News
17.12.2008: Sorry for this late update. Im very busy with the new job since I left school again in June. I had not much time to work all my usual contest´s. I couldnt be active all the time in WAG, but some hours to check the station was a MUST. CQWW was the best in the past weeks. I had one holiday at monday so I could spent all the weekend for the contest. Conditions were bad compared to last year but everybody gots to deal with it. So the bands were very crowded and QRM level was extremly high, sorry for those I could copy. Couldnt beat my own claimed score from last year but was very close. Highlight was the great 40m activity, never worked so many asia on 40m. I worked 53% of my QSOs to the US, great activity. And finally was called by VK9 on 40m to bring me another bandpoint for DXCC, I tried it many times from my homestation but could only get 40m cw and the other bands, could break the pileups in ssb. Anyway great contest despite the poor condx and anothe bad behavior, frequency stealing seems to be pretty attractive. I hope condx will increase in the next months again to get the upper bands working again.
I worked some hours LZ DX contest as 20m single band. Great little contest, with a clean 20m band compared to cqww ssb hehe.
I could work CQWW CW part because I got sick some days before. The hole station was ready, I build a 160m ant and could use it for the CW part.
I worked 6 US stations in ARRL 160m contest. 2 of them with the 80m antenna and around 20W output. Then I recogniced why my 160m antenna had a fault and repaired it to do some 4 more QSOs with the right antenna. To bad it was to late for some more QSOs, signals were very strong.
01.10.2008: I was about 23 hours active in CQWW RTTY contest. It was my first RTTY contest and I had lots of fun working with Walters nice station. See the pictures at page 12. It was great to work with the 2 element quad on 40m and at sunday afternoon into the states on 20m. I hope conditions will increase for the ssb part so that life is not only on 20m during daytime. I think RTTY is a nice mode, like cw for small bandwith, there was always place to call some cq after looking for multipliers. Not like in ssb, but anyway ssb is my favorite mode and Im looking forward to the end of october. Hope to see you on the bands again de DJ8OG
23.08.2008: Good news arrived. Ich could win CQWW-SSB in SO-AB-HP in Germany. During the last weeks we try to put the antennas up at DJ6QT Station so Walter and I can operate some nice Contest from this super station. We´re almost ready with the big quad, in the moment we have to set up some low band antennas for 160m and 80m. I hope everything will be ok for the upcoming CQWW season. Hope to hear you during the next contest from my or Walters station. I plan to operate some time WAE, CQWW RTTY and WAG, and hopefully operate the hole CQWW-SSB again at DJ6QT station. Hpe cu soon. Vy73 de Matt, DJ8OG
03.06.2008: I was very busy during the last few Months so there was not much activity from my side. Now I have a little bit more sparetime. I could manage some QSO to KP4 on 6m and one to SV9 on 2m. This was a very good sporadic opening on 6m and 2m. Next weekend I will participate in the local Hessencontest with the Call DL0HRS and S-DOK HT08. I will Share my station with Gabi, DL6ZBW. She operates 2m while I do 70cm and HF. We hope we can get lot of contacts during the weekend. Cu on the air ...
05.04.2008: I added two pictures to my website.
Last weekend I did together with DJ6QT, CQ WPX SSB contest. We decided to go Multi Single with only one radio setup and one complete tower setup. Thru the storm Emma, some weeks ago, we lost the big one again. We will fix that in the next few weeks. We had a good result after 48h without DX-Cluster or Multiplier station. The condx were very bad and the QRM was extremly high. Sorry if you called us and we couldnt hear you. I hope we will do a QSO the next time. After 48h we had two stations on all 6 Bands. DB7TF, our clubmate who was SO-AB-LP and about 50km south of us and AO8A, they really had a great signal on all bands. Hope to see you all next contest.
03.02.2008: Today was 2m DARC Winterfieldday. I decided very late that I will participate from the contest QTH. At 11:05 UTC, 5 Minutes after the beginning of the contest I was ready to call CQ. The contest was very good and I could manage a QSO to Italy. About 701km with 15W and 4x 6 Elements, not bad. It was a really nice contest. WX was fine and I had lots of fun on 2m. Hope to see you during one of the next contest or just for a QSO. Vy73 de Matt
22.12.2007: I added two new pictures to my site. I hope you like these winter pictures. Merry xmas and a happy new year 2008, hope to hear you all soon again, good bye Matt, DJ8OG
21.11.2007: Now Im ready with the soundfiles of CQWW. I already checked my log and submitted it to CQ. Today I published some QSOs on this site. 4 QSO on each band, I hope you like it. I have also recorded the hole contest. In the past days I changed the wav files to mp3. If you would like to have your QSO please drop me an email.
13.11.2007: NEW QSL CARDS ARRIVED TODAY. I will answer all received direct QSL cards in the next few days, sorry for the long delay, but Im out of QSLs since July.
