Here we are again in the Algarve. Higher temperatures, more sun, longer days … Good for WWFF activations with the many parks around in this area. So, below you’ll find the activations I conducted during my stay. I will append this blog with a short report after each activation. This year I use my new Portuguese callsign CT7BTL(/P). This is a lot easier than CT7/PF5X(/P) … How to get a Portuguese callsign is described in a previous post.
CTFF-0102, Área Protegida de Arade/Odelouca, Nov. 3, 2025 I have been in this area before (2021), but decided to activate it again, as it is nearby and there has not been that much activity since. I went to a different location this time, which was very easy to reach by car. It was on the south side of the Odelouca river valley, looking North, just inside the park (CM1150 is the border). The valley is not very wide, but the take-off seemed to be good enough for making contacts with most parts of Europe. Also in direction USA I had a fairly clear take-off.
The station could be set up quickly and my Spider pole was tied to a fence pole of the adjacent terrain. The antenna is a random wire inverted L with MAT-40 (v1) tuner at the bottom, fed by my trusty IC-7100. Power is delivered by the Ecoflow River v1 power station, with solar panel.
Conditions were good, but activity was fairly low. Maybe due to the fact that it was a Monday, but also because there were many DXpeditions going on, taking away the attention for WWFF stations … The weather was great, so no problem to spend a little more time to get a decent number of QSOs in the log. After a little more than 2 hours of air time, I ended up with 90 QSOs, with the majority on the higher bands as can be seen from these statistics. Also a few intercontinental stations made it into the log.
Do you get these electronic QSLs from qslworld.com or hamradiodx.es ? A large percentage of these cards show completely incorrect QSO data. E.g. a ham claiming a QSO with PF5X from 1997. At that time my call was PA0ERA. Today I got a QSL for a CT7/PF5X/P QSO on 12m/SSB. At the indicated time I was on 10m/CW and I **very** rarely (<<1%) operate SSB on my CTFF endeavours. I have no clue why these services have so many mistakes, but I do not care. My log is in LotW and anyone who wants a confirmation of our QSO can get it there. If you want a real card, send me an e-mail to get my home address and send a SAE+postage (no need for a paper QSL) and you will get my card. For the rest I want to get rid of this spam.
So what can you do to avoid these spam-like QSL services? Depending on what mail system you use, you can set mail filters. In Gmail this is really easy in the (extended) settings menu. In the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab you can add a filter. Fill in the e-mail address of the e-qsl service you want to block or delete in the From: field and save the filter. Done !
As a second action for future new “services”, you can change your e-mail address in QRZ.com to something like <youremail>@ggmaill.com. Maybe the QSL card will go somewhere, but not to you :-). Make a note in QRZ that your e-mail is deliberately incorrect.
As I will be active as a radio amateur in Portugal in the near future again, I wanted to apply for a real CT callsign. Making contacts with a reciprocal callsign (CT7/PF5X), in particular in contests, is kind of a drag … So, how are we going to do this ? Well, although Portugal is quite a bureaucratic country, you just follow the rules and regulations and you will get there.
Your main point of contact is ANACOM, the Portuguese communication authority. There are a couple of documents which are relevant: Decree Law 53/2009 and the associated procedures in this document, in particular the text under III is relevant for your application. Callsigns (CS) belonging to a license (NAC) are issued in alphabetic order – and cannot be chosen – according to the scheme in Annex 3 of the procedures document. So, for a full license it is CT7 for mainland Portugal, CT8 for the Azores and CT9 for Madeira. (for novice CS7 etc.)
For CEPT countries you simply send your HAREC certicate and personal / address details (as per procedures document) as well as a copy of your passport to ANACOM. I initially send it to [email protected], but subsequent e-mail communication went via [email protected]. This address is managed by Mrs. Ema Esteves who is an extremely responsive person. Very easy communication and to-the-point.
Now for the more difficult part. When dealing with a Portuguese governmental agency, in particular when it comes to payments, you will need a Portuguese tax number, NIF (Número de Identificação Fiscal). There is a nice website with a lot of info on this. You can get it via an intermediate agency online for a fee, but the more economical option (free !) is to go to a Finanças office, which are abundantly available all over Portugal, Azores and Madeira.
As I was on holiday on the Azores last week, I could walk in the small Finanças office of Nordeste on the island of Saõ Miguel. Bring your passport/ID and a proof of residency (bank account slip, salary slip or official extract of the municipal citizens register). I was lucky enough to find no other customers than myself, so about 20 minutes later I stood on the street with my NIF number !! This made my application complete.
ANACOM asked me to pay the license issue fee by a so-called ATM payment with an Entity and Reference number. This is a domestic Portuguese system and you have to go to a Portuguese ATM machine supporting the Multibanco system to transfer the money. However, another e-mail with a request for ANACOM’s bank account details was again quickly answered. I rather not put the bank details here on the Internet, so ensure you ask for the IBAN number of the account (and SWIFT number of the bank if you are not in the European Union) when you need to pay the €15 license issue fee.
