Looking back at HB0 expedition

The summary 

We started Friday evening May 12 and finished Sunday evening May 14. We logged more than 2200 QSOs with stations in 79 DXCC. That is a lot more than we did in 2018 (1.3x), and a lot more outside EU (6x). 

2216 QSOs, 79 DXCC, 5 bands, 2 modes

The top chasers 

In Europe we have EA2DT and OH1MM sharing the first place on points. OH1MM is the only chaser that worked us in all parks. The third place goes to ON3UA. 

Outside Europe KD1CT took the first place with KG8P and 4Z4DX sharing the second place. 

If you worked us multiple times you might be eligible for an award. To check if you have an award, fill in your callsign below.

The countries that we came across the most: I (266), DL (253), SP (176), Gx (155), EA (151), W (130), PA (116) and F (99).

The story

We arrived on Friday late afternoon after a smooth trip of around 800km through central EU. There was ample time for a first activity. We chose nature park HBFF-0006 as it was close to our apartment. The area is flat and well clear from the mountain ranges that enclose Liechtenstein. Conditions were above expectation. We logged 690 QSOs from around the planet (more than 20% outside EU) with long pile-ups.

PD7YY on SSB in HBFF-0006

Happy with the result we went out on Saturday morning with high hopes. Conditions during the day were quite different however. We stayed for 3,5 hours in HBFF-0221 and logged 376 QSOs with only a handful outside EU. We moved on to HBFF-0220 where we had to set up stations in between the trees - using a slingshot to get the wires up. Far from ideal we only stayed there for 90 minutes logging 120 QSOs.

Quiet area in HBFF-0221	HBFF-0220 in between trees

We went out for a snack before going to our favorite location from 2018: a hill near hotel Sücka.

This time however the weather was quite different from 2018. The hill was wet and muddy and hard to climb. We were in the clouds and it was unpleasant in every way. Still we wanted to use the highest point available dreaming of another evening with long pile-ups. We set up a 40m EFHW wire on an 18m pole and a 20m EFHW wire on a 12m pole.

PE5TT carrying stuff up the hill	Operating the 20m station covered from the rain

For some reason the 40m antenna was not behaving with very high SWR. The 20m station was going fine but after trying to fix the antenna in the dark, on the wet and slippery hill, we had to abandon the 40m station. This was a low point in our trip as we knew we could have worked a lot of chasers up there. We brought all the stuff back down when 20m went quiet. Next to the car we built the 40m antenna again and of course it worked.... We stayed for a bit working a bunch of stations on this lower point next to the hill, finishing the evening with 150 QSOs in the log with 22% outside EU thanks to the 20m station.

We took a good rest and woke up to a rainy HB0 on Sunday. We decided to take it easy on the last day, choosing to visit two parks. The first one was HBFF-0478 on a hillside in the south where we operated from the car as it kept on raining throughout. It was never very busy but we managed to log 238 QSOs.

Rain in HBFF-0478	The last park on the edge of a woodland

After surveying options for the evening we went out for dinner and afterwards to HBFF-0130. A nature reserve in the lower area of HB0, not too far from the place we had such good conditions on Friday evening. We had to battle some rain while outside of the car - as there was no way to get in by car - but were again greeted with very good conditions logging 642 QSOs although this time mainly on the low bands (only 11% DX).

Looking back at our trip to HB0 in 2018 we had better weather that time but definitely better HF conditions this time. On the next expedition we hope to combine the two :)

QSL info

The QSL cards have been printed and sent out (via the bureau per default for all contacts and direct if you requested this via ClubLog).

All logs are online at WWFF and the logs for HB0/PH0NO/P and HB0/PE5TT/P are also online on LoTW.

HB0 WWFF expedition May 2023

The Plan

We will arrive in HB0 on Friday evening (CET) May 12. If travel is smooth we might be active in the evening. Otherwise we will start on Saturday morning activating our first WWFF park. We expect to change parks twice activating three locations per day on Saturday and Sunday. Sunday evening CET we will go QRT. All depends on weather conditions as we will have at least one station out in the open.

