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New weekend and I planned to do double-double activation this weekend. Weather forecast was a bit unstable but at the end wx was quite ok during the daylight hours. OHFF-0244 Vuonajärven luonnonsuojelualue or in English Lake Vuonajärvi protected area was a new one for WWFF. This area is not far from Pinkjärvi OHFF-0237, just slightly more south and on the other side of E8-road. The protection area itself is few hundred meters from Lake Vuonajärvi and it was nice, calm pine forest with the rock base. We found a good place to park our car and I decided to set up the station on the rock to the few meters higher ground only maybe 50 meters from the parking point.

Again I started on 40m CW and the pileup was deep. I managed to work “the mandatory” 44 qsos in 21 minutes. From Vuonajärvi 40m SSB was also running very nicely – 42 qsos only in 19 minutes! So location was good although the lake itself wasn’t helping – it was in the SE direction. Added more contacts on 80, 30 and 20m and packed after 1 hour and 45 minutes. Logged totally 163 qsos and 143 hunters – exactly same amount of unique calls than from OHFF-0170.

My 4th OHFF-activation was to OHFF-0170. It is in Finnish called Haapakeitaan soidensuojelualue, in English Haapakeidas swamp protection area. I was in the northern part of Mustasaarenkeidas which is one part of this huge 5779 ha swamp area. OHFF-0170 was now activated for the first time.

There were few options where to operate this reference but I decided to go Isojoki county, which is in the OH6 call area. I noticed from the map that there is a protected area which has forest which means that there should be some dry land for operation site plus there was a small parking area and signed nature path into the area. This place was 80km from my home, so it was like one hour drive. Landscape was nice countryside landscape. Ww were travelling through the small villages of Suojoki and Piikkilänkylä on the way, not many houses. There was also commercial summer cottage village just before the operation site.

So swamp it was and also a birding tower plus well-kept wooden path through the large swamp. I set my station up to the place were the wet swamp was starting but just to the drier forest side. Antenna was quite low, 40m dipole end not more than 1,5 meters from the ground and only meter or two off the radio. I started again operation on 40m CW. Bang – huge pileup immediately. Apparently my signal was not so good and pileup was quite rude also. Somehow I was able to manage it, longtime contesting experience helped. 40m CW produced 80 qsos in 36 minutes. 40m SSB was not productive, I couldn’t find clear QRG, so went to 80m CW&SSB for some close-by stations. Then to 30m were I got nice small pileup. Now 20m was also somewhat productive what it has not been in the previous operations. Not too many stations but some: 13 on CW and 16 on SSB. Then I tried again on 40m SSB, only 3 qsos. Then to 40m CW for few more. Finished on 80m SSB but got only one OH. Activity from Finland was not huge.

Before packing I made a short walk to the bird watching tower. On the way back to the car we saw lots of cranes above us. QRM was loud hi. Thanks for 170 qsos to everyone who called.

My 3rd OHFF was probably also the third closest reference to my home. Pinkjärvi (“Pink Lake”) is some 30 minutes drive from Pori city. My radio club activated Pinkjärvi as the new one in August as OH1AB/p (see video). They made a trip to the small island at the lake but I activated OHFF-0237 from so called “double lean-to” called Vuotava. It is possible to drive to park place which is only 100 meters from the lean-to. Lean-to itself is about 20 meters from lakeshore.

What made this operation interesting was that big storm called “Mauri 2018” hit the west coast of Finland on Saturday morning. Fortunately it didn’t make much harm to my operation as my QTH was in the middle of the forest trees. Lean-to had very nice wooden table and bench, so it was the most comfortable OHFF-QTH so far. I put my antenna up between forest and lean-to. The place was not the best possible but as I have quite short coax cable, erecting antenna to lake shore what not an option. Europe is on the forest side so take-off was not the best.

I started again 40m CW, then moved to SSB, then 30m CW, 20m CW and SSB then back to 40m. I also tuned my 40m dipole to 80m and worked some stations on 80m CW and SSB as well. So I will use 80m also in the future with this antenna. Signals from Europe on 40m and 30m were strong. Again I couldn’t get much going on 20m. Total qso count was 117 qsos in 2 hours. Not too bad for this not so optimum site.

Now after 3 references I have 358 qsos in total. It is quite funny that qso counts have been 122-119-117, almost identical.

My second activation was to another OHFF-reference close to my QTH. It is only 10 minutes drive from my radio QTH. Yyteri Beach and its dunes are most likely the most famous beach in Finland. It is extremely popular among the sunbathers during the summer and it has also other interesting history. Eg. The Rolling Stones played there in 1965. Nowadays the large path of it is protected by EU’s Natura2000-programme. The Sand beach shore is one of the most interesting places for birdwatching in Finland (like my first OHFF-0040).

I arrived to Yyteri just before 07z. There is a car park area near the dunes so reaching the actual OHFF-0330 is easy. It is possible to operate just some 50 meters from the car park at the top of the highest dune, Keisarinpankki (“Ceasar’s Bank”) but I decided to carry my equipment closer to the sea. I chose the place where there was only one dune between me and sea. Funny thing is that this is the nudist part of the beach. Of course in late September with +13C, wind and a bit of rain, we were alone there.