I am now waiting for the callsign I will get assigned …
[ed. 02-Jul-2025] Meanwhile I registered at the Portal das Finanças and a few days later I got my one-time password in my (old-fashioned) paper mailbox. So while using the translate option of Google a lot, I could log in to the portal and change my password to my own. Not much to see in the portal as I have no tax duties in Portugal and the payment of my license was already done and apparently processed (no pending invoice visible). After an inquiry yesterday, I received an e-mail today stating that my CAN (Certificado de Amador Nacional, AKA callsign) is underway to me by standard mail. Fingers crossed it is a nice one (CW-wise) …
[ed. 04-Jul-2025] Just received a letter from ANACOM with my license: CT7BTL. Reasonable callsign for both CW and Phone. It is valid for 10 years and the license usage fee is €20/yr. LotW certificate has been requested already. I’ll be active from mid-October for quite some weeks … QTH: Alvor/Portimaõ, IM57rd
This time Roy, PD8RW and myself teamed up as PE6A for the IARU Region 1 50MHz contest 2025. In the past, for the UKSMG 6m contest 2024, we had already designed and build a small 4 elements 50MHz OWA yagi. This design has two advantages: a. it is very wide band so is suitable for both the CW and SSB subbands (and even more) and b. it can be fed directly with a 50 ohm coax as its antenna resistance is 50 ohm. Now, with Roy’s new 2 x 7m crank-up tower we could position it at ~15m AGL. Together with a nearly noise-free reception at Roy’s QTH this should work just great. We mounted the antenna a few days before the contest in the top of the rotating pole. PI7SIX (50.425MHz) came in with ~S4 via tropo. This is a lot better than at my home QTH where my Moxon, mounted only 2.5m above the roof, typically yields a meager S1~2 signal of PI7SIX.
The contest is mixed mode, which fits exactly the operator mix of PE6A: Roy taking care of phone, and I take the CW chores. The number of participating stations in this contest was not that big, and as for pile ups … well, there were not any. Conditions were there (in FT8 s9+10 sigs were repeatedly heard) but FTx is not our thing and BTW not part of the contest anyway. With CW and phone we eventually made 53 QSO’s despite the high temperature in the shack (heatwave in The Netherlands this weekend …). In the last hour of the contest the weather changed, light rain and in the distance some thunder audible and visible in the spectrum display. So we had to disconnect the coax cables and lower the mast to half its full height. Time to upload the log to LotW, Clublog and the contest robot, and to toast on another nice joint participation with about 3 hours of air time and best dx UW3E 2078km.
4 ele OWA 50MHz yagi above the Mosley TA33M tribander for HF
My good, old Yaesu FP-700 linear power supply runs quite hot when I use it with my FTdx101D. The transformer apparently is a bit small for this purpose, or the core losses of the transformer are high. I also read recently that when a linear power supply fails, there is a fair chance it will put out a much higher voltage than the intended 13.8 V. It can cause a lot of damage to your expensive transceiver ! A switched-mode power supply does not have that problem. When something fails it typically shuts down to 0 V. Much safer. The only issue is that some SMPS’s cause some RFI. Fortunately the more modern, well designed ones do not have this problem. In particular the professional server PSUs made by Lite-On for various big brands seem to be pretty good. They have high efficiency and therefore are really compact with respect to the power they can deliver.
These type of PSUs are more or less fixed on 12.3 V or so, with a very small adjustment range (12-12.5 V). Fortunately, there is a lot of info on the Internet on how to modify these to a higher voltage, in particular to 13.8 V, a voltage which is a standard for communication equipment. So, after some extensive research, I found a few type numbers of PSUs which had clear instructions on how to modify them. These are all HP “common slot” power supplies, which come on the second hand market when server racks are being de-commissioned and replaced by more modern equipment. I chose the HSTSN-PL14, as it was available for €13 (ex. shipping) here in The Netherlands. It can deliver 460 W, which equals ~33 A @ 13.8 V, more than enough for my application.
HSTNS-PL14 server power supply
The mod is pretty straight forward: just adding a 5k6 resistor between the indicated spots (see photo) on the control board, turning up the Over Voltage Protection (OVP) potmeter, and you are able to adjust the output voltage with the voltage potmeter (turning CCW is output voltage up). Ensure you have turned the output voltage potmeter fully clockwise (lowest output voltage) to be sure the PSU starts. The max. OVP is not that much above 13.8 V (probably 14.2 V or so) … You’ll need a good soldering iron with a small point, preferably temperature controlled.
5k6 resistor between lower left solder pad of potmeter and groundpin on control board connector (red arrows). Turn up (CW) the OVP potmeter (purple arrow) and adjust voltage with potmeter (orange arrow) to 13.8V (up is CCW !!).
In the same link as above, you will also find a mod incorporating removal/bridging of a small SMD resistor. Quite a tricky thing to do given the size of this component and your max. output voltage will still be 13.6 or 13.7 V … The author states his 5k6 mod did not work, but that is most likely the effect of the OVP potmeter and/or output voltage potmeter not set fully clockwise before starting the PSU. The common slot connections necessary to start the power supply in the first place can be found here. There is an easier way to start the PSU, i.e. connect a 330 ohm resistor (or a simple wire will work too) between pin 33 and 36 of the common slot. But the procedure described in the link is the correct one from the common slot functional design point-of-view.