We will use two radio's in parallel with 100W (CW) to 300W (SSB) output on all bands from 80m up to 6m - depending on band conditions. Antennas include end fed wires and a hexbeam.

We have the following park candidates pre-selected: HBFF-0006, 0124, 0220, 0221, 0222, 0478 and 0479. We don't know if we can access all the locations we selected, so it won't be possible to give a definite location planning. To give chasers an idea of where we are active from while we are there, we will post to the WWFF cluster and agenda and to the YNOMY twitter feed (assuming we have cell coverage). We will also iterate between HB0/PE5TT/P and HB0/PH0NO/P as the main call when changing location. Our third call HB0Y/PD7YY/P will be used as a "bonus call" regardless of location.

It might be possible for us to be active from our apartment in the town of Ruggell. If we are active from there, we will be using the calls without /P - to signify we are not in a park at that time.

Award

As we did in previous activities we will make an award available for chasers. The award will come in three levels based on the points scored: bronze (top 33%), silver (top 20%) and gold (top 10%). There will be a separate league for EU and non-EU chasers. 

Points can be acquired working the three different calls (PD7YY/PE5TT/PH0NO) on different bands and modes. Each unique call/band/mode combination is a point (note that we can only use PD7YY on 3 bands). On top of that you can get bonus points for each WWFF nature reserve you worked us in. 

Awards will be made available after processing all log info after the activity and will be downloadable from this website (we will post a download form here when the awards are available).

QSL

QSLs will be send to all contacts through the bureau by default. The logs will be available through Clublog but only after processing when we are back in PA. There you can request a direct card if you wish. 

Note that we will design the QSL after the activity, so allow some time for designing and printing.

Soon: another HB0 trip

It was 2019 that we last went on a foreign trip with the team - to GJ. We have done some special events and WWFF team activities in PA since then, but we concluded with the whole covid thingy fading out it was time to plan a trip to another DXCC again.

Spinning the globe around we scanned for interesting places. 3Y has had so much attention lately it felt too much as a hype and we don't like cold weather anyway. We are still dreaming of an exotic island someday (running a couple of FT8 bots and drinking cocktails on the beach) but with only a weekend to spare, we circled back to a place we have been before: HB0.

In 2018 we were in HB0 for the first time and had a lot of fun together with the HBFF manager HB9TZA. Especially the late night activities on the Friday with an opening to JA on 40m and Sunday with an endless pile-up remain good memories. We logged almost 1700 QSOs and 55 DXCC that time. There weren't that many DX contacts among them but we hope that will be different this time with the sun waking up.

This year we will travel on Friday May 12 and hope to maybe do some small activity in the evening if travel is smooth. We will then be active the whole weekend and drive back north on Monday May 15. 

As usual with our activities we will make a special award and QSL card available.  

A real "bush activity" from HB0 in 2018

Looking back at a successful expedition to HB0

Last weekend we were active from seven different nature reserves in HB0 on five bands - SSB and CW. Propagation was poor on the higher bands but the weather was much better than the forecasts. We logged almost 1700 QSOs and 55 DXCC (67 DX contacts, ODX = 10,000 km into PY5).

Our award program resulted in 15 gold, 53 silver and 140 bronze awards for the almost 1100 different callsigns in our log.

A video of our experience this weekend can be found here: YNOMY on Youtube

Friday May 11 - arrival, QRM and first radio contacts
We arrived on Friday after a day driving through PA, DL and OE. Our first surprise was a couple of HB0 QSL cards in the reception area of the hotel. It turned out they were familiar with radio amateurs and had no problems whatsoever with us putting up antennas. As we planned to do some digital activity from the hotel we were pleased with this attitude towards ham radio.
However once we set up our radio station we found that there was a source of QRM in the hotel that caused signals up to 9+10dB on all bands. We were unable to locate the source, so we only made a handful of FT8 contacts. We later learned a lot of people had heard us, but we were just unable to copy them.

