This edition was mainly focussed on green energy and another confirmation of the efficiency of the 3 elements inverted V 40m wirebeam antenna. The wind and solar panels supplied more than 6 KW/h energy during my stay (500 Ah), I also took a lot of measurement to better understand and forecast the production for my next challenge, run the 48 hours CQ WW DX SSB contest in October 2012 only with green energy. Last but not least thanks to all of you who followed me via the blog and via the radio. A special thank to my in law family, to Gabriel, the owner of the field and to Peter, my local support friend. Without their helps this activity would not be possible.

Day 21_27/07/2012 The weather was fine today and I took the opportunity to update my usual panorama view as well as a New Video on YouTube. I received the 2*210AH gel batteries at 17h00 and worked on the installation wiring up to 23h00 PM. It is now 2:00 AM and I am finishing the preparation of the contest. I will wake up very late tomorrow in order to gain sleep hours as I expect to operate 24 hours non stop during the contest.

Day 20_26/07/2012 Today it was sunny and windy at the end of the day and I was able to charge with peak up to 10 Amps constant. I made the final panorama picture of the complete installations. The shack with the second TX TS2000 is now ready for the contest and I hope to receive my 2 *220Ah batteries tomorrow (I cross the fingers). I also calculated the amount of energy produced by the solar panels under covered sky, it represented 22Ah on 25/07, see the graph below :

Day 18_24/07/2012 I was busy with my family during the last 2 days but also very radio active during the evenings and nights, mainly on 40m to EU and 20m to NA with very nice pileups rating 2-3 QSO /minutes. It is now Thursday evening (20:00 UTC) and I am listening to some traffic on 10m with a nice sporadic E opening to Europe, this is the cherry on the cake for the IOTA contest to gather new additional multipliers. I am checking this band everyday but the sun is very lazy for the moment. I also added two 90W solar panels and with a covered sky, I was able to get more than 2-3Ah during almost 10 hours, enough to refill the battery for listening, recharging the computer and the caravan business. But no wind for the moment, I can therefore measure the solar panel production alone... I will need the power generator to transmit... Tomorrow I will raise the second Spiderbeam and start to install the second transmitter. Second important learning, do not under estimate the potential of solar panels in a non sunny country like Ireland, you can get up to 20-30% of the full panel capacity under full cloudy sky.

Day 16_22/07/2012 I activated EI80RTS this week end and realized 750 QSO with a lot of fun to manage the pileups. I got very good moment during Saturday night with a nice opening to the American continent. I will remind me this opening for the IOTA contest as I achieved more than 2 QSO minutes during 2 hours.. =240 QSO... My daughters enjoyed the stay in the caravan and will be back Sunday night. The wind is also back and I do not need power generator any more, I am measuring the energy production on long term with one sample per minute and will process the data when I will come back to Belgium begriming August. It is very important for me to be able to predict correctly the energy produced based on forecast, mainly for the 2 big 48 hours contest in March and October where wind is blowing all the time, sometime too much and broke my antennas... I will be close to the family begriming next week. I plan to raise the second Spiderbeam on Wednesday and prepare the contest station with the TS2000 on Thursday including setting the N1MM log for SO2R and check that everything is working well. I also plan to make a video of the complete installation.

Day 15_21/07/2012 Visit of my 5 years old twin daughters Clara and Lily in the caravan. In order to activate their dreams we travelled around the world by radio waves before going to sleep, a nice sharing experience... I will spend the morning with her and start the EI80IRTS activation from Saturday noon. see you on the band. Unfortunately for my green energy experience, no wind and no sun since 2 days, I must use a power generator. First important learning, full green energy cannot be done unless you invest in a huge battery bank system and backup power generator is mandatory to supply service continuity with less investment. The positive point regarding this experience, I lived one week in green energy without using any backup and wind comes back next week...

Day 14_20/07/2012 Early morning in order to check 40 m propagation to US. I replaced the 110Ah dead battery (< 10.3V) with a 75Ah backup one. Still no wind... Clara and Lily, my 5 years old twin daughters will sleep in the caravan, I may be a little bit active in the evening to show them radio operation but before, I plan cleaning operation and maintenance (refill water, empty toilets, vacuum ...).My local battery dealer informed me that he will not be able to receive the 2 gel batteries 220 Ah before the end of the month !! He is looking for another provider, but the order will not be sent before Monday, hoping I will be able to receive the batteries in due time for the contest, otherwise my green energy IOTA operation may be compromised and I will have to use the power generator. Anyway I will part to the contest with EI1A.

