We've been thinking about it for some time now: our philosophy on Fieldday activities translated into a name and a logo.

Our goal is to be QRV within 5 minutes after arriving with a QRP power of 5 watts maximum.
With that in mind Peter PD1AJJ came with the 5x5 idea and designed our brand new logo.

As you might have read before on my website we're quite active in the surrounding polders, and not only during the summertime. We've been QRV last december with 5 centimeters of snow and a temperature of 7 degrees below zero.

We will be planning some activities in the near future. We will be QRV as /P/QRP during the IARU Fieldday weekend on June 5, so give us a call when you hear us.
But that will be not the only weekend we're active.

If you want to know more about our Lowlands 5x5 Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio Group please let me know. Or if you want to see or hear us in action, I can keep you informed about our activities via email.

After a period of almost two weeks without any sunspot the sun has shown 12 new sunspots today.
Let's hope the conditions will move to a higher level in the next couple of days. There were a few openings on 10 and 20 meter the last couple of days and I made a few nice QSO's.

Three days ago I worked Vinod VU2VID on 20 and just about half an hou ago I had a nice chat with Mohammed A41NN, also on 20 meter.

Both these QSO's are new countries in my log, so I'm looking forward to the QSL cards.

Last weekend Peter PD1AJJ and I went out to the fields for the first time this year.
The sun was shining so it was time to do some Fieldday QSO's. We both have a Yaesu FT-817 and Outback 1899 Antenna for our outside activities in the Dutch polders. We always try to be QRV within 5 minutes..... The Lowlands RaDAR method, or Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio from the Netherlands.
I've made a small video about last Sunday. You can watch it on YouTube.

Via several ways I heard good experiences about the Moxon Antenna. The Moxon Antenna is invented by Les Moxon G6XN. The construction of this stealthy gain antenna is easy and inexpensive.

I started to make a Moxon Antenna for the 10 meter SSB Band. The frame is made from plant stakes with a wooden plate in the middle to hold everything together.
The director and reflector are made from electric wire. They will be connected to the endpoints of the plant stakes and folded toward each other.

In this way it will be a 2 elements folded beam with a gain of 6 dB.

The main use for this antenna is during fieldday activities. I hope to be able to test my new antenna soon somewhere in the nearby fields with my Yaesu FT-817 QRP Rig.

A week after the CQ WPX Contest I'm right now busy writing all the QSL cards....
It was a great contest, although I didn't participate for the maximum amount of time. I made 231 QSO's with a total of 196 different prefixes and 79.184 points. That means I'm not having any chance of winning anything but that wasn't my intension at all. I'm participating because I like the contest and I wanted to log some new countries.
I was very glad that I could work a few VK's. A new DXCC and a distance record for me! With just 25 watts being copied 16.000 km away on the other side of the globe!

The CQ WPX Contest is about to begin.... Just 6 hours until the start of one of the nicest contests!
And as the conditions are much better than last year, I hope to work a lot more prefixes.
I will try to use the webcam stream again as I did during the ARRL DX Contest.

During the last week 10 meter opened up with great conditions. I heard stations across South America, Australia and Africa and worked Michele 5R8UI from Nosy Be Island (IOTA AF-057), Madagascar.

CU in contest and good luck to all of you!

This afternoon I went to a Ham Radio Flea Market in Rosmalen. It's always nice to walk around and check what's for sale. A lot is just crap but also some nice stuff can be found.
I only bought a few coax connectors. Always good to have a few spare ones in the shack.

The ARRL DX Contest last weekend was successful for me. Not that I expect to win anything, but I made 78 QSO's on 20 and 40 meter. The skip was good during that weekend because I could work stations from coast to coast.

During this weekend I have a stream live from my shack for the ARRL DX Contest (SSB).
I'm not in the contest for the whole weekend. It will be hard with just 25 watts when a lot of other stations are running 1 kW!

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think about the stream (and the contest).

This afternoon I went back to the area where I heared the beacon of the BallastHalo 4 yesterday.

As the beacon was weak, I attached a 4 element Yagi to my Kenwood TH-F7 handheld. In that way I was able to determine from what direction the signal was coming.

I first went to a location about 700 meters to the north-northeast of my yeaterday location. After waiting for about 10 minutes I heard the beacon and pointed it at about 160-175 degrees.

I went to two more locations before I could triangulate a likely location for the BallastHalo 4. When I drove near to the calculated position I heared the beacon loud enough to be sure where I could find it.

As soon as possible I parked my car (position #4) and walked to the location where I saw the BallastHalo 4 hanging over the water. Luckely close enough to the shore so I could recover it savely.

You can view all locations in Google Earth.

Tomorrow I will make a short movie about it and post in on my YouTube Channel.

More information about the BallastHalo4 and related projects can be found on the website of James M6JCX.