I’ll post more information when the PSU is in its final usage position.
17-March-2025. Additional info
Meanwhile I made a simple break-out board using a 32/64 pin PCB edge connector and some heavy-duty terminals and Anderson power pole connectors. I also included a switch to switch the high-current terminals on/off. A few days ago I tried my supplies (I have got 3 in the meanwhile) in the field with my FTdx10 transceiver. It appeared that due to the highly varying current (@100 W transmitting, the transceiver draws ~22 A, and only 1 A while receiving), the over-voltage protection kicks in and shuts down the output. This is probable due to voltage overshoot when recovering from a high current draw. The OVP potmeter is already in its max. position, so the only thing you can do is turning down the output voltage a little bit. With 2 of my supplies I could adjust the voltage to 13.7 V, so only 0.1 V down, in order to get a stable situation. My third supply had to be turned down to 13.6 V, still very acceptable for transceivers rated for 13.8 V +/- 10%. By the way, do the testing on 50 MHz and 100 W output. This way you will draw maximum current. If you get that test stable, it will be stable for all other bands. I also used a plastic M3 stand-off to fix the board to the casing, thereby avoiding fretting of the edge connector contacts.
Power supply adjusted to 13.7 V. Just left from the blue terminal you see the black plastic stand-off (M3), which fixes the breakout board to the supply case.
Here we are again, autumn/winter holiday in the Algarve, Portugal. This year the weather seems to be a little less bright as last year, it is actually raining while typing this … Nevertheless I have already activated the first Portuguese park last Saturday Oct. 5. Here 2 pictures of my set-up at our house in Alvor (Portimao).
6 meter loop on the left, random wire on the right
FTdx10 and laptop in the “shack”
When I go out for an activation I have a third Spider pole and random wire. I just take the MAT-40, cables and the FTdx10. Power source is the Ecoflow River (580Wh) and a EcoWorthy 110W foldable solar panel.
CTFF-0936, Área Protegida Privada Vale das Amoreiras, October 5
This park was added recently to the list so it was a “new one”. When looking at the map it shows that the area is predominantly in a valley – not good for radio – except for a very small part in the south-west point of the park which is on a hill-top. It seemed to be accessible via a dirt road starting on the M1002 road. This appeared to be the case, however driving this road/path with a normal car was quite a challenge … My car does not have much power and on some steep parts I just made it ! Also it is a track type road with a lot of shrubs in the middle part of the road. So a 4WD, which is higher above the ground and with rugged tires, is obviously a safer way to go.
Entrance of the dirt road from M1002
Arriving on the predetermined spot, it appeared to be on almost the highest point of the hill, providing a good take-off in all directions.
Recently I traded my ICOM IC-7300 for a Yaesu FTdx10. To my opinion the full SDR concept of the IC-7300 cannot cope that well in pile-up situations whereas the hybrid approach of Yaesu with its crystal roofing filters does a better job in this respect. I have to add that wrt ergonomics you cannot beat ICOM though…
So with my FTdx10 and random vertical/MAT-40 antenna system it is nice to work the crowd ! [One remark about the MAT-40. You have to have the latest version V2.1 or higher, otherwise it will not work with the FTdx10. I had to borrow the MAT-40 from Roy, PD8RW (thanks pal !), as my own MAT-40 appeared to be an older version. It needs a complete new PCB board which was only available after my departure to Portugal].
Conditions were great, in particular on 10 and 12m. European signals were really loud on those bands. There was a solar flare on its way but it had not arrived yet. Activity was not as good as 2 years ago during Corona. Now there are many DXpeditions and also a few contests were ongoing. Nevertheless I managed to work 81 stations in about 90 minutes time which is a fair result.
CTFF-0076, Barrocal, November 6
This was a repeat activation of two years ago. Exact same location. This references has not been activated that often so I thought it was worth it to give it another go.
Conditions were pretty good in particular the higher 3 bands. 103 QSOs were made in 1:23h time, so that already indicates that I could maintain a fair run rate. The weather also cooperated with bright blue skies.
Here are the stats:
CTFF-0165, Ribeira do Vascao, November 27
My last activation of this year was to Ribeira do Vascao, CTFF-0165. This reference has been activated only once before, so a work-out in CW seemed appropriate … My wife wanted to play golf on the Ombria golf course which is relatively close to CTFF-0165. So, after dropping her off, I drove further to the Miradouro do Caldeirao. The name suggests this is in CTFF-0075 as well and that is true. CTFF-0165 is the smaller park enclosed by CTFF-0075. The Miradoura is just inside the park according to https://www.protectedplanet.net/555555594.
This appeared one of the highest spots in the East of the Algarve. 360 degrees views and I could see the Monchique mountains in the far western direction. The weather was superb with very clear sight and bright blue skies, 20 C. What else do you want for a late November day …? Condition were pretty good, though not as hot as a few weeks ago. Nevertheless, I could easily raise little pile-ups and the necessary 44 QSOs were made within half an hour (mostly 20m and then some 10m). The higher bands were very prolific again, so most QSOs were made on 10 and 12m. I did not bother to try 30 or 40m, as after a little over 2 hours I had 166 QSOs in my log and I had to quit in order to pick up my wife in time.