Day 13_19/07/2012 I started wind Current/Voltage data collection measurement with PWRcheck system. I will measure the energy produced in order to fine tune my production forecast model. Since noon, no more wind at all...it was not forecast at that time... , it is frustrating as here the wind is always blowing I am very well exposed and I never experienced that since 2 years.... I will unfortunately have to rent a power generator to recharge the battery for the weekend in order to activate EI80IRTS.

Day 12_18/07/2012 I have been very active with my family the last two days, visiting old Irish castles and will be more radio active from now. The weather is more and more sunny and I expect to install my 2*90 Watts solar panels in the following days, I got peak up to 15 amps with the nice wind I got since 2 days. (Nice wind means not enough to concern antenna but strong enough to get a good energy production to refill the battery).

Day 5_11/07/2012 Today was a family day, I collected my wife and my twin daughters at Cork airport from Brussels, so only a few radio activity today, I will also operate during the night on 40m to check the propagation.

Day 4_10/07/2102 I have been active on 40M and 20M with very good signals to North America, I also built additional shelves in the caravan, and still try to make the fridge and heater working on gas. I got a confirmation from IRTS that I can operate the HQ station (EI80IRTS) during the IARU HF contest on 40 m SSB, Bernard will operate the 20M CW band. And it is still raining...

Day 3_09/07/2012 Welcome to the Club Mud, !! it rained almost all the day, the entrance of the caravan is only mud... and I spend my day to hear splash splash in the fields, it is unbelievable how the ground is saturated by water. The beverage and the Spiderbeam raised at 15m are now operational after another heavy outdoor work day. I am tired and will sleep early. I will be very active tomorrow (Tuesday).

Day 2_08/07/2012 AM Early wake up after a first night in the caravan. I charged the caravan battery with the car engine and added 12V-220V inverter, I can now recharge the PC. This morning , there is a small rain and I cross fingers, hoping that the owner of the fields will be able to move the caravan today. Nevertheless I will start the antenna installation this morning as we already placed all the antenna equipment in the field. I could be on air on 40m band this evening with the vertical antenna.

Day 2_08/07/2012 PM Yes ! the caravan has been installed in the fields and after 12 hours of heavy outdoor work, the vertical and the 3 elements wirebeam are now erected and operational. The weather was rainy in the early morning and then dry all the day. I have made 50 QSO this evening in an hour time with strong signals, the 3 elements is a very nice antenna. I used only 80w to save the battery. Tomorrow, I will make some shopping (10mm? section cables for connecting the wind generator and some food) and build the first Spiderbeam as well as the beverage. See below the first installation I used this evening.

Day 1_07/07/2012 PM Well arrived in Ireland, I am lucky as it is the first day without rain since almost 3 to 4 weeks, but the ground is saturated by water, when I walked in the fields it is like walking on the beach, splash! splash!, therefore impossible today to bring the caravan up in the field, I have to wait tomorrow morning. I expect to benefit from the water saturated ground for the antennas ground. Second problem the caravan battery is dead and empty, I am using the car engine to get light in the caravan and hope that the battery will refill and relive. It is a bad start for green energy, but I do not expect to run 100% green before 17 July. Solar and wind generators are still in the box, just delivered, and I am discovering my new second hand caravan, there will be a lot of work on the following days.

Day 1_07/07/2012 AMI leave Brussels to Ireland today and I should start the low bands vertical antenna installation on Saturday afternoon and the wind generator in the evening. I only have for the moment the 100 AH caravan battery and a 75AH backup one.

04/07/2012 Preparations continue with a new development to create a Live Information Banner on top of my QRZ.COM page, I can now from my computer update messages and information like frequency used... It is an iframe object linked to a web page where I update the banner.htm file automatically see atwww.vandenbalck.eu/banner.htm. If you are looking for me, you will be able to check the frequency I am using or get the latest news.

