Today was a nice relaxed day and I decided to do some preparations for the upcoming fieldday-season.

About a month ago I bought two 8.5 meter long fiber-glass masts on a Ham Radio Market. Each mast is build up out of 7 peaces of fiber-glass poles. Earlier I made some calculations on the length of the guy ropes. The masts are guided two times: at about 4.8 meters high and at the top.

I didn't go into the fields to test the masts but stayed in my garden. There was just enough space between the trees and the house for the guy ropes and lifting the mast.
All was easy to setup and all guy ropes were at the right length, distance and angle.
I made a pulley block in the top of the mast. With that it will be very easy to lift a dipole to the top after both masts are raised.
Today I used some small tent pegs for the guy ropes. In the fields I will need a bigger version, so I'm going to make some 30-40 cm long angle steel pegs.

Last Friday at our local radio club we had the luck to be the first Europeans to see and hear the presentation about the K5D DXpedition to Desecheo Island.
Mike N6MZ was one of the team members on Desecheo Island last february.
He arrived in Europe last friday and came allmost straight away to our club to tell us about his experience with his last DXpedition.

Mike told the complete story, starting with all the preparations, the problems with the helicopters and the boats for getting all the gear on the island, about how much more load a generator can handle and much more.

All together, it was a great presentation and before and after there was time enough for Mike to have some nice eyeball-Q's with all the visitors.

Last weekend I tried to make some QSO's during the CQ WPX Contest.
There were no sunspots, but the conditions where good enough to put some new DXCC entries in my log.
I made a total of 114 QSO with 96 different prefixes and 42 different countries (20.064 points).
Well, not a bad result with 25 watt and a half G5RV!
A few stations from my log: E21EIC, 9M8Z, ZY7C, 8P5A, PY2YU, OY9JD, ZF1A, PJ2T, VP59V and FM5BH.
Some of the QSO´s were quick and easy but others were though and took some time.
Thank you all for your patience and good ears!

Last week I received a direct QSL card from Steven, WPE3AZC.
He´s a 93 years old SWL who has traveled around a lot.
Now he still enjoys listening to all of us at the bands.

Well Steven, I hope that you can enjoy our hobby for many more years to come!

My QSL card is on its way.

This week, two new direct QSL cards arrived in my mailbox, both for contacts on 20 meters.
Thank you both Nigel 9Z4CT and Tim K3LR for the QSO and QSL card!
The cards can be seen in my QSL Gallery.

The last few weeks I participated in two contests: CQ WW DX SSB and Ukrainian DX Contest.

I don't try to win... I do it just for fun for one day or a few hours.
During a contest I use a different computer setup than during normal operation. Normally I use Ham Radio Deluxe for logging. In contest mode I use N1MM Logger. It's the perfect software for contesting!

During the CQ WW DX SSB Contest I made 100 QSO's (claimed score 10336) and during one and a half hour in the Ukrainian DX SSB Contest I made 33 QSO's (claimed score 4400) on 20 meter.

On the left you see my Shack during the CQ WW DX SSB Contest.

I did a small experiment with a webcam and some streaming audio/video software to put a live stream on my website during the contest.
That stream will be available in the next contest here on my website. With that you can hear and see what is happening in my shack.

Ulysses ©ESANASA will hold a media teleconference Tuesday, Sept. 23, at 16:30 UTC, to discuss data from the joint NASA and European Space Agency Ulysses mission that reveals the sun's solar wind is at a 50-year low. The sun's current state could result in changing conditions in the solar system.

Ulysses was launched by Space Shuttle Discovery in October 1990. It headed out to Jupiter, arriving in February 1992 for the gravity-assist manoeuvre that swung the craft into its unique solar orbit. It orbited the Sun three times and performed six polar passes.

Ulysses was the first mission to survey the space environment above and below the poles of the sun. The reams of data Ulysses returned have changed forever the way scientists view our star and its effects. The venerable spacecraft has lasted more than 17 years - almost four times its expected mission lifetime.

Is this gonna change the sunspots on solarcycle 24 and the conditions? Will there be a maximum in 2011?

As I was searching the internet for information about the CEPT Novice Licence I found out that there is not a single website where all the details are collected. Even the European Radiocommunications Office Document Database website is not complete and on some parts it will give you the wrong information!