Our guest operator Augusto HB9TZA/I2JJR arrived later in the evening and together we went up the hill behind the hotel to do a first activity. We used HB0/PH0NO and HB0/HB9TA on 40m logging quite a few JA's with good signals.

Augusto HB9TZA working 40m near our hotel

Saturday May 12 - 4 parks with poor propagation on 20m+
We had breakfast as early as we could get it and headed off to the first park we selected during our planning. On the map it looked like we could enter the park by car but a sign told us not to do so. We decided to take a small risk by bringing all our gear into the park and then return the car. There was no path inside the reserve, so we had to build up our station in the bushes. We even managed to get the hexbeam up but it took far too much time and with the poor propagation on 20m and up, we only got a handful of contacts with it.

HBFF-0134 - operating from the jungle with an end fed wire and hexbeam

We moved on to the next park (HBFF-0127) grabbing some sandwiches on the way. The next location featured a picknick area with two picknick tables. This was an ideal location for running two stations. We set up a station on 20m and on 40m (CW and SSB) using end fed wires and band filters. Again 20m was very slow. We did not have the sporadic E conditions that really helped us the previous year during our expedition to LX.

Marcel PG8M and Marcel PD7YY @HBFF-0127

We moved on to a location on the side of a mountain, next to a high radio tower (HBFF-0123). We were curious whether this tower would cause any interference but luckily it did not. We were active on 20, 30, 40 and 60m in CW and SSB. Again 40m was the best band with most activity although 20m did pick up thanks to Es (100+ QSO on 20m).

Nice tower if would have only brought our climbing gear

It was time to get something to eat but we were eager to activate one more park. So we settled for a quick pizza and moved higher up into the mountains. We found a nice place in HBFF-0120 with a wide view and set up our stuff before it got dark. We stayed until midnight working on 40m and 80m. JA was probably behind the mountain this time as we did not hear a single JA station but we did log N2 and PY5 (odx with 10,000 km) on 40m in SSB.

Sunday May 13 - 3 more parks, raindrops and crazy pileup
Sunday morning we got up early again but lost a lot of time finding a decent operating spot. Two of the planned locations were not accessible by a large distance - too far for us to carry all our stuff. We ended up in HBFF-0060 - a small walk from a car park. By the time we started it was 9 UTC - one hour later than on Saturday.
Conditions on 20m were clearly better than the previous day. We logged 262 calls on 20m and 40m almost equally divided over these two bands. Two JA stations and one K3 made the trip.

Augusto HB9TZA on 20m @HBFF-0060

We had a quick snack and then it was time to say goodbye to our new friend and guest operator Augusto HB9TZA.

Team picture at Augusto's departure (PG8M, PD7YY, HB9TZA, PH0NO)

We moved on aiming at one more park as rain was moving in. We had to drive around to find an access route but managed to get into HBFF-0121 on a hill but in the woods. Conditions on 20m deteriorated. We logged 255 calls in total but only 75 on 20m. There were some raindrops but using a tarp we stayed dry and by the end of the activity the weather had improved.

PG8M working 20m CW @HBFF-0121

With the weather looking okay we decided we could do one more activity after dinner. We did not have any candidates left in our initial planning but looking at the map we found two candidates near our hotel. That would allow us to have dinner there and to stay out late. We checked both parks to find only one accessible - be it by a very steep climb. We decided to go for it and after a couple of climbs up and down the mountain we had all our stuff ready for operation.

PH0NO working 20m SSB @HBFF-0122

Looking back it was a great decision to go for this last park. Conditions on 20m were poor but 40m was incredible. We have all worked many pile-ups before but this one was the busiest and longest one of them all. Actually, by the time we had to go (fog had come in and we slowly got cold and wet even wearing our rain jackets) there were still people calling. Staying on 20m on the second radio all the time allowed some of the NA chasers to get us in the log as well. We got as far out as west coast US (CA).

When we left the next morning it was foggy, cold and very different from when we arrived.