The station went up quickly and I started on 7024 kHz CW. Unfortunately I had some problems with my Bencher keyer. Probably wind blew some sand and made contacts a bit unstable. I needed to clean it several times during the operation when the keyer started to send extra dahs. After 25 minutes and 43 qs and moved to SSB. Not much there, so I went to 10 MHz. When I changed the band from the antenna, I noticed that another half of my dipole was in the “30m position” (ie. shorter). So no wonder that my signal was maybe not as strong as expected. 10 MHz propagation was nice, I even got OH7MFO and OH3GZ which are normally difficult even on 40m because of the short skip. After the first hour at 0815z I had 81 qsos. 10 MHz is very good band for WWFF, hopefully more stations could be QRV there. Then I tried some 20m CW and SSB but they produced only 9 qsos so I returned to 40m SSB. There I got nice short pileup, lots of SPs. SM5CNQ from the other side of the bay was real S9. The final 10 minutes I spent on 40m CW for few more extra qsos. Last 45 minutes produced 41 qsos so my QSO total was 122 qsos.

As I started to collect “World Wide Flora&Fauna“-stations this summer and also started to plan my own OHFF-activation. Earlier this summer I also bought a new rig TS-2000 which is more suitable for portable operation than my old rusty (and heavy) FT-1000D. Then I bought 8 meter long telescope fishing rod from Motonet (local store) which is more than good enough to hold a portable wire antenna. The antenna just needs to be light (heavier antenna cracks the pole!) and my choice was the band hopper dipole for 40m, 30m and 20m. It has the “crocodile clips” and insulators so I need only one dipole wire for three bands. To change the bands I just need to lower the rod and change the clips. Quick and easy. For electricity I bought 60Ah “freetime” battery from Puuilo (local store too). It is very heavy (15kg!) but I wanted to run 100 watts output. With QRP smaller batteries would have been more obvious choices. It is possible to erect antenna pole just as it is, but I decided to get also a metallic fence post base “with the twist”. Bottom of the rod fits nicely to the post and post keeps it nicely still during the set up and operation.

My first OHFF-operation was to Bothian Sea National Park (Selkämeren kansallispuisto in Finnish, OHFF-0040) which is a huge national park consisting a good part of Bothian Sea. Fortunately a part of it is on the coast and not far – just 5 minutes by car – from my radio QTH (at my mother’s house while I live in the city center). So I made “a research trip” before the radio operation to site. At first I was thinking a bird watching tower as a possible operation site but then decided to operate from a site close to the water. We could also drive closer and to carry all the equipment (together with my XYL) “only” some 500 meters from the parking site. Actually there are a parts of this nature park where you can operate from car (even here in Pori).

Friday morning was sunny (+13 C) but very windy. Set up of the station didn’t take more than 10 minutes. I started on 40m CW and posted self-spot to DX-Cluster. Then bang! The pileup was ready! On 7024 signals were nicely strong but my signal was probably a bit weaker compared to the shouters. Some 4-5 stations were calling at same time. I managed to work about 50 stations in 25 minutes before moving to SSB. It was a big pleasure to listen to bands without any manmade noise! There is an electric fence (for cows) nearby but I didn’t get any QRM from it. The biggest local QRM was about 5000 Barnacle gooses flying just over me! 40m SSB procuded more qsos, also 30m CW but then 20m CW&SSB were almost dead, so I decided to return to 40m and 30m. I also briefly tried 80m CW as the radio tuned my wire for it but only worked the semi-local OH1IU who had a weak signal, so didn’t waste much of time there. The second hour was much slower as the biggest pileups were done during the first hour (90 qsos) and so I got only 29 qsos on the second hour. After all, OHFF-0040 is not a rare OHFF at all, WWFF database had 3614 qsos before mine! So after two hours the wind was so heavy and cold, and the pileups were light and cold, I called it a day, unpacked the station and headed to my mother’s house for a warm cup of coffee. More OHFF-activity coming!

Day 5 Tuesday 12.12.2017

Today we had our traditional trip to Norway to Kirkenes. We had our annual beer batch from the local Vinmonopolet and then on the way back we bought food from the border village of Näätämö. They have two grocery shops there with main customer base coming from Norway and Murmansk. This year we also had change to visit in Sevetin Baari which is a legendary pub and little shop in Sevettijärvi sami village. It was closed last year but now new entrepreneurs re-opened it. From Sevetin Baari it is 90 km to next pub (in Kaamanen, Inari if Kaamasen Kievari is still open).

So we didn’t watch so much band conditions as our trip took over 6 hours. NA was open again and this time at 1300z we had finally “area propagation” to WA/OR/Northern CA-area. 1240 KEJO Corvallis OR, 1330 KKPZ Portland OR, 1390 KZGD Salem OR, 1450 KBKW Aberdeen WA and 1540 KXPA Bellevue WA were new ones for us. I suppose we will find some more later. Tromså K-index peaked to 6 so propagation was unstable.

Food: Spaghetti with pork sauce

The best beer: Svalbard Spitsbergen Stout (from Svalbard!)

