During the Easter I will activate my new Estonian ham radio call ES1NOA. The plan is also to activate several Estonian WWFF (ESFF) references for the first time. I am currently Estonian WWFF manager. I will use about 70 watts and EFHW (41m long) and 40/30/20m link dipole as a reserve. Modes are CW&SSB. Bands available: 80/40/30/20/17/15/12/10m. Times are just rough estimations and references are subject to change. Weather forecast shows warm and sunny weather.
Friday 19th April
1430-1630 ESFF-0278 Paljassaare, call: ES1NOA/1
Saturday 20th April
0630-0830 ESFF-0283 Suurupi ES1NOA/2
1000-1200 ESFF-0287 Vääna MKA ES1NOA/2
1400-1600 ESFF-0160 Niitvälja ES1NOA/2
Sunday 21st April
0600-0800 ESFF-0198 Rahumäe ES1NOA/1
0930-1130 ESFF-0239 Vansi ES1NOA/2
1330-1530 ESFF-0195 Rabivere ES1NOA/3
Monday 22nd April
It is possible that I will activate some OHFF-reference on the way back to home (OH2 or OH3 district). Call: OH1NOA/p
Now when I write this, I have activated 26 Finnish WWFF-references. Equipment I am using “in the bushes” and having with me on the road is as follows:
TS-2000E Radio + mic + Bencher-keyer (total about 9 kg). Now I have used 75 W out, perhaps will reduce power a bit more.
12V 26Ah VRLA-battery (about 7 kg), I have two of them (identical). Ideally I can operate from 2 references (3-3,5 hrs) with one battery. Cables.
41m End-Fed-antenna 80-10m
SOTABeams 40/30/20m link dipole, I am able to tune it to 80 meters but it doesn’t work very well there. This acts like a reserve antenna. My EFHW stopped to tune last time! The dipole is also ideal in the place where I don’t have enough room for 41m wire.
Fiberglass fishing pole 7 m – I need to buy another one. Fortunately these cost only 10-15 euros. I have also a set of guy ropes (2 ropes) for it. I attach my dipole from the feeding point just by using electric tape. It is very light antenna, so it is very easy and quick to erect but I need to lower the wires for band change. For EFHW I have one kind of shackle on top of pole, wire goes through it and guy ropes keep the mast still. So EFHW setup is like upside down letter V. For dipole I don’t need guy ropes as dipole itself has supporting wires.
Mount for pole – I use fence post mount which is very handy especially if you have soft ground.
Cable ties to attach EFHW matching unit to tree.
Travel chair.
Plastic box for random stuff + acting as a table for rig. I will have a light travel table soon.
Light cheap plastic tarp for ground – it keeps operating area cleaner and dry.
DD Hammock 3x3m tarp for rainy weather + Paracord for attaching, I also have one smaller tarp for quicker rain cover.
Plastic IKEA chopping board where I write my log + logbooks (light notebooks) + pencils.
Some tools like wire cutters and Mora knife, some electric tape and Gorilla tape (a must!).
Thermos for coffee + random food and water
two backbags for carrying
These are carried by two people. Total weight about 20 kgs. Usually I don’t have DD Hammock tarp with me if there is no rain. I also leave another battery to car.
OH1NOA/P will be active from the several OHFFs during the weekend Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th of April 2019.
Preliminary schedule:
Saturday 6th:
0730-0900 Kivijärven metsät OHFF-0682 NEW ONE!
1000-1130 Laajoen suiston luonnonsuojelualue OHFF-0058 (last activation in 2014)
1330-1500 Ruissalon lehdot OHFF-0190 (last activation in 2017)
Sunday 7th:
0730-0900 Kurjenrahkan kansallispuisto OHFF-0009 (national park, last activation in 2017)
1100-1230 Himmaistenrahkan luonnonsuojelualue OHFF-0686 NEW ONE!
Times are just estimations as I have 1,5h drive from home to the first reference and the length of operation depends how much pileup I have. Also it depends on how much time it takes to erect the antenna. Fortunately now we have already enough light to operate all the way till 1700 Z if needed.
Equipment is my normal: TS-2000E running about 75 watts with 2x25aH batteries and 41m long EFHW (and 40/30/20m linked dipole as a backup). I use 7m long fishing pole to support the wire.
I will operate around these frequencies: 3544, 3690, 7024, 7144, 10124, 14044, 14244, 18084, 18144 but especially SSB QRGs change often because of QRM. I will also selfspot everytime I change band/mode but your spots are also much appreciated.