05.11.2007: WAG and CQWW-SSB contest are over. It was real fun to work those contest this year again at DJ6QT station. WAG ist qieter than CQWW. Its easier to find a CQ QRG in this contest but CQWW is more fun because of the high QSO rates during the hole contest. I started unassisted this year. I could beat my "assisted" score from last year because I managed more than 800 QSOs compared to last year but with less multis. Anyway ... it was fun to run the 40m quad at 45m height and if I heard a multiplier on 40m or 80m it was very easy to work it with the big antennas, eg. HC8N on 80m with just 2 calls thru the eu Pile Up or JA3YBK at 12:43 on 40m. There were more nice QSOs like this were you forgot the pain from beeing awake all night long, hi. Im sorry if I couldnt hear you due the incredible high QRM over the hole CQWW weekend. I copied the hole contest so if you are interested in your audio please drop me an email with the QSO date and I will try you mail you our QSO, (please be patient because I will sample the file in mp3 and due work it can take a few days). Thanks to all who called me during these two weekends. Hope to hear you in future contest again. Vy73 de Matt - DJ8OG
25.10.2007: Last weekend was WAG contest. I used the station from DJ6QT. We just got ready with all the antenna work. WAG was very good this year. I forgot my cw interface and could not do any CW during this mixed mode contest. QSO count was very good this year but Im missing the CW mults. Anyway was great to work the contest again with great condx to us and JA.
This weekend is CQWW Contest. I will be again at Walters station. This year I will try to be active as SOAB-HP. Hopefully the condx will be as good as they were last year. Anyway ... hope to hear you guys on the air. Vy 73 es gd dx ... de Matt
19.09.2007: I found some new contest result and published them with this update. Since a few days the 3B7C crew is on air. They produce very good signals here. Only 10m the were not heard yet. Also I couldnt break the pile up on 160m but on all the other bands I could reach them in CW and SSB (except 12m ssb).
28.08.2007: The Results of the DARC Hessencontest are out. I could win all categories I entered. HF, 2m and 70cm in mixed mode. I was very surprised when I saw the results :-)
Today I was working on my 160m antenna. I made it longer because the antenna was to short. I could work with it but after adding more radials to the antenna the SWR went more up then I saw.
Last week I built and installed a new 80m switching dipole. Now I can switch between SSB and CW in the 80m Band within seconds.
13.07.2007: This weekend is IARU hf championship. Last year I was 10th worldwide in Single Op All Band SSB high Power, this year we will enter in Multi Op together with DJ6QT. But this year we dont have the big antennas like last year because we had no time to repair the damage due Kyrill in January. We will use a 2 element quad for 10 to 20m and Dipoles for 40m - to 160m. I hope to have a pleasant weekend with some nice runs and good condx. Just 4 fun...
13.07.2007: Last weekend was DARC VHF Contest. I was at DR2X for this Contest. We had beautiful weather during the hole weekend.
25.06.2007: After I finished my work for school I decided to go a little bit on air. My tower is down at the moment but I tried to find something on 10m, maybe some Es to south europe??? My transceiver was set to 50mhz and I checked the Cluster. I saw some US guys working into europe. Damn my antenna is down and about 15m west of my tower is the house and the 6m antenna cant see over the house. Anyway I tried to receive some US stations. First I heard VE1YX (1st VE on 6m), then K1WHS (1st US on 6m) and some other US stations. The pile ups were very big and it took a little while to break the pile ups. After 25 minutes I had 2 new DXCCs on 6m. 2 US Stations in SSB and one in CW, and my first VE in SSB. I hope to get another chance when my tower is up.
03.06.2007: Today was the anual DARC Hessencontest on hf and yesterday on vhf and up. I decided to go again portabel on vhf and uhf to our contest QTH in JO40QL. So I packed my stuff and drove up there. I built the 70cm antenna on the field and the hole station in the trunk. I sat behind my car in directly under the installed 2m antenna systen (4x 6 elements). 2m started not with a good activity. That changed after a coupple of minutes and I could log lots of local stations which is good for the multiplier. Suddenly I heard an IT9´er local QSO on my QRG. WOW sporadic E YES, I got a couple of QSOs over 1400km. That really pushed the score. The opening went over and I called again for CQ CONTEST. Some minutes before the contest was over on 2m I was called by a YO3 station, 2nd opening. I managed 3 contacts to south east before going to 70cm. 70cm was also good. It was slower than 2m but my equipment compared to 2m was very little. Only 50W and one Antenne, on 2m it was 160W and 4x 6 elements. I ended up a little bit better than last year. Then packed my stuff and drove back home. The next morning was Hessencontest on hf. CONDS were not very good, but I could test my repaired FT-1000MP. I have more Mults than last year but around 100 QSOs less. 40m skip was to far for DL. It is always great to be active in this contest and change our Hessen DOK F62. This weekend was great and now I have