27/06/2012 Preparation is going on and several equipment deliveries were made. The second-hand 4 bed caravan, the Silentwind wind / solar generator system as well as my repaired Elecraft K3 transceiver and a new P3 spectrum panadapter are now delivered in Ireland. Regarding the P3, I really want to experience the frequency spectrum vision sense during a contest. Specially when the band is opening, you can jump immediately on the viewed used frequencies without having to scan and listen to the complete band,I am sure to gain time while hunting signals. I also made a first cabling design of the electrical installation, see below : (The power generator is used as last backup or during use of electrical saw,drill works for the building of the electrical installation and furnishing of the caravan).

10/04/2012 To dimension wind and solar installations, only monthly average data are available. In the case of a short period of operation (10 days), this information is not precise enough. I decided to develop a sun/wind energy production forecast model based on detailed weather forecast like hourly average wind speed for the wind generator and hourly clouds cover for the solar generator, The data can be found on www.Windguru.cz. I expect to measure a real installation and challenge the model as a few information are available about the clouds effect on solar panel power production. At the same time, the installation will supply my everyday energy needs and amateur radio contest activities during whole month of July 2012.

FORECAST MODEL INPUT DATA:

Day 9_26/03/2012 See the results above, I should be in the top 10 Europe for sure, I got nice surprises during this contest, amongst the stations who answered to my calls, there was T6MO on 10m (Afghanistan), and the second was XU7BAN (Kampuchea) on 20m but he was lost in the contest jungle... and never gave me a report/serial number, therefore not in my log. Was he a pirate or not use to contest ???. 2.4 millions points realized this year and 0.17 millions points improvement from last year. Regarding contacts and multipliers : from 1324 to 1664 QSO and from 674 to 788. I expected to obtain a better points score, the reason comes from the difficulty to find a free calling frequency on 20m and 15m in order to work enough North American stations with 3 points instead of one for Europe and very often a new prefix multiplier. It was really hard to race against kilowatts/big gun antenna stations to run a frequency. I therefore decided to search on 10m bands for south American stations, I succeed to contact more than 100 of them but not enough in comparison with north American potential.

I want to thank all of you who followed me on this blog and subscribed or sent comments on ON4EI's You Tube channel. Many thanks also to YO3CZW,S50A,RW1CW, RL6M and RM5D operators who creates the challenge and motivates me to do better each time in order to reach their results and experience. I will come back next year with new learning as I still did not reach my maximum of competence. See you this summer in July for the IARU World Championship as HQ (Headquarter) station for Ireland, I hope, and during IOTA (Island On The Air) contest where I will try to beat the world record in single operator fixed island low power all band unassisted category .

Day 7_24/03/2012 PM 22:00; I stopped operation according to my planning at 21:30. 22:00 hours without sleeping, I am tired, I realized my best result ever made. I reached 1000 QSO and 1 millions points in 20:30 of activity, this represents in average, 1 contact every 1 minutes 13 seconds. A new interesting objective for the future would be above 1 QSO per minute. The bands are currently wide open from japan to north America, I cannot stay more awake, my eyes are closing.

Day 7_24/03/2012 PM 15:00; A status in the middle of the contest. I take the opportunity to update the blog, as when I wanted to refill the power generator (working), some petrol leaked on the generator. I decided immediately to stop it. I cleaned it and when I wanted to restart it, the rope used to launch the motor, stayed in my hand. I had to open the system and replace the broken rope. It took me 25 minutes and I decided to stop 1 hour to eat and update the blog. It is now 15:31 UTC and I already made 720 contacts (my best result ever). I am on the way to my objective if no more problems occur. The wind blew this morning up to 50 Kph gust and all the antenna resisted well.

Day 6 - 23/03/2012 Last hours before the begriming of the contest, adrenaline increases, a lot of traffic already on the bands and the 10 meters band is wide open, good sign for tomorrow. Today I made maintenance : refill the campervan water tank, empty toilets, prepare the petrol for the power generator and food for 2 days, I will go to sleep around 17:00 UTC and be ready for 00:00 UTC. See you during the contest.

Day 5_22/03/2012 I finalized today the antenna park, you can see on the new video below the complete installation ready for the contest.

09/03/2012 One week left and the Spiderbeam spare parts to replace broken fibber glass tubes from last October contest have been delivered in Ireland.

