I’ve been doing CQWW as a somewhat casual attempt to work some DX for the past few years, but this year I took it to the next level to organise an event with my local radio club.
There is a full analysis of the log for the weekend, including the KML files from which the following were taken. Where information is not available for a given callsign, the pin has been inserted into the centre of each country with an asterisk or question mark to indicate.
For the rest of the log analysis, please click 2014 CQWW SSB
Today I purchased an Icom ID-5100 and fitted inside the car. I have been eating up the miles driving back and forth to Cambridge on my industrial secondment.
This weekend we took the 14 MHz home-brew beam out for LEFARS annual field day at Alymers Farm. Conditions were not so great, but we managed to work some nice DX including VK6, plenty of North America and Canada, and several more rare locations.
Ordered a 144 MHz Anglian Transverter from Sam, G4DDK, as well as a DEML144LNACK-2N low noise preamp for 144 MHz. I am very short of time of late, but it is my intention to experiment with some EME operation this summer and winter, so I figured I had better start buying.
From 28 June to 2 July 2014, a few of us where about and about in Europe! I drove to the Ham Radio Friedrichshafen International Exhibition for the second time, this time leaving a few days each side to recover from the long drive. In the first spare day we drove into Italy, stopping in Liechtenstein (to say we had been). Going, we drove over the Alps and returned back via the tunnels through the Alps (as it was dark). Utterly amazing drive! As evidence, I offer the pictures below!
Over the weekend I worked on my 1.25 kW solid state PA based on F1JRD’s design from Dubus using a MRFE6VP61K25H. I bought a complete kit at the Friedrichshafen Hamfest 2012 from F1JRD and F5CYS and built it up late 2013 but due to problems, I never had more than around 40W output. This weekend, with a new set of capacitors from ATC I rebuilt the output matching and fired it up once again. With my 1kW/50V power-supply I can get around 600W output, which his more than enough. This is still a work in progress, but things are moving forward with the project.
We set out with the aim to work as many DXCC entries as we could within the 24 hours we were able to operate. Operations started at 16:40 UTC on the Saturday an finished at 15:10 UTC on the Sunday; operating most of the night. 54 DXCC entries worked.
The location details are from QRZ.com, where possible.
Click the map once for image details, and again for high resolution image.
Photos
Here are a few pictures from the 2013 CQWW contest, taken by Peter Allen, G0IAP.
M0STO setting up the EME SCAM 12 on the top field
Moving the SCAM 12 to a lower field because of high winds