View on the day of arrival

View on the departure day

In the mean time our logs are online at WWFF Logsearch (thanks to HBFF), Clublog, LotW and eQSL. Our paper cards are in print and will be sent out as soon as we have them. [UPDATE: all cards have been sent direct or via bureau]. Special awards have been generated and can be downloaded here.

It has been a great adventure with a great team. Usually stuff breaks but we got home with almost no incidents (apart from various car related issues of HB9TZA but that is a different story altogether).

Thanks all for giving us a shout!
We hope to meet you all next year for another episode of "YNOMY on expedition".

Award and QSL from HB0 expedition

There are special HB0-FF Awards for the activity by YNOMY on May 12 & 13, 2018 for active chasers.

The award can be claimed by entering your callsign in the box below. If you gained enough points your personal award will be downloaded.




Info about the awards: click here


QSL
Special HB0-FF QSLs have been printed and sent out, direct (if requested direct) or via bureau. To check if you are in the log, enter your call here:

• WWFF activities: ClubLog for HB0/PH0NO/P or Clublog for HB0/PG8M/P
• Non-WWFF activities (May 11 & FT8) : ClubLog for HB0/PH0NO or Clublog for HB0/PG8M

Locations

In the end we visited the following WWFF nature reserves:

The references on Saturday: [1] HBFF-0134 - Balzner Rheinau [2] HBFF-0127 - Alta Bach [3] HBFF-0123 - Schlosswald [4] HBFF-0120 - Saeliwald

The references on Sunday:   [5] HBFF-0060 - Schwabbruennen/Aescher   [6] HBFF-0121 - Gantenstein   [7] HBFF-0122 - Stachler Wald

YNOMY goes HB0 (WWFF expedition)

After a pleasant experience in LX last year - as LX44FF logging 2100+ QSOs - we have decided to do another weekend dxpedition. This time we have chosen Liechtenstein HB0 as our destination and May 12 & 13 as the expedition weekend.
We will be primarily visiting WWFF nature reserves that have not been activated before. Depending on local conditions and propagations we expect to at least activate 6 and max. 8 different HBFF nature reserves over the weekend.

We will be travelling on Friday May 11 and back on Monday May 14. Depending on travel time we might start our first activity on Friday evening. We will definitely be active on Saturday May 12 and Sunday May 13 until late in the evening UTC using at least two radios simultaneously on all usable bands from 80m up (including 60m and VHF - 2m & 6m - if there is any propagation) in SSB and CW.

During this expedition we will be using both the calls HB0/PG8M and HB0/PH0NO. We will alternate between these calls when we move from park to park. 

Our gear this expedition:

• 3x mobile radio's (FT-857 / IC-910)
• 1x Ameritron ALS-500m
• Folding Hexbeam
• End fed wire antenna's
• Inverted V wire antenna's
• Triband yagi 2-4-6m

Location planning
We have made an activation plan for our two days. We will start on Saturday activating southern Liechtenstein (purple markers) and move to northern Liechtenstein on Sunday.
How many parks we will in the end manage to activate will depend on the conditions: propagation, weather, accessibility of the areas.

The references on Saturday: [1] HBFF-0134 - Balzner Rheinau [2] HBFF-0127 - Alta Bach [3] HBFF-0123 - Schlosswald [4] HBFF-0120 - Saeliwald

The references on Sunday:   [5] HBFF-0060 - Schwabbruennen/Aescher   [6] HBFF-0121 - Gantenstein   [7] HBFF-0122 - Stachler Wald

Chaser awards
As we did during our last expedition, we will make available a special award for chasers of our expedition. There will be three levels for chasers: bronze, silver & gold - depending on how many times you worked our expedition with multipliers for different parks.
We are counting on a minimum of 7 different locations we will activate. Based on that plan the awards will be available as follows:

• Bronze: 2 parks confirmed
• Silver: 4 parks confirmed
• Gold: top 5 score per continent (min. 2 contacts)

The top score per continent will be calculated as follows: 4 points for every park confirmed and 2 additional points for different mode and/or band per park. The awards will be made available for download in the week after the expedition.