11/02/2012 I am starting the preparation of the WPX 2012 expedition. During winter, I made another design of 40M 3 elements wirebeam direction switching system.I also analysed the logs of the Top 10 European stations (WPX 2011), my objective is to understand when and on which band they operates and when they sleep. Optimizing my sleeping period during low traffic period is one of my objectives as single operator are only allowed to operate 36 hours on 48 hours. See below the details of those two new improvements.

New mechanical design 40m 3 elements wirebeam 180 degrees remote direction switching

The switching system allows instant 180? direction change between 100? East (Europe-Asia) and 280? West (North-Central America). I used in the first design (see blog October 2011 CQ WW DX) a box with an inductor placed at the top of the 12m fibber glass masts, but it is too heavy regarding the diameter dimension of the last section mast. In case of wind there is a risk to break it. I decided to use, in this new version, a loop of wire 2 times 1.1 m long and spaced by 10cm. A small relay switches between a short cut (act as director) and the wire loop (act as reflector).It is a chance to operate from Ireland as I can cover the major contests areas with only 2 directions. If the signals come from North and South, I will use my 5/8 lambda vertical on 40m as usual.

Antenna performance

Calculated with 4NEC2 antenna modelling software, the maximum forward gain reaches 9.75dBi @40? elevation and the front to back ratio varies from 12dB to higher than 30 dB on all the 40m SSB band part.

The 4NEC2 new "loop" design is available here : http://vandenbalck.eu/webdata/40MWB110LOOPVERSIONOPTIMSEGMENT.NECthe number of segment is high, as I optimized it, To compute quicker the frequency sweep, you must reduce the segment number of the main elements. This is the final design (I hope) after almost a year of optimizations.

I also calculated the length variation of the different elements to tune, this helps a lot during the tuning of the antenna.

WPX 2011 Results Analysis

Based on the WPX 2011 TOP10 European station results (SO AB LP Unassisted), I made some diagrams to better understand their contest strategies. Here are the results and my comments to build my contest plan.

Band distribution analysis and location of Top10 Europe stations

The map to the left show that the majority of TOP10 stations are located 1000 to 2000 Km far from the centre of Europe where the population density is the highest, this corresponds to the first area where signals goes down to the earth after a first reflection on the ionospheric layer. The signals are therefore very strong same with 100W output power

.

In the WPX contest, as multipliers are the callsign prefixes (ex: ON4, ON5, ON6 are 3 different prefixes for Belgium, or the same for Ireland EI4,EI5,EI6),every participant is almost a multiplier.

You can see in the results table, amongst 2 contacts (QSO), one is a multiplier(WPX). Targeting mass contact number which means using in priority the most used bands 15,20,40m,where Ham radio can easily deploy antennas is a very good choice.

You see that YO3CZW has the best QSO distribution between 40,20,15m bands. If you look at his antenna (this linkYO3CZW), you understand that he operates very well, with his combined antenna (2 element 40m/3 elements 20m and 3 elements 15m). But the most important antenna park amongst TOP10 Europe is own by S50A (this link S50A) and you will easily understand that my temporary portable antenna park is very humble.

Band diagram 10 minutes periods

Antenna farm setup after 5 days of work.

Day 10_31/10/2011 It is now 1.30 AM, 1h30 after the end of the 48 hours contest, I cannot sleep and I take the opportunity to update the blog. I drink too much orange juice, coffee and red bull, I haven't sleep since 20 hours... I am very satisfied about the result despite the weather conditions I have experienced this year. 4 hours before the begriming of the contest, a big big storm happened, like the one experienced on the Sunday (gust up to 100 kph), but the weather forecast under estimated the wind, they said said only 60 kph but it was above the forecast value and to my opinion nearby 100 kph. Conclusion, what I expected happened. If you want to see how broken Spiderbeam antennas look, I give you 2 for the price of 1.See below ...

On the Saturday morning and thanks to my friend Peter, I rebuilt one antenna with spare parts in order to be able to operate on the higher bands. I lost almost 4 hours of operation ( minimum 120 contacts), the wind and the rain were heavy and we erected again the mast with success but at 10m instead of 15m high. Despite this major problem, I have increased my results by 20% according to last year, I reached 1.2 millions points and 1500 contacts. The propagation was the best since 10 years with nice contacts with Hawai, New Zealand, and more than 800 contacts with the American continent.