I am slowly writing few words about my World Wide Flora Fauna trips. Last I wrote before this was one Ritajärven suojelualue OHFF-0279 in September. Same day, the 30th of September, I continued to Sovion metsä (The Sovio Forest). It is on the East side of Karkku village center, next to Jyränvuori (180m above the sea level hill). The area itself is also some 100-120m above the sea level with the nice takeoff to SouthWest to Lake Rautavesi. To reach the area, you need to turn from the road 2505 to the northernmost smaller road going to South. The road before it has the closed gate.
Jyränvuori has actually SOTA-reference, maybe somewhere in the future I will activate that one too – just to check the wiev. OHFF-0200 had nice old mixed forest, old spruces, pines, birches and lots of moss. At the end of the road there was quite nice area to park. Then I needed to “climb” 50-100 meters into the reference area. At the border there was a green protected area sign. QTH was very good and reference was rare too – only the 2nd activation, so pileups were good. My signal sounded loud even I had to set my station up to the small aread between the woods to the sloping ground. I made 182 qsos and 163 unique calls in less than 2 hours. It was my record after 9 references.
Last two days went with Tromsa K-index in the bottom: zero/one. It also means that propagation was quite boring – now Great Lakes and Canadian dominants were really loud on the band. About Canadians: we finally got IDs from 530 kHz CIAO Brampton ON. “Ciao” was audible on several mornings, usually with one or two Cubans (Rebelde and probably Encyclopedia). On Friday 14th MW band opened to West really early – 1140 and 1400 were there already after 19z. We still need to check our recordings but we noticed several daytimers/daytime power stations like 1360 WWOW Conneaut OH and 1510 WRRD Waukesha WI. On Saturday morning Japan was also very early – we could hear 0859z regional programmes from NHK1 and then 0959z local IDs.
We “closed” our station local time in the afternoon and set up few “cold stations”: laptops and hard disks for Aihkiniemi owner gang. Then 12½ hour drive back to Vaasa with one pizza stop in Rovaniemi. Another Aihkiniemi adventure was behind. Now next 12 months we spend by listening to our recordings and sending reception reports. See you next year!
Pizzastop. Reindeer, bacon and kebab. Huge size. at Memo’s Restaurant, Rovaniemi.
It is always difficult to follow the propagation when pedition goes on as we are usually working with the earlier days files. Plus we have other activities. On Thursday we went to our annual trip to Kirkenes, Norway at 9am and returned around 3pm. As beer connoisseurs we make pre-order to Norwegian alcohol monopoly Vinmonopolet and pick up 100+ different Norwegian beers. The manager of the shop greets us like the old friends. Why not, we have been there last five years – once a year and we are the only ones who import beer from Norway to Finland… We also went to two local grocery shops Rema1000 and Kiwi and found some new lighter Norwegian beers. And as usual at the border in Näätämö we did some food shopping at NordMarket and K-Market for the remaining days. Patrik also bought some reindeer meet for home.
So what about the propagation? K-index (Tromso) was almost all day zero. On radio it means that now West Coast propagation was over … now band is
open all over and the dominants are back. I noticed that at 09z East Coast was loud and I found from the files few very interesting catches: 760 WLCC Brandon FL (1st time in Finland) and 1190 WIXE Monroe NC (2nd time in Finland). Probably in NC stations were running daytime power because of heavy weather conditions. We need to check more files at home.
We also have a friend here who we have not seen. From the tracks we would say it is a fox. He/she has also shitted two days in a row just next to our front door. Usual suspects are the birds who seem to like peanuts. As well as squirrel…
For dinner we had beef stew in a beer sauce and rice. It was very good as we cooked meat for over an hour. The best beer was Jämmerdalen Astronauts. Jämmerdalen is quite new and very small brewery in the Northern Sweden. The beer world has not heard of them but they should as Jämmerdalen brews world class sour/wild beers.
I am writing this on Friday and we are leaving on Saturday. Probably the last parts of DX-pedition blog will be published next week. K-index is still zero …
Sorry our report is short this time: we spent a lot of time with earlier files and we hadn’t time to listen Wednesday files much. Solar propagation is getting better as coronal hole’s effect is away. But same time here it seems to mean that bands get dull to North America. Those dominants which were not present at the beginning of this trip are back again. Hopefully we get something new later on. Some new ones included 1010 KIHU Tooele UT, 1080 KRLD Dallas TX and 1550 KMRI West Valley City UT. Also nice Hawaiji opening at 11Z: 590 KSSK Honolulu HI and 760 KGU Honolulu HI were new ones.
In the afternoon we went to Sauna. There are the rentable cabins some 5+ km away, where you can use sauna. They also have the dish washing machine and proper water toilet … We enjoyed sauna, Finnish TV and couple of beers.
Our dinner was spaghetti with minced meat and cream sauce. The best beer of the day (and the week) was Evil Twin / Westbrook Imperial Mexican Biscotti Cake Break. Runner-up mentions to Bryggverket Kaakao Kaakao and Stigbergets Galore.
We log what we hear almost in real time to HCDX Online Log (OLL). From US/CAN we normal log the stations which we have heard 0 to 2 times before in Aihkiniemi.
4th day and weather was fine – sky was clear and we could see stars, probably Venus and red Moon. Temperature dropped to -18C but it warmed back up to -12C. The day went with some outdoor activities, radio listening and beer drinking. Although forecast said that the geomagnetic field would be quiet, we got Tromsa K-indexes from zero to five during the day.
We have not checked much of nighttime files – South American (especially Brazil and LaPlata) propagation was down. At 07Z stateside started to rise and what an opening it was. Condx were peaking to the states of MT, NV, ID, UT, WA, OR, CA and BC in Canada. 0800z hour sounded good but then 0900z hour was probably the best ever we’ve had in Aihkiniemi. Those files are still in process but we already got several first timers for us: 580 KMJ Fresno CA, 650 CISL Richmond BC, 700 KXLX Airway Heights WA, 720 KDWN Las Vegas NV, 750 KERR Polson MT, 890 KYWN Meridian ID, 930 KMPT East Missoula MT (afaik FFF!), 990 KTMS Santa Barbara CA, 1050 KBLE Seattle WA, 1060 KDYL South Salt Lake UT (using its daytime power) 1390 KLTX Long Beach CA, 1460 KTYM Inglewood CA (2nd time in Finland?), 1540 KMPC Los Angeles CA and KBLA Santa Monica CA. But more will be found from the files for sure.
Band opened to Hawaiji as well. It was open already at 0800z and then 1400z. 900 KMVI Kahului HI was the new one.
From Asia we noticed that propagation is really getting better as Japan was strong from time to time. Nothing was heard during NHK1 sign-on at 20z but some NHK2s were strong at their sign-off at 1540z. We also noticed few Aussie-stations: at least 1548 and 1620 were audible and then later few possible 6th district stations.
Our dinner was this time Aihkiniemi Ramen Wok with pork, beef and vegetables. The best beers were Olutmylly Rautarouva pils and Lockeby Imperial Stout.
On Monday coronal hole stream and unstable conditions were still going on but some good things were happening – perharps because of this. In the early morning LaPlata and Brazil were strong. We need to check our files but stations heard included 1050 CX26 RNU Radio Uruguay and 800 ZYJ457 Rádio MEC. The band was totally closed to USA during the night. But it became alive at 08Z and especially to West Coast and Rocky Mountains. After peaking at 0830Z band dropped down to rise up again around 13Z. All time new ones noticed were 590 KID Idaho Falls ID (their ID has been heard before from KWIK), 870 KLSQ Whitney NV, 960 KALE Richland WA (with Christmas format and “Santa 106.1” slogan), 1230 KBAR Burley ID (our 700th NA station in Aihkiniemi), 1340 KPRK Livingston MT (simulcasting KMMS) and 1390 KLGN Logan UT. At 0830Z also few Mexicans were noticed but no new ones.
In the afternoon Timo noticed that Aussie stations 729 and 891 were quite strong and decided to check if there are any other signals from Australia. Suprisingly the band seemed to be open to South Australia between 1630-1800Z. New ones 720 6WF ABC Perth WA, 765 5CC Port Lincoln SA, 1161 5PA ABC Naracoorte SA, 1197 5RPH Adelaide SA and 1242 5AU Classic Hits Port Augusta SA were found with few others who didn’t give any ID. Otherwise we didn’t pay much attention to Asia. Condx were poor/zero to Japan.
Our dinner was oriental sweet and sour pork with boiled rice, cucumber and tomato. The best beers of the day were Põhjala Szechuan Bänger and Oud Beersel Bersalis Sourblend Grand Cru.