And here are the stats:
This was definitely one of the best spots I have ever had. The whole area is worth a visit with beautiful views and valleys. I think I will re-activate this one next year again … So, this ends my 2024 Algarve activity. I will drive back to The Netherlands by the end of the week where the cold, rain and wind is waiting for me 😦 Listen out in June 2025 for CT8/PF5X from Sao Miguel, Azores !!
Although I do not do much phone, I do need to use it on 6m. I have a headset (Beyerdynamic DT109) and a footswitch which I use for it. The footswitch is a fairly old Heil type, which was making the PTT contact unreliably already for a long time. The actual switch inside the box is a microswitch, positioned not optimally to make good contact every time. I was fed up with it and Googled for “footswitch”. An interesting industrial type footswitch came up, sold by Conrad. It looked extremely rugged and the price was even lower than a new Heil footswitch.
Also on the inside it looks pretty solid with a clever lever system to push the microswitch in a reliable manner to make contact. In fact it is a dual lever system because the microswitch has a lever of its own. The microswitch can switch 15A, which is of course far over the top for my application … It has non-skid rubber feet to keep it in place on the floor.
All in all I am pretty sure this footswitch will serve for many years to come in my shack.
This year Roy, PD8RW, and myself decided to join forces and compete in the ARRL 10m contest with a special contest call, PE6A. Conditions were really good in the CQWW cw contest just 2 weeks earlier so hopes were high on a similar experience in this contest.
Unfortunately, the solar flux started to drop right after the CQWWcw and in the days just before the contest it was already apparent that we had to deal with less favorable conditions. But because the band definitely would be much better than a few years ago, we started to erect the 4 ele OWA beam in Roy’s 11 m mast and we also put up a 5/8 vertical as back-up and RX antenna (but, after a short listen, we never used it).
On Saturday we started around 08:00 utc, just after sunrise. The band was open, but we felt activity was not great and signals were not particularly loud. So it was mainly S&P to pick out the multipliers. But as mentioned before activity was not great and there were quite a few “standard” countries missing. The few short runs we could make only yielded a bunch of Russian stations … Interestingly, we worked ZL3CW around 10:30 utc via the long path. He was maybe S3, but workable. 2.5 hours earlier we heard him short path, but barely audible and not workable.
In the afternoon, the story was similar. Mediocre signals from the Caribbean and NA. Although we had one decent CW run towards NA, we could hear many US/VE stations work each other for state/province multipliers, while the band had its (meager) opening towards EU.
Fortunately on Sunday things were slightly better. Louder signals and it was a bit easier to raise a short run although this yielded mostly Russians in the eastern direction without any exotic DX. In the afternoon we could fill most of the missing US states as signals to the west were also louder, except for the north-west as W7 was still difficult: only AZ was worked. As far as VE provinces are concerned, SK was the most western province, with quite a few others lacking. We only heard a few XE stations, so just 2 districts made it into the log.
Here are the stats and multiplier listings.
Just as a comparison, in the CQWWcw I worked 112 countries in CW, indicating that both activity and conditions were better then …
The QSO plots show that we worked truly world-wide this weekend, but, again, with difficulty and relatively low “real DX” activity …
We had a lot of fun and hope conditions will be better next year (probably the last chance before the solar cycle will go downwards again). We used a Yaesu FTdx10 transceiver fitted with an extra 300Hz CW filter (this is a must-buy item for any serious CW operator), 400W amplifier and a home built 4 ele OWA yagi based on G0SKC’s design.
This year I spend another three weeks with my wife in the Algarve (very close to Portimão). So, another opportunity to activate some of the local CTFF parks while enjoying the beautiful weather. And beautiful weather it is … With temperatures hovering between 25 and 33 degrees and clear blue skies ! I brought my IC-7300, 12m Spiderpole with random wire and MAT-40 tuner. Along with the Ecoflow River powerstation and a solar panel it makes WWFF activations a lot of fun.
CTFF-0886, Costa Sudoeste, September 28
My first activation was on CTFF-0886, Costa Sudoeste. I activated this park last year as a “new one” so I thought it would still be a sought-after reference … I drove to the same spot as last year a little north of Raposeira, near Budens. It is a nice plane with a good take-off to all directions.
In contrast to last year, activity seemed to be less. This is most likely due to the fact that there are many DXpeditions going on right now, whereas last year, still due to Corona, there were only a few … So nowadays as an WWFF station you are not as sought-after as in the previous couple of years. Nevertheless, I could make quite a few chasers happy with a new reference. I made 82 QSOs (net) with a lot of emphasis on the higher bands.
CTFF-0242, Las Dunas de Vila Real de St.Antonio, October 6
My second activation day was on October 6. While my wife was going for a round of golf near Tavira I went to the Spanish border area of the Algarve to activate CTFF-0242, Las Dunas de Vila Real de St.Antonio, in the late morning. This park has never been activated before, although it is listed already for quite some time. It is easy to activate because the M511 road runs straight through it. The road itself is not part of the park so you have to bring your equipment inside the fenced area. There are some walking paths so it is not difficult to do this. I put my station on top of a dune about 20m inside the park. Unfortunalety I forgot to take a picture of my set-up, so you only see my camping table before I packed it as the last item in the car (the M511 in the background).