Spiderbeam antennas broken 4 hours before the contest

Day 6_27/10/2011 After almost 40 hours of hard work in the fields, I am almost ready for the contest, the antenna farm is now ready, as expected according to my design. I worked during 5 days very hard to setup all the 5 antennas with help of my local friends Peter, I thank him very much as without him this would never be possible. I would like also to thank Gabriel, the owner of the field. A phone call and the fields are mine, with a lot of cattle dung, I think this give chance when you walk on it, therefore I should play lotto when I come back to the Civilisation . Anyway, if I do not win I hope to score in the top 15 Europe for the cq WW DX SSB contest with a minimum of 1500 contacts during the 48 hours. I also added a new video of the antenna farm and you can see that I am very close to the 3D animation. See on the blog or on YouTube ON4EI's channel. The 3 elements wirebeam is working as expected giving more than 3 S meter points regarding the 5/8 lambda vertical, I had some nice pile up with Europe and nice chat with north American stations. The remote system at the top of the mast to reverse the direction of the antenna cannot be used as the fibber glass poles cannot support correctly the weight of the boxes in case of wind, I decided to change the mechanical design by adding a piece of wire to each parasitic elements tuned for director. With this, I add wire to make a reflector.

Day 4_25/10/2011 The antenna park is built at 80%, I still need to build the second Spiderbeam antenna. Since Sunday I have worked 26 hours outside in the fields, eating only in the morning and in the evening without any pause and walking all the time in the cow dung and mud.The 3 elements wirebeam 40m has been erected and tuned perfectly. It gives outstanding signals, 10 to 20dB over the vertical 5/8 lambda 18m high with toploading. I also added a video of the inside of the campervan. See on YouTube ON4EI's channel.

Day 3_24/10/2011 See my video blog on YouTube and select ON4EI's channel.

Day 2_23/10/2011 I am well arrived in Ireland, the campervan is loaded with my 350 kg of equipment, the second Spiderbeam has been delivered and is ready to be built. But there is a bad news and a good news. The bad one is the heavy rain and gust up to 90 km/h today for starting the antenna setup, the good one is the weather improvement for the following days as you can see on the picture below.

I arrived on Bennesthill at 11:00 AM and started to build the vertical, at 15:40 PM just after I raised it and installed the 32 radials, I had to lie it on the ground, the wind was so strong that I decided not to be QRV this evening. I will make some preparation and soldering inside the campervan. It is moving now like a boat.

20/10/2011 Since 1 year I am trying to improve my 40 m antenna system that consists of a 5/8 lambda vertical 18m high with top loading.

In October 2010, I tried the spitfire concept ( see link here) . I never reached the expected front to back result, additionally, I also broken the fibber glass mast due to heavy wind gusts up to 80 km/h. This for the second time after October 2009.

In July 2011, I tried a 3 elements vertical array with the same frustrating results. I am looking for some more forward gain (I am only using 100W) but certainly a better front to back ratio to shut down Europe signals when I am working North America during the contest.

This time, after 2 unsuccessful results, I will put all my energy to fine tune the 3 elements 40 m inverted V beam.

The 2 switching boxes with the 2.3 ?H inductors including relays have been built (see picture and design below) and are ready for testing.

Regarding the weather for the week, it is not the best, very windy and rainy and I am already psychologically prepared to break antennas as weather forecast during the week plans gusts up to 90 km/h.

The campervan is now booked and for my stay in Ireland, I am travelling now with :http://www.donegalmotorhomes.com/

Every day I check the 2 following websites :

Weather forecast :http://www.windguru.cz/fr/index.php?sc=47761

Sun activity :http://www.solarham.com/

ANTENNA SET UP

I have also listed the major tasks for the week:

-Install the 18m vertical antenna with new top loading for 80-160m

-Install old Spiderbeam 20-15-10m (SEARCH antenna) on a new 15m high aluminium mast with rotator at the base.

Day 10_28/03/2011End of my best radio experience ever made, the weather was outstanding with 6in a row sunny days with temperature reaching 17C and propagation conditions were the best since almost 4 years. I am claiming 2.230.940 points (1324 QSO/674 prefixes) in SSB SOALP ALL BAND TB-WIRES category.