Day 4 Monday 11.12.2017

The effect of new coronal hole hit and Tromssa K-index was from 2 to 4. Propagation was still more or less same: NA started to come in midnight and continued till afternoon. We will see later if there is any good catches in the files. So far only KATE Albert Lea MN 1450 was noticed “live”. Asia seemed a bit more Iran oriented today. JA signals were down.

We had our traditional “pre-Norway sauna” at Jounila, so afternoon was spent 6 km away from the listening position. We had sauna, we watched Shark Tank from TV and dishwasher was doing its job for our dishes.

Food: Pasta carbonara

The best beer: BrewDog Abstrakt AB:22

Day 3 Sunday 10.12.2017

Tromså K-index dropped to 0 and it made some changes to the propagation. NA propagation was a bit more interesting although band closed earlier than on Saturday, around 1300z. 740 KCBS San Francisco CA and 1330 KWKW Los Angeles CA were new catches for us and there is more to come as the digging of those files has not been started yet.

The biggest suprises came from Pacific. I was monitoring carefully 621 for Tuvalu and suprisingly it came up at 0939Z for few minutes! This is the second time when this station has been heard in Finland. Also Radio Tonga was strong today. 1449 V6AH is still in the monitoring list. Asia files we have not much checked yet. Japan seemed to be in a good shape.

Weather: same as on Saturday. We still have some work to do with snow but that work is almost done. The new bird here for us has been Siberian jay. Lots of tits (especially Siberian tit) and squirrels have visited our yard. No reindeers so far this year although there was few nearby when we arrived.

Food: macaroni casserole (thanks Pat’s mom)

The best beer: Hawkshead / Cigar City Tiramisu Imperial Stout

Day 2 Saturday 9.12.2017

The band was open to North America all night but propagation seemed to be still very generic. The morning was more or less same but we still have to check those files. Suprisingly 780 WXME Monticello ME was heard with WBBM: “WXME AM 7-80 Monticello …”. This Maine station was logged for the second time in Finland. In the morning V7AB Radio Majuro was very strong until their sign off at 1130Z. One from the most wanted list was also heard: 990 Gold FM from Fidzi although KIKI Honolulu was making QRM. Havaiji was in a good shape: 1110 KAOI, 1240 KEWE, 1270 KNDI and 1370 KUPA are new ones for us!

In the evening we mostly watched ice hockey (Patrik’s Lukko and Timo’s Ässät both lost their games) and drank some beverages so Asia propagation is unknown. ABC fanfare at 891 was heard and there seems to be some Filipinos (594 DZBB) and Japanese stations in the files.

Weather: we got some new snow and temperature has been around -5 C.

Food: potatoes and beef in tomato sauce

The best beer: Avery Vanilla Bean Stout – Bourbon Barrel

Day 1 late Thursday – late Friday 8.-9.12.2017

Finally on DX-pedition! Our 4th DX-pedition started this year a bit earlier than before as the 6th of December was the 100th anniversary of Finland and day off. Timo moved to Vaasa already on Wednesday evening. Our trip started on Thursday morning at 07:30am. We stopped in Kempele to buy the most of our food and then in Rovaniemi for a pizza break. We were excited to hear that Inari Väylä (only some 20 km from our QTH) was the coldest place in Finland, about -35C in the morning.

We arrived to Aihkiniemi around 22:30 – after 15 hours of drive. When we approached the place, weather changed a bit warmer and it was only -24C when we arrived (it went up to -9C next day). We were very lucky and the final path to listening cottage had so little snow that we could drive our Skoda directly to the front of cottage. After some unpacking we were ready for the rocknroll.

Earlier in the weak propagation was dominated by a coronal hole which made radio propagation more or less disturbed. It continued till Thursday. We were lucky as the effect of coronal hole started to vanish little by little during the first day. Propagation was up and down and it wasn’t really really juicy to any part of the world but on the other hand mediumwaves were open to almost everywhere.

The first night started with La Plata stations which picked up at 0400z. Same time Brasilian stations continued till 07z with stations like 730 ZYH759 Rado 730 and 1050 ZYI203 Radio Capixaba. We were suprised that North America came in already at 2300z and propagation continued all night. Unfortunately stations were more or less usual suspects. In the morning at 06z we got the first new US catch 1070 KFTI Wichita KS when band was good to KS/SD/WY area. Band seemed to dive after 0715z but suprisingly it came up few hours later giving West Coast stations till 1500z! New stations so far noticed are 550 KOAC Corvallis OR and 1140 KXRB Sioux Falls SD. Same time Alaska was very strong (all common Alaska stations were heard) and even for the first time we got several new HI stations: 830 KHVH, 990 KIKI and 1040 KLHT. The real blast was 1035 Newstalk ZB at 1203z. Our first MW station from New Zealand! Other Pacific was not noticed except strong Majuro 1098. Maybe tomorrow …

During the evening we listened to earlier recordings so not so much to tell about Asian propagation so far. DWNX 1611 was heard during the sign off and sign on. 891 and 1296 Aussies were also heard. We also watched some icehockey from the computer.

Daily meal: chicken in cream sauce with rice and salad
The best beer: BrewDog Pump Action Poet