Nice expedition without leaving PA

8-10 November 2024 we were active from IOTA EU-146 and three different nature reserves.

With the sunspots at a nice high level, we hoped for a lot of dx on the higher bands. We even brought our 4 element for 6m to the party.

Lady luck was on holiday as we were presented with a K value of 4 to 5 almost the whole time. On Sunday there was a short pause with K dropping to 2. 10m was noticeably better that afternoon.

We were active from PAFF-0113 - just around the corner of our rented home - and PAFF-0155. Both of which are on EU-146. We used both PA44PARK and PH146EU at these locations. Sunday afternoon we went to PAFF-0246 that was located on our way back home and had only been marginally activated before.

We used two stations on ssb and cw with one focusing on 30m and 40m using a vertical and the other focusing on the higher bands with a hexbeam.

Station with hexbeam	Station with vertical

Sunday brought us most dx. In the morning Paul VK5PAS came through signalling an opening to VK over the long path on 20m. He was followed by a VK6 and VK7. Sunday afternoon brought a lot of NA stations. We worked 30 states as well as NB, NS, ON, PEI and QC in VE and even a station from HR (quite rare here) over the weekend. JA was present but as they had a contest going on we only worked a handful.

Skip on the low bands stretched nicely from very short (lots of PA) to long (>2000km). With a surprise visit of Tom KG8P on ssb as one of the longest skips.

All in all we logged over 1500 QSOs from 61 DXCC (477 CW, 1042 ssb). Quite a nice result considering we were activating from our home turf (not something more exotic like HB0 or GJ).

We have in the mean time processed the logs and uploaded them to WWFF, ClubLog and eQSL. As is customary in our expeditions we will also make an award available to the most active chasers over the weekend.

QSLs for PA44PARK will be printed and sent out in a few weeks.