During this activity the condition on the highest bands were excellent again, in particular 12m was hot. I was even called by ZL2AGY (11:36utc, so quite late in the evening ZL time). He was quite weak, but I was excited that we made it, with 100W and a random wire on my side, wow ! Here are the overall stats (net QSOs):
CTFF-0022, Reserva Natural do Sapal de Castro Marim e Vila Real de St.Antonio, October 6
A bit North of St. Antonio, lies CTFF-0022, Reserva Natural do Sapal de Castro Marim e Vila Real de St.Antonio. Only 10 minutes drive from my morning activation. This is a flat marsh land area and easily accessed by a dirt road taking off from the N122. The station was set-up quickly again. I found a great spot on the shore of a brackish rift. As this park has been activated many times before, I was not planning for a huge number of QSOs and, besides, I needed to pick up my wife from the golf course. Nevertheless I could raise quite some interest among the chasers, so ended up with a reasonable amount of QSOs after 1 hour of air time. As you can see in the stats below, 12m was the money band again …
CTFF-0075, Caldeirao, October 10
My last activity this year from the Algarve was from CTFF-0075, Caldeirao. I found a great location at a viewpoint, the Miradouro do Ameixeira, along the M1202, a little north of Sao Bras de Alportel. On top of a hill, so clear take-off in all directions.
I arrived around 13:15 local time, and after building the station I started a little after 13:00utc on 10m which was wide open. European signal were loud and there were plenty of chasers fighting to get in the log … Similarly on 12m, QSOs were quickly made. The minimum of 44 QSOs were made in 24 minutes ! Also 15 and 17m were given a little work-out, so after a little over an hour of air time 107 QSOs were made. That is the best runrate I had during my 4 activations in the Algarve.
Here are the stats.
In this time of the year I think the Algarve is one the best areas to do outdoor radio. The weather is great and you will always find a band with good conditions.
Meanwhile, with the activations above, I have activated in total 16 CTFF areas. Although I am not an award collector, in this case I have applied for the CTFF-A-14 award. It was quickly issued to me by Hugo, CT7AOV.
As always, also this year, I was doubting whether I should make a real effort or not in the Dutch PACC contest. But, as always, after a few hours it appeared I was doing quite well, so GO for it. This conditions were pretty good and of course with the solar cycle 25 getting real momentum now it was fun on the higher bands. 10m and 15m were wide open. I compete in the SOAB HIGH CW class and there is a lot of competition … PA3AAV, PA5KT and PG5M, to name a few. All with better stations (i.e. better antennas and/or environment with less man-made noise) than the one I have. As said, the contest started off really great, nice runs and the first hours were all with >100 QSOs. I kept going (except for a 30 min dinner break) until 00:15z Sunday morning at which point I already had more than 1100 QSOs in the log. That was promising … ! After getting up at 0530z, things started at a relatively low rate. Conditions were not great and a good sunrise grayline opening on the lower bands was absent. Also no ZL long path (a few years ago S9+ sigs …). Fortunately the higher bands opened early, 20m even before sunrise. Nevertheless the activity on Sunday was a lot less than on Saturday, and I could not raise the pile-ups I had on Saturday. I could monitor the progress of others on Contestonlinescore and see that I was gradually loosing my position due to lack of rate and multipliers. You really need to be loud everywhere i.e. have excellent antennas in order to make it …
Here is my score and a map of the QSO along with some stats.
As you see, despite the good openings on the higher bands, 40m is still the money band both for number of QSOs as well as multipliers. This indicates that the PACC is really a Europe oriented contest as can be seen on this table:
Although 114 QSOs with the USA is not bad compared to recent years, most of the other countries are European (with European Russia leading the pack …). Only one QSO with Australia which was my best DX … on 40m !
All in all, it was fun again to participate and to be the “wanted” guy … Now the waiting for the final results starts …
[June 2023 edit] Final results are available and I am happy to see that I am third place in my category (SO high power CW).
A short holiday to Fuerteventura with my wife and youngest son, enabled me to get on the air from the Canary Islands. Not a real DX “most wanted” entity, but a fun spot to play with the radio. Conditions from that latitude are also a lot better than what I am used to from home …
We were located in the village of Lajares in the North-Eastern part of the island, close to Corralejo (well-known beach and surf spot). We had a basic Airbnb house with some space in the garden to place a Spiderpole mast with my random wire/MAT-40 antenna.
12m spiderpole tied to a little palm tree with a ~14m random wire and MAT-40 tuner.
During daytime there was not much QRM and condition were quite good during my stay. However, EA8 is not really sought after anymore, so raising a pile-up was not possible given my set-up. In the evening it appeared that the 3 LED lamps in our apartment were a huge source of noise on all bands. S9 noise … These are cheap Chinese made LED panels with apparently a very bad LED driver in them. I was allowed by my family to be active with only a small bed lamp lighting the room. A little USB LED lamp lit my laptop keyboard …
LED lamp causing a lot of noise.
Set-up of EA8/PF5X (IC-7100)
All in all it was fun to get on the air, despite the fact I made only ~330 QSOs. Log has been uploaded in ClubLog and in LotW as well.
