Ham Radio 2024

June 28th-30th, 2024. In recent years I have skipped the Ham Radio. This year I had the time and desire to go there. Additionally I had two talks about outdoor amateur radio "An island is more than IOTA" on Friday (tnx DARC) and "20 years of outdoor radio activities in the German Alps" on Saturday (tnx Sylvia, OE5YNN). You can download the latter presentation HERE. 

"With the launching of the German Alpine SOTA Association in 2004, a new era of Alpine amateur radio activities began. Over the next 20 years, other amateur radio awards schemes and programs followed in the Alpine regions - GMA, WWFF, COTA and the most recent called POTA. Today, anyone can take part in one of the outdoor amateur radio award programs, depending on their sporting ambition, physical fitness, interests, and preferences. Thousands of references in the Alpine regions are waiting to be brought on air. A cross activation is twice as fun, and there are some awards up for grabs." 

There are some good video reports of Ham Radio 2024 on YouTube, I recommend a short overview by Arthur, DL2ART, www.funkwelle.com. And below is my short summary of the event.

Highlights 👍: 

• Meeting with old friends and like-minded hams. I spent some time at the SOTA booth chatting. The stand was voluntarily organized locally by HB9SOTA, but not by SOTA MT. A visit to the BCC booth was also a must. It’s great to see the SOTA and contesting communities still growing. The meet and greet, the personal conversations and the exchange of ideas were the best highlight and cannot be replaced by anything!   
• Ham Ralley. It was a unique experience for our younger son. He enjoyed the ultrasonic tracking of bats, soldering his own electronic owl and Morse code the most. He just turned 5 years old and was probably the youngest at the ralley. For days he was still proudly telling the kindergarten class about it. Well organized by DARC! 
• A very good selection of interesting talks, lectures, workshops and presentations. Unfortunately, there was not much time to attend all of them.    
• Campsite. This is a great place to meet new friends and get new inspiration. Every evening we took a walk around the campsite and met many extraordinary folks and learned some new things. From here it was only a stone's throw to the exhibition halls. And that's camping!  

Lowlights 👎:

• A few retailers. Normally I would have bought a few things there e.g. from Wimo or Difona. But not this time. Overall, the hall A would have offered space for more exhibitors. It seems that either interest in participating is limited or prices are too high for potential exhibitors. 
• No other (except IOTA and SOTA) XOTA forums or meetings. I would have loved to meet the people from WWFF. The LOTA programs in particular would have been a nice addition to IOTA. However, I must admit that I find it difficult to assess the interest in LOTA.   
• The price of €25/day is too high for a gravel parking space with very limited basic facilities. There were few mobile washrooms and toilets, and only one washing-up area.  However, the campsite was quite full. There are not many alternatives around, the day parking ticket for the exhibition only cost €7 per day.  
• Unfortunately, we didn't find enough people to make setting up a party tent on the campsite worthwhile. Well, there were different dinners, appointments, interests, family obligations, etc.

All in all it was a great event. Would I go to Ham Radio next year? Probably yes, but ultimately it depends!

On Sunday, on the way home, we quickly activated the unspectacular and easy one-pointer DL/AL-272, which will be removed from the SOTA reference list in 2025.  OK, one more unique in the log.  

73 de Dzianis, DD1LD

Starting GoGreen Season 2024

The weather on Sunday, March 3rd, 2024 was just beautiful and invited outdoor activities. I spontaneously decided to cycle to my favorite hill Stürzerberg, DA/AV-199, which is now in POTA DE-0570. I spent about two hours in the warm spring sunshine and collected 90 QSOs and GoGreen points. It was late afternoon (~4 p.m. local time) and a little too late for the high bands. Thus, the focus was on 30 and 40m. 

DA20XOTA on air. Operating spot. Just before QRT.

So, all with 5W QRP and 20/30/40 EFHW:

• 20m: 12x CW
• 30m: 50x CW
• 40m:  21x CW + 7x SSB
• 21 countries worked
  

Wow, that was fun! I didn't expect such a good turnout for GMA/POTA 👍. I should have come a little earlier for high bands and stayed a little longer on 40m 😉. The SSB portion could be better, but there was a lot of QRM and splatter.  The nice thing about the GMA program is that you can activate the same local mountain every day and get the credit for it. Next time I would try a run on 10m for sure.  

Big tnx to all chasers es 73 de Dzianis, DD1LD

SOTA DL/AL-167 & COTA DL-02496 on the Falkenstein

February 10th, 2024. For my DA20XOTA award I still had to activate the Allgäu region. It's a long drive from my QTH so the plan was to maximize the yield and fun factor. I'll probably never be a big friend of COTA. There are so many little things that make it hard to like the program. But when it comes to double activation, especially in combination with SOTA, I'm on board in a heartbeat. The Falkenstein castle and mountain offered an ideal place for a winter weekend activity with DA20XOTA. 

The ruins of the hilltop castle, DL-02496 are located on the Falkenstein, DL/AL-167 (1268m) in the Falkenstein ridge near Pfronten in the Allgäu. This place is very popular and often visited. The hike is easy and not worth mentioning. To avoid the crowds of tourists, I set up my tiny radio station in the immediate vicinity of the castle around 10 a.m. With the Chinese USDX-SDR I made just over 100 QSOs in just two hours of operation. A quick 10m run resulted in two QSOs with UA. The 30m band was the winner. At midday the observation deck was filling up with curious visitors, it was the right time to go. The WX was good enough to continue with the planned tour. 

Operating spot on the Falkenstein.  The WX was fine with some wind gusts.

The next jump was to the Salober, DL/AL-287, where I spent some more time CQing on 10m, and as a result, a mix of 15 QSOs with UA, UR and DX from NA was logged. The 10m band wasn't efficient in terms of QSO rate, but it was fun to work NA in the late afternoon with 4W and a piece of wire. A total of 65 QSOs were logged on the Salober. I could definitely spend more time playing with the radio there, but I wanted to enjoy the alpine beauty and atmosphere for a while.

On the Salober, DL/AL-287, 1288m. A very nice walk along the Falkenstein ridge 💕.

The Chinese made USDX-SDR is still in its infancy, dealing with pileups and crowded bands is possible, but not easy. The intermodulation performance appears to be poor, I had some issues with distorted SSB reception, particularly on the crowded 40m band. The AGC is too slow, the signs on 10m popped up slowly like ghosts from nowhere. The rig certainly has some teething problems, and you need some experience to deal with them. However, it's a small all-mode adventure radio that's good enough for a SOTA activation, even in SSB mode.  Let's see if I have time to write an extended review a little later. 

On the way home I quickly checked in at the Eisenberg, DL/AL-171 with 18 CW QSOs on 30/40m. Unfortunately I didn't have much time for a longer run. It's a beautiful place, I'll definitely come here again. 

Short stop for a quarter of an hour at the Eisenberg, DL/AL-171. A lovely place 💗!  

What was the spoils of the day? 

• 187 QSOs, 17 QSOs on 10m, DX was NA on 10/20m in CW
• 3x SOTA uniques, 19 SOTA points
• 1x COTA with DA20XOTA

Tnx es 73, 11 de Dzianis, DD1LD