Looking back at LXFF expedition

The weekend of November 8 and 9 we were radio-active from LX. We stayed in a hotel just across the border in northern France and from there went out to activate 2 LXFF parks on Saturday and 1 LXFF park on Sunday.

Saturday November 8

Saturday started out well. It was a bit foggy but we managed to find an area within LXFF-0053 quite quickly and set up two stations - one QRO station with the tried and trusted hexbeam and one station focused on 40m with a vertical wire antenna. 

Hexbeam @LXFF-0053

Vertical @LXFF-0053

There had been a strong geomagnetic storm in the previous days and the Kp value was still high - so little DX - but it did result in short skip opening of 20m with high QSO rates. We were active for about 4 hours and logged 671 contacts.

We then lost a lot of time trying to access the second park. We failed to access two candidates we had planned to visit and ended up in our last park for the day: LXFF-0043. The higher bands were poor by that time (16h local time) but 40m was good. We stayed there for 3 hours and logged 394 contacts.

Sunday November 9

On Sunday we went a bit further north to LXFF-0044. Bands were not particularly good and 40m was crowded due to a contest so the going was a bit slow. The good thing was that 10m was open so when time went on we worked DX across the globe (10m = the yellow markers on the map below). As the bands were slow we decided against moving to another park and spent all our time before moving back to PA in this park. We stayed for 5,5 hours and logged 761 contacts.

Results

1826 contacts (1464 uniques) from 66 DXCC on 10-12-15-17-20-40-80m

SSB QSOs from LX

CW QSOs from LX

Zooming in on EU

DXCC of the chasers - top 10

DXCC of the DX chasers (top 10)

QSOs per band

IOTA and WWFF parks

This year we didn't manage to do a proper dxpedition as other things kept us busy. For a bit of compensation we will be going out for a weekend of radio-activity from IOTA EU-146 and one or more WWFF parks in the area (we are looking at PAFF-0155, PAFF-0156 and possibly PAFF-0113).

To spice things up a bit we will be using two special callsigns: PH146EU and PA44PARK. We will use the first one from the holiday home we are staying at and the second one when we are portable in a designated nature park.

When portable we plan to use two stations running CW and SSB on all bands from 40m up to 6m. We will bring wire antennas, a hexbeam (10-20m) and a 4 element beam for 6m. We sincerely hope the higher bands are open as they are our favs.

We will use eQSL and cards can be requested through Clublog (refer to QRZ). Logs will be uploaded in the week after the activity.

As we always do, we will send out awards to the chasers that worked us multiple times (different locations, different bands, different modes).  

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.

Looking back at GJFF

Loads of antenna, coax and guy wires, batteries, charging gear, 4 radio's, an amp, 4 masts, mast supports, beams, tables, chairs and three guys managed to fit in one car (just) and undertake a day of driving + 1.5h of boating to get to GJ last Friday.

Au revoir douce France!

We went there with good memories of WWFF expeditions to LX and HB0 in the two preceding years. We were hoping to beat HB0 and reach LX levels in terms of QSOs (1700 in HB0, 2150 in LX) and include as many DX chasers in the fun as possible.
It was raining when we arrived and the forecast for the rest of the night was not good. We did however manage to put up the hexbeam in the first nature reserve for 1.5h. We were awarded a nice opening to NA.

PD7YY inside the car because of the weather Friday evening

Saturday - strong start, unhappy end

The next day the weather was brilliant. Sunshine and 14C. We were visited by Nigel GJ7LJJ and Keith G8IXN on our first activity. Keith showed up at our second spot as well by coincidence (small island). Both activities were busy with regular pileups. 40m was not very good but 20m made up for that easily thanks to Sporadic E conditions. As we had been using N1MM in different configurations we were not sure about our progress but we estimated we were past 1000 QSOs already by the end of the afternoon - a good sign.

Hexbeam in the wild on Saturday

We were looking forward to a nice long night activity from a high point on the NW corner of the island. When we had built up two stations and had just started making QSOs we were visited by local police that acted very unprofessionally cutting our activity short. Afterwards we learned this was "honorary police"... 

We lost at least 200 potential QSOs this way and a time window to work NA and SA chasers.

Sunday - making up lost time in great weather

Sunday started out with a little worry - how would the authorities react? Nigel was our support on FB messenger trying to reassure us that ham radio was not in fact outlawed on GJ. And he was right. After a call to the right person we were "free to go". Trying to catch up we revised our plan and went for four activities, revisiting the two parks that had had only marginal attention (both the evening sessions on Friday and Saturday). Skipping everything but a quick dinner we were on the air almost the whole day. Conditions on 20m were brilliant with a lot of Es. We even went up to 10 and 6 when Es allowed it. 40m was OK but just like on Saturday did not really fly. We ended our trip at the edge of the beach looking out over the sea.