With the fast increasing solar activity into cycle 25, the 10m band showed some nice openings in the recent weeks. The solar forecast was very favorite with relatively low K (~2) and high flux numbers (~140) for the weekend, so I decided to join the ARRL 10m contest (SOHP(A) CW category) and go for a somewhat serious effort. Because my Mosley mini beam is simply not good enough – too many coils in the elements – I put up my 10m Moxon on a temporary 10m mast. The Moxon is at nearly the same height as the Mosley beam.
Moxon on the left @ 10m height
I could make a comparison between the antennas and the Moxon is definitely putting out a better signal (about 0.5 to 1 S point). This is more than I expected and I think I should check the coax cable to the beam because I am not sure weather the Moxon can be that much better …
Being a slow starter in the morning I started off maybe one hour too late on Saturday morning at about 08.30utc. The band was already wide open to the East and I started to S&P for DX multipliers. Definitely not as many goodies on the band than a few weeks ago in the CQWWcw, but still I could catch some nice ones including ZL, VK, JA, VR2, HS, 9N, 9V1YC (nice to hear you on this band, James !), 8Q and YB. During mid-day I had a few runs with mainly east-block countries and some S&P for multipliers. Then, in the afternoon North America opened up and it was nice to make a few runs on 10m after so many years. Yet, the disadvantage with this contest is, that it is actually a bit too late in the season. The days are very short and the band closes early. At 1545utc I could hear (weak) USA station either working each other or work into South America and the Caribbean and signals dropped rapidly, so I called it a day.
Sunday was again a fairly late start at 08.00utc, and I noticed that the band was less crowded than the day before. Nevertheless I could catch a few DX stations again for needed multipliers, noticeably 9M, XV, JT, HL, and BY. But activity seemed to be lower and conditions were not close to what they were on Saturday. In the afternoon NA signals were not as loud and I could not raise a decent run. Caribbean signals were really weak ! At the end of the day there was some sort of an opening towards South America but again only a few loud signals around. Shortly after 1600utc the band closed and I just made 450 QSOs. All in all a fun contest after all these years without decent conditions on 10m …
Here are the result of fourteen and a half hours in the chair … I am particular happy with the multiplier/QSO ratio. Congrats to Jaap, PA0O, who just beat me with more QSOs and score. Fun watching this on contestonlinescore.com.
Last year I already thought about going to Culatra, the only island counting for EU-145. And it is counting for CTFF-0007 as well. This year I finally managed to go there in a day trip fashion. I could not find decent accommodation. I was given a contact by Markus, DJ4EL, who stayed on the island, but the owner never reacted on my e-mail. You can only go by foot to the island and you need to bring some sort of hand cart to carry your gear. I had bought a second hand foldable hand cart, which was big enough to carry everything.
Foldable hand cart with all equipment except for the transceiver which is in the aluminium photo case.
My wife accompanied me to the island and helped with carrying my things. The ferry service from Olhao to the island is still rather frequent in winter season (starting Oct. 1). So we took the 11:00h (10:00utc) boat.
Boat to Culatra and Farol (which is actually the same island).
On the island only a limited number of paths are paved and otherwise it’s sand. Dragging the cart through sand with its small wheels is not very convenient, so we looked for a place close to the village to set up the station. Fortunately I spotted an old abandoned house at the edge of the village which seemed to offer an ideal operating place. The last part of the path to the house was heavy sand, so getting there was quite an exercise …
Obviously the abandoned house was a mess with a lot of debris around. My wife found a mirror mounted against a wooden plate which could serve as table after laying it upon a well. Really very handy !! The Spider pole with random wire was put against a wall and after setting up the rig I was ready to go at around 11:40utc.
Station and antenna in the abandoned house
Abandoned house from outside. Antenna just visible through the door opening.Operator at the station. IC-7300 and laptop.
Conditions and activity were good. I started on 10m – first station was KD1CT, thanks Bob ! – and had a nice run before I went to 12m, which was also yielding quite good. Most chasers found their way into the log while I gradually worked my way down to 30m. It was also nice to be called by quite a few Dutch friends like Aart, PA3C, Gerben, PG5M, Martin, PA4WM and Gert, PA2LO. I had the impression that interest in EU-145 was not as high as I had hoped for, but it is not a very rare island group of course and activated in the past quite a few times.The weather was just great and I kept on going until 15:00 utc when it was time to break up in order to catch the 17:45 (local time) boat. I had 226 QSOs in the log so a pretty good result for 3.5 hours of air time. Here are the stats:
This was my last CTFF activity of this year. Thanks to Slavomira, CT7ARW, for handling my logs !
Being the last day of good weather – the forecast shows rain and wind for the next 6 days or so – I decided to go out and activate another park. Although CTFF-0075, Caldeirao, is still on my list, I found another park not too far away which has never been activated before, CTFF-0157. It is relatively small, close to the village of Ourique. On Google maps I found a spot which seems to be OK for setting up my station. After one hour drive I reached the park. The spot I had in mind was fenced off, so I drove around a bit to find another spot. After half an hour I found a real nice and high location not far from my initial choice. It seems it is normally fenced off as well but the fence was open so I could drive about 100m to the small hill top (sign-posted with a little concrete structure). The take-off was excellent, sloping down in all directions. Only problem were the little flies who crawled over my arms and legs (fortunately they did not sting).
Location is blue dot. Initial choice is orange star
You can find the park perimeter on the website of CTFF. I quickly build up the station and started to call CQ on 13:10utc on 20m.
Set-up at CTFF-0157At the top of the hill …
Being a normal weekday activity was not so high and conditions were also not as hot as a few days before. Nevertheless most chaser found their way into the log, including our overseas friends (KD1CT, KG8P – 10m & 17m ! – and a few more). 20m and 17m were the best yielding bands, but I also worked quite a few stations on 30m because I was active a little later than I normally do. After 107 QSOs I pulled the plug at 15:30utc. So a little less than two and a half hours of air time, not bad. Here are the stats:
This is the last activity for the coming period. The weather is really bad now and we are going to the Costa del Sol, Spain for a few days, as it is supposed to be a lot better there … After my return in Portugal (25th) I might activate yet another park, but that is not certain …
As the weather forecast was again very good I decided to go for the next reference on my list: Cerro da Cabeça. It was a 55 minute drive from Alvor (next to Portimão) where I stay. This relatively small park is in fact a hill. I found an accessible road on Google maps, and upon arrival it appeared to be on the North-West slop of the hill with an excellent take-off to Europe and NA.
On a Friday and in the weekend activity is always better than on the other days of the week, which immediately became apparent when I started on 20m at 11:00z. I got entwined in a huge pile-up with everyone calling exactly zero-beat … After 30 minutes or so and 68 QSOs in the log the pile-up finally dried and I could move to higher bands: 17m, 12m and 10m. Conditions on 10m were slightly less than the day before, but activity – as said – was a lot better, so I could make almost 70 QSOs ! All in all a very successful activation with in total 194 QSOs. Here are the stats:
The weather forecast for the coming period is not as good as I have hoped for. Nevertheless I will definitely go to CTFF-0075, Caldeirão, but activating Culatra, EU-145/CTFF-0007, is doubtful … Hopefully the forecast will improve a bit. All I need is dry weather !
Yet another beautiful day in the Algarve … ! With this weather you just cannot resist and go out for another activation. So I went to Barrocal, a large protected area with plenty of spots to choose from. I decided to try the most South-Western part of the park as it is closest to where I stay. On Google maps (using the terrain view) I found a nice plateau with clear take-off to most directions, a little South-East of the village of Tunes.
The station was set-up quickly and my first CQ on 10m started at 11:51utc. Conditions were great with loud EU signals (northern part that is). After 30 QSOs in 25 minutes I went to 20m which is always good for the die-hard chasers. So the log quickly filled to 56 in the next 15 minutes. The first part of an activation always gives the highest rate, in particular now that Corona has more or less gone (it has actually not…) and quite a few DXpeditions appear, so you are dependent on the WWFF chasers as there are less casual collectors … Anyway, 12m and 17m were given a work-out as well, before the rate really got low. 15m was not so good mainly because my laptop’s USB interface appears to be generating noise on that band and is susceptible to RFI (I can output max. 50W, above which the USB port crashes and looses control over the IC-7300 via the microHAM CW keyer). No clue yet on how to fix this. It might be inherent to my cheap Lenovo laptop … 10m yielded some USA stations including KG8P (also on 12m and 20m), N5G – who was really loud – and K8P. The latter two were good for a Park-to-park QSO. I briefly tried 30m, which yielded only a few QSOs as everybody was on the higher bands I guess. So with 142 QSOs in total, I was satisfied when I pulled the plug at 14:45z. 10m appeared to be the money band today, and that’s a first for me !
Today I activated a recently added and never activated park, Costa Sudoeste, CTFF-0886, which is for a very great part overlapping with CTFF-0012. The latter being the smaller one you have to be careful that you are really activating the bigger -0886. So you need to be OUTSIDE CTFF-0012. The new CTFF website shows informative maps which you can use to determine a good location (thanks Hugo, CT7AOV, for setting this up). I chose a location North of Raposeira. The area is a high altitude plateau (with a lot of wind generators), perfect for radio as the take-off will be good.
Location at the blue dot
Conditions were quite good with nice signals on 10 and 12m. Even NA stations made it into the 10m log including KD1CT who was eager to work this new one. The needed 44 QSOs were made within the hour. Also 12m was in good shape and many chasers could be logged. 15m was very noisy and I could not hear many signals. Maybe a nearby high-voltage line caused trouble again … 17 and 20m yielded the usual EU chasers. And at the end of the activity I shortly tried 30m, which offered an opportunity for some more EU chasers. After seeing him spotted, I made one surprise QSO on 6m/SSB with TT8SN, Nicolas, who is very active on 6m. Tnx Nico !!
Operating position nicely in the shade of the trees
Antenna (random wire + MAT-40 tuner). Looking West
After about two and a half hours of air time and 124 QSOs in the log I pulled the plug and packed the station. Activity was better than during my previous activations this week, but attention is definitely taken away by the current DXpeditions (D60AE and TO2DL) as well as by the CWT contest this afternoon (13-14z). Tomorrow another chance when I will visit Barrocal, CTFF-0076.
Yet another sunny day in the Algarve, so I decided to activate two parks which are only a 15 minute drive from each other, and both a little north of Loulé. The first one was Rocha da Pena. I found a little road on Google maps which leads to the sub-top of the “Rocha”, a little east of the summit. This appeared to be an absolute top location. Great take-off (and view) from North-west over North to South-west. And it had a pick-nick area with a roof to keep the burning sun away from the set-up. So the station was set-up rapidly and I was on the air at 11:09utc on 30m. Activity on a Monday is considerably less than on a weekend. The rate was low, maybe conditions were also deteriorated compared to the days before. I never could raise a pile-up and it took almost an hour to get to the required 44 QSO’s to make it a valid activation (as an activator).
Location at CTFF-0070
“Room (shack) with a view”
Direction North
Direction West; Rocha da Pena summit
Fortunately, North-European signal came in quite loud on 10m, so I could make some QSOs there as well. Very few intercontinental stations made it into the log (2 NA and 2 AS). At 12:22utc I pulled the plug in order to pack and move to the next park. Here are the stats:
A 15 minute drive brought me to Fonte da Benémola. This is basically a park along a river valley. Therefore I chose a location at the edge of the park and not in the valley (bad take-off) which is the main tourist attraction. At the west side I found a spot with a good take-off to the North. The station was set up quickly and I was QRV again at 13:48utc. Conditions seemed to be slightly better as I could raise some little pile-ups on 20m this time. On the down side, I encountered some local noise on 21 MHz and up. Maybe due to solar panels or a high-voltage line which was rather close-by …
Location in CTFF-0071
Set-up in CTFF-0071
At 15:08utc I called it a day with 79 QSOs in the log, but again with hardly any DX, only PY2CX on 10m (quite loud …). Here are the stats:
Logs have already been sent to the new CTFF log coordinator, Slavomira, CT7ARW. Look out for the next activations from CTFF-0886 (new one) and CTFF-0077.
Like last year, I am staying in the Algarve, Portugal, for the month of October. The first week I spent with my wife and some very good friends. Now that they have gone (my wife needed to work), I have time “to play radio” and activate some of the nice nature reserves in the region. So, today I drove a little north of Silves and activated Herdade da Parra, CTFF-0233. This is a beautiful hilly region. In order to get a good take-off towards Europe and maybe some other continents you have to choose your location carefully. My initial choice was on the hilltop, but it appeared to be accessible by 4×4 drive only (very steep, rough gravel road). So my second choice was just along the M502 road on a gravel parking area. It was a rather high location with a clear view from West to East over North, so ideal for my target “audience”.
Conditions were quite different from last year. Now, 10 to 15m were wide open. On 10m the European signals were really loud. Short skip F2, wow ! The required 44 QSOs for a valid activation were quickly made. On 12m and 15m the European signals were also very good. Strangely enough DX signals were not that loud and very few inter-continental QSOs ended in the log. The weather was fantastic and my powerstation + solar panel were a happy twin. At the end of my activity I still had almost 75% of the energy available … and I used 100W output all the time.
Ecoflow R600 powerstation (576 Wh) and Eco-worthy 100 Wp foldable solar panel
Here are the stats after 3 hours of air time:
As you can see I even tried some SSB on 10m. Some loud Germans made it into the log, but it is not really my thing (CW rules …). And CT7/PF5X/P is just terrible in phone (in CW too, but N1MM does the hard work).
With this kind of weather and propagation, activating a WWFF reference is just sheer pleasure …
Outdoor radio in the Algarve … Big fun !
In the coming 10 days I plan to activate at least the following references: CTFF-0076, -0077 and -0007. CUL !
With a weather forecast of high temperatures and sunshine all day, I decided to activate one of the relatively close German nature reserves. DLFF-0567 is a large area so there are plenty of spots to be found. I chose a spot a little north-east of Wyler along a small country road. There were quite a few cyclists in the area enjoying the weather and beautiful landscape. As a matter of fact when I arrived I saw a deer crossing the field into the bushes. You do not see the very often on mid day …
I stopped a little further down the road from the chosen spot because I could park my car in the meadow just off the road.
Location (blue dot) on Google Maps. Yellow star is the originally chosen spot.
Set-up in the field. Pole holder made by PD8RW.
Overview from the road into the field
After setting up the antenna, a 17-40m wire vertical, and station, IC-7300 + peripherals, I started on 40m at around 10:30utc. Many chasers got attracted by the WWFF spot robot, so the first 25 QSOs or so went in the log rather quickly. Next band was 30m but it was really low on activity despite the fact that condition were quite OK. KD1CT was one of the firsts on that band ! Then 20m … Conditions were not very good when I started there. Quite some chasers including a few from NA, but the rate was not very high. On 17m the activity was really low, only a handful of QSOs there. My final run was on 20m which gradually became a bit better during the last period of my activity. So, I ended up with 110 QSOs in the log after about 2:30hrs of air time. Not bad, given the a fact that it was an ordinary working day and with the very mediocre conditions.
My solar panel yielded quite good in the full sunshine (~60W average). At the end of my activity I still had 77% of the energy (100% = 576Wh) available in my power station !
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