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.
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 !
PF5X HamBlog 