We arrived at our final destination at sunset

Overall impressions

We greeted almost 1800 different radio amateurs on the air in 2700+ QSOs. In that enormous group we recognised a lot of familiar chasers but also a lot of new calls. We were happy to make a lot of DX contacts (65 DXCC in total). The skip to NA was especially good with 144 QSOs from 30 different states and 5 different VE provinces in the log. Odx was 11.5k km into CE.

Our experience with the honorary police of GJ was depressing but the reactions from the local radio community were very supportive (Nigel GJ7LJJ and the local RSGB representative he called upon).
We were blessed with great /P weather - sunshine and moderate temperatures and enjoyed beautiful nature reserves with ocean views in many cases. We stayed in a nice hotel that has a stunning view over the Atlantic.

View from our hotel

WWFF expedition to GJ

After very enjoyable WWFF expeditions to LX (2017) and HB0 (2018) - logging almost 4k QSOs from around the globe - we are going to activate a number of nature reserves on Jersey Island (GJ) on May 11 and 12 of this year.   



We will be using MJ/PG8M/P and MJ/PH0NO/P on the island - alternating between these calls as we move from park to park. If you hear us (or see us digitally) without "/P", we will be active from the hotel (which is sadly not located in a park).

Plan
We will be travelling on Friday May 10 and back on Monday May 13. Depending on travel time we might start our first activity on Friday evening. We will definitely be active on Saturday May 11 and Sunday May 12 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.

We plan to operate from 6 to 8 different nature reserves. The exact number will depend on local conditions and propagation. In LX and HB0 we activated 7 parks.

QSL
Bureau cards will be sent after the expedition - automatically (no need to request them).
Direct cards can be requested here (allow a couple of weeks for printing): 

• MJ/PH0NO/P or MJ/PH0NO
• MJ/PG8M/P or MJ/PG8M

Setup
Our gear this expedition:

• 4x mobile radio's (FT-857 / IC-910 / KX3)
• 70Mhz transverter
• 1x Ameritron ALS-500m

• Folding Hexbeam
• Center- and end-fed wire antennas (vertical / sloper / inverted v)
• Triband VHF yagi 2-4-6m

Award
Stations working us will of course get credits for the GFF and WWFF program. Apart from that we will make an award available as we did with our two previous expeditions. 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 within two weeks after the expedition on this website.

Examples of the awards:

PG55G experiences PACC 2018

Our 5th PACC went reasonably smoothly. We had a bit of a rough start when our main CW operator - PG8M - had to leave us for the first hours of the contest to attend the funeral of an OM that died unexpectedly that week (some things are more important than contesting).

We were lucky to find Albert PA3GWC able and willing to help us out these first hours of the mixed mode contest (see previous post). The first hour however was a struggle as Albert was not used to the setup and software we use in the contest. This meant our rates were a lot lower than last year. We slowly approached last year's #QSO as we got going during the following hours however.

PG8M working CW while PD7YY is taking a power potion for the next shift 

The setup was the same as the previous years. We set up our station on a campground using only wire antennas for 160-80-40m and a wire beam (hex) for 20-15-10m. The weather was fine - no snow or heavy rains this time. We did get some storm which meant we had to lower the hexbeam during the night. Luckily by the time we needed it again in the morning the wind had died down.

Weather improved Sunday morning - hex was up again

As always we had made an operating plan based on the results of last year and QSO data we collected of the weeks preceding the contest. During the contest we used this as a guideline, checking the band conditions and band activity against it.

"Control room" - using data to guide us

The high bands were a disaster. We did not expect a lot but hoped for some opening on 15m. In the end we only worked 2 stations on 15m - like we did on 10m last year. We did not even try 10m this time.

In the end we are pleased with the results though. One band less means less multipliers but the QSO rate was good. We managed to log even a few more QSOs than in 2017 - a volume we were very pleased with then. This is even more remarkable considering our slow start.

Let's see what our error rate is and how the competitors fared. Results will be published in June...
  

LX44FF experiences

After careful planning and with the support of the LXFF coordinator - LX1CC we had selected a number of nature reserves and possible operating spots. Our ambition was to activate at least 6 parks and we hoped to reach the amount of QSOs we reached in our best PACC contest: around 1600.  We had two challenges to face according to the predictions: Kp values of up to 6 (due to a coronal hole earlier in the week) and possibly thunder storms on Saturday.  

TL;DR: 7 parks, 2156 QSOs, 1190 unique calls, 57 DXCC, 6 continents, 25 P2P. Good weather and good spirits. The thunder storms did not materialise but we did experience poor dx conditions. 

Saturday - 4 parks - great start - disappointing end
We left PA early on Saturday morning and headed to the northern part of LX to LXFF-0049. We quickly found a good operating spot from one of the candidates. We set up the hexbeam - focusing on 20m - inverted v for 40m and 80m and a VHF 2/4/6m beam.

