Mills on the Air 2015

Saturday May 9 and sunday May 10 is the annual Mills on the Air event, and my club will be participating again from the historic and wonderful wheat mill “De Hoop” in my home QTH Hellevoetsluis in the Netherlands. Our call sign will be PH15MILL and yours truly will be behind the mic of the HF station. We will work on 10-80 meters depending on conditions and time of day, and you can check our current frequency on our QRZ.com page thru the magic of HRDLOG  live data. There’s also a VHF operator working on 145.475Mhz. Get in our log and receive the special QSL card and make sure to get the award by working 10 or more mills!

UPDATE: It was great fun. We worked 281 stations, including 24 mills, in 24 countries!

Pile-up / New DXCC #113 / 247DX

Tonight I put my new antenna tower to the test and started a CQ on 14.247 around 16.00 GMT and got a big pile up in return. Worked  over 50 stations, including Jean FR5CB from Reunion Island, adding another new DXCC country to my list! I also had some very nice QSO’s with stations from Bahrain, South Africa, European Russia, Qatar, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Finland, Romania, Greece, Cyprus, Poland, Austria and Israel. Most of them gave me a 9+ report and many compliments about my audio.  After a one hour break I tuned across 20 meters and worked several nice DX stations including YB1KI from Indonesia.  Then I joined the 247 DX net.  Tonight the net was  managed by YL Lorraine AA0BS and Joe KB3NXT and worked some American stations. A 5/9 from Tony VK2RI in Australia  (16.738 kilometers) ended the DX evening. Thanks, new tower, and thanks to the several stations adding me to the cluster(s).

Antenna maintenance, new tower

So I will be QRT for a few weeks. Next saturday I am going to remove my hex-beam for maintenance & reinforcement work. We had many stormy days over the past month, some of them 60mph+ and although the hex survived, it needs to be re-dressed a bit. The weekend after that I am going to raise my brand new powered 50 foot telescopic  aluminium tower with the kind help of the guys from my club.

UPDATE: Mission accomplished see updated picture. Thanks to my friends from the club for helping me raising the mast!

First JT-65 QSO

I’m not really that much into digital modes but you can still have some fun on the bands when propagation is too bad for SSB/Phone. Installed WSJT-X today and gave it a try. First contact on 10 meters with Horacio CX8F in Uruguay, 11.225 kilometers away, with only 5 Watts! Maybe this JT mode is not so bad after all 😉

“Barn Find” at the Ham Radio Flea Market

Yes, today was the annual Radio  Flea Market in Holland, one of the largest fairs in Europe. Last year I bought a “new old stock” Hy-Gain Penetrator 500 5/8 vertical (production year 1979) for only 50 Euros (a true DX gun on 10 meters), and yes, this year I found something very special again!

Nostalgia find of the day was a brand new Robyn T-123B all-tube 23/46 channel CB Radio, with a 1973 serial number. I payed 175 Euros which is not really cheap, but definitely worth the money, given the original/unused/mint condition of this radio. It was displayed in the  original semi-transparent plastic bag and I had to remove it to see what the guy was actually selling. I did not think twice!

This CB transceiver infected me with the radio virus back in ’74 (well, that was actually a Tenko 46T which is basically the same radio with a slightly different / less ugly front panel). Our Spanish neighbour had one, and he let me use it every now and then.

This T-123B has apparently never been powered on and is in totally mint condition. The accessory pack was still factory boxed. Everything was there; owners manual, schematics, power cables, a bracket for mobile and base use, the original hand mike, spare fuses and a bag full of washers and nuts & bolts. This “green machine”  really belongs in a radio museum but I will reserve a special place for it in my shack. Of course I will test the radio later on and will keep you posted on the results. With different crystals I might even work on 10 meters!

I made a series of pictures of the contents of the box, including the inner workings of this radio, you can see them over here.

IMG_4593

 

UPDATE: Yes, the old young lady works like a charm. Audio sounds surprisingly good and had a short test QSO on channel 14. But man, these ladies really get hot after a while. Tested on my 13.8V supply, did not dare to plug it into mains power yet 😉

 

 

A cool 1972 advertizement for the Green Machine