View to Europe on top of Benneshill

I experimented antenna construction by adding 2 bands E -W reflectors system on my 5/8 40m vertical antenna using the SPITFIRE design created by K1VR and W1FV. During the week, I had daily activities on 7.150 MHz to test the antenna system and during the week-end, I participated to the CQ WW DX SSB CONTEST. I am indeed racing all the major contest with a field day installation as Single Op All Band Low power category.

Day 8_31/10/2010 The contest is going on and I reached my best result ever made despite difficult weather conditions and portable conditions. 10 meters band was opened (heard a VK) and some African / south American stations, not so strong but workable with 100W. On the low bands, I have often used the beverage and worked stations that I never heard with the vertical TX antenna, I am sure this make a total difference according to my previous contests.I have understood that I must continue to improve my reception, I already have a 200m beverage and should evolve with a really simple directional W / bidirectional E-W beverage system.

Day 7_30/10/2010 The contest has started and 800 QSO's already made the first day, good results, I mainly answered calls and spent maybe 1 h totally to call (while I am eating..). Good propagation on the bands behalve 10m band.

Day 6_29/10/2010 Twenty four hours left before the contest, I wake up today and THE VERTICAL HAS BEEN BROKEN DURING THE NIGHT !!!!, I had indeed big big wind this night, and forecast are rain rain rain all the day,I will try to fix the problem today, but any way EI8GQB will be on air for the contest !!

The vertical is repaired and raised again. But without the Spitfire reflectors, I removed them due to poor result and due to the increase of complexity the reflector system adds to the antenna installation.

Day 5_28/10/2010 Today I solved the problem of the second reflector but with less front to back, E to W F/Back = 4 Smeter points and W to E = 2 Smeter points only, I do not know why the system is not symmetric in terms of result.But I will use this configuration, no more time for experimentation, the contest is coming. I also build a 200m long wire bidirectional beverage antenna.

Here are one of the relay boxes including a 500pf capacitor to tune the reflector for resonance and the test transmitter (MINIVNA in generator mode to tune reflectors for best front to back ratio.)

Day 4_27/10/2010 I waked up today at 2:00 in the morning to build the relay boxes and will work until the reflectors are in place and test them at the end of the day. It is an half success, I found a resonance for one reflector, the antenna is directional in direction of EU but the one to US is not working, I never found the resonance, it may be the proximity of the Inverted V wire crossing perpendicularly the reflector at 1m. It became dark and I had to stop, I will put the 2 reflectors on the ground so I can still use the vertical in omnidirectional mode.

Day 3_26/10/2010 I haven't been very active, as a lot of work must be done to build the Spitfire reflectors, unfortunately my remote relay system is not working, an IC has been broken and I do not have spare parts, the 2 band will not be possible; I will only build 40m reflectors, I have enough wire to control the 2 relays from the campervan.

Day 2_25/10/2010 Lovely morning today,I will install today the generator and the Spiderbeam at 7m only, as the weather is windy for the week but forecast for the contest are perfect, no wind foreseen !! I will raise the Spiderbeam at 12m on Friday for security.

Day 1_24/10/2010 Well arrived in EI land. Campervan has been towed on top of the hill and the 5/8 40M vertical antenna is now raised. 5th contact these evening was VK3IO (TNX Ron from Melbourne), seems the antenna is working well.....but this new location on top of the hill makes also the difference. Tomorrow, I will build the Spiderbeam beam for the higher bands, and then start with 40m Spitfire reflector construction.

Preparation :

Flight and campervan are booked and QRZ.COM site has been updated, I spend a lot of time to build the switching box, the tuning boxes and 4NEC2 simulator software is burning my PC processors to find the best "Spitfire" configuration.I finalized the single band Spitfire reflector concept design for 40 and 80m, I am now starting the multi-band design.

Since 3 years now, I have been activate EI/ON4EI from mainland Ireland during the major HF SSB contests. As I am visiting my in-laws in the Clonmel area (Co Tipperary) very often, I have been able to receive an Irish call sign EI8GQB in the beginning of 2010.

During these past 3 years, I have built an antenna park,I have used an improved antenna system during each contest which means that I can now leave the Clonmel area and operate from hills and islands with my "portable" antenna park system. It takes me around one and half days of installation to be QRV from 160 to 10 m.Bear in mind that I am alone in building the antenna park except for raising the 2 masts, where for security reasons I require some extra help locally.

See the blog and information at : http://www.qrz.com/db/ej8gqb