It turned out there were strong Sporadic E conditions. On 20m this resulted in a lot of short skip contacts and an endless pileup. Even 6m was open but the skip zone was almost directly over us, so we only managed to make 2 QSOs on this band. We stayed longer than planned as it stayed busy and logged 600 QSOs in 3 hours. This was far more than we anticipated and a very promising start. 

PG8M working CW on the low bands

PH0NO working SSB using the hexbeam on 20m

At one point we decided it was time to move to the next park. It was only about 10 minutes drive away. So we took down all antennas and drove to LXFF-0050. This is a small area with only limited space for antennas. We only used end fed wires on this location but still logged 300 QSOs in 1.5 hours. 

Wire antennas at LXFF-0050

PD7YY on 40m SSB

We then made two choices that did not turn out well. First we decided to drive to a park that was 1h off our main route (LXFF-0059). We had added it as an optional location for Saturday. We were eager to work as many places as we could, so we went over there but struggled to find a good operating spot. We could only find a spot in the woods with suboptimal antenna's... To make matters worse I damaged the mobile amp we used on the higher bands so we were back to 100w on all bands. 

LXFF-0059 operating in between the trees

PG8M inspecting the amp

We logged 147 QSOs in just over an hour and then decided to move out. Signals were poor and we were hungry. We had some pizza on our way to our late night location: LXFF-0045

YNOMY crew about to dive into pizza

Our second bad choice was to set up two stations in the dark in LXFF-0045. We hoped to work NA in a late night opening on 20m. The openings had been there in the preceding week. It took us quite some time to build things up in the dark. Especially the hexbeam was a challenge. On the low bands we logged about 130 QSOs but on the hex I logged only 2. Investing one hour setting up and breaking down an antenna for 2 contacts is not really inspiring.

Compact mobile antenna @LXFF-0045

Sunday - 3 parks - sunny - busy activations
We went to bed in the early morning - later than planned - and skipped the first park we had planned for the Sunday. We went to LXFF-0022 instead and found a nice operating location next to an open field. Conditions were not as good as on Saturday but we still logged more than 300 QSOs in 2 hours. The weather had improved and it was getting really warm outside - time to bring out the parasol.
We moved to the next park (LXFF-0052) some 10 minutes drive away and found that the conditions stayed the same with again 300 QSOs in 2 hours. We had some NA (up into TN and AL) and PY calling in.



We wanted to visit one more park before going home, so with pain in our hearts we had to go QRT while there were still ppl calling on 40m. We left the comfortable location and drove to LXFF-0029. In the preparation - using Google StreetView - we found a spot on a hill and that is where we set up our antennas for the last time. The area was too steep to set up the hexbeam so we relied on wire antennas again (inverted v for 40m and 80m and end fed vertical for 20m). We were on the air for almost 2 hours and logged 349 QSOs. 

Two poles set up on a hill in LXFF-0029

We had fun - we hope you did too
With a goal of 1600 QSOs, dreaming of perhaps 2000, we are very pleased with the results. 

Band	#QSOs
80m	88
60m	31
40m	1044
30m	17
20m	969
17m	3
10m	2
6m	2
Total	2156

Choosing different bands and modes we feel we have given chasers a fair chance to work one or more LXFF references. The only disappointment for us was the very small amount of DX due to the poor F-propagation (and the repair costs of the amp..).

We would like to thank Mill LX1CC for his support of our operation. We also like to thank the chasers for working us. If you have collected enough points you can download our special YNOMY LX44FF award here (144 chasers managed to get an award). 
We are organising our QSLs and hope to send out the first batch for direct QSL in about 2 weeks.

LX44FF award

As blogged before YNOMY DX Group will be active as LX44FF from various WWFF nature reserves on 20 & 21 May 2017. Note that the same call will be used by other activators after this date. 

For our chasers we will make available three chaser awards:

• LX44FF Bronze - 11 points
• LX44FF Silver - 22 points
• LX44FF Gold - 33 points

Top 3 chasers from each continent will receive a special award. 

Awards are only valid for the activity by YNOMY on May 20 & 21, 2017 and can be requested by entering your callsign here (download prompt for award will open automatically):

Chasers can collect points by contacting LX44FF on May 20 & 21. Each first contact with a reserve will count as 4 points. Each new band or new mode contact with the same reserve will count as 2 points. SWLs can request an award by email, providing at least two consecutive contacts per park/band/mode.

LX44FF will be active from at least six different nature reserves during the LX-pedition. At each reserve we will use CW and SSB on several bands. This gives chasers a lot of different band/mode slots over the weekend to contact us.

QSLs can be requested through ClubLog OQRS. Logs have been uploaded. To check if you are in the log and to request a QSL card, enter your call here: https://secure.clublog.org/logsearch/LX44FF

If you have any questions, contact us via ynomy.dx@gmail.com

Examples of the awards: