Some nice QSLs from the buro...

The last buro batches contained some real nice cards. The countries are not that rare, but not always easy to get them confirmed by the buro. While I still like the paper QSLs for my collection, the ARRLs LOTW is very usefull to collect and confirm bandpoints. Every week new people sign up, and DXpeditions from the past upload their logs. The last few weeks confirmations from following DXped were received: 3C9B, 3C0C, PZ5RA, S9DX, 6V7W, 9N7DX, 9U0A, ....

Enjoy the pictures.

T32C - Kiritimati (Christmas Island)

While making a shoppinglist for the hamfest in Friedrischshafen, I'm making an even longer list for a major DXpedition. G3NUG from the FSDXA gave me the opportunity to join the DXpedition to Kiritimati, T32C.
It's an honour to join the team of all these well known DX'ers. Will leave the country the 9th of October and will return 3 weeks later. Want to know more about the island? Click here. It's not an easy path, but with the improving conditions and the teams focus on Europe, everybody will have a fair chance to get in the log. Remember the previous DXpeds of the FSDXA: D68C, 3B7C, 3B9C.... the OPs are PROs and the equipment is top noth. The events major sponsor is Yaesu. We will have 16 FT5000 and the same number of VL-1000 amp.
100 days to go, countdown started....

Lighthouse QSL

The last few years I made several short trips to the french coast. Most of the time I managed to combine these family trips with some hamradio activity.  The result is over 1000 QSOs from 5 different lighthouses. In attach the design of the QSL card. All credits go to my girlfriend Kelly

LOTW

Applying for LOTW was on the TO DO list since a long time. Two weeks ago the needed certificates were downloaded and a letter with my info was sended by post to the ARRL office. A few days later an email with the credintials arrived. I was a little scared after reading the reviews on eham.net, but everyting went very smoothly. Over 6000 QSOs were uploaded and more then 2000 are confirmed via LOTW. In the blink of an eye I achieved my DXCC century award on CW & SSB.

Tip : to merge my daily log (logger32) with my contest logs (N1MM) I used this application of DF3CB.

Frank

LH activation

Last week I was enjoying a family holiday in Normandie. The last few years we travel by camper so there is always an opportunity to activate an island or lighthouse. Last week between several museum visits, there was time to activate 2 lighthouses. LH FRA-080 in Cap Levy and LH FRA-220 in Cap D'antifier.
As antenne I used again the trusted combo : 13m fishing rod and the CG-3000 tuner with 6 radials. Logged about 500 stations. Many W, VE, JA and even 1 ZL.
More pics: click here

LH FRA-220

Good antenne support for the fishing rod

LH FRA-080, Cap Levy

Optibeam antenna installation

Last weekend ON7DR asked my help to do some major antenneworks. The goal was to install the optibeam OB1-80 and fresh assembled OB16-5 on the 24m tower.
Weather forecast looked very good and we had sunny weather and the wind wasn't blowing to hard. Because a picture is worth a 1000 words, I'll post some pictures of the antennes and actual installation. Just want to add that the antennes were pulled up with an electric winch, 2 man guided the antenna with ropes.



Thanks to Luc, ON4CIS for the pictures and his help.

More pictures are available on my flickr account.

Frank, ON7RU

A fresh pile of QSL cards

The last few weeks were pretty busy so there wasn't much time to operate the radio. 4A4A almost slipped through my fingers but I was lucky to work them on 15m CW. An all time new one for me. While the SFI dropped faster then the NYSE, bandconditions are still very good. Even saw some 10M FM spots on the cluster.
As the lowband season is almost finished I took down the lowband antenna while enjoying the first spring sun.
Hope to come up with a better 80m solution next year. Ideas are welcome, please include a way to convince the girlfriend in the drawings ;-)

Also want to share a few QSL cards

Having good ears helps....W8QZA (Maine) was heard on the beverage with his K2 and 5W

Karl, ON5TN @ Princess Elisabeth station on Antartica. Worked Karl on 40m CW

I was one of the last guys who made it into the log. Keywords :bad weather, broken bones and even a crashed car. Thanks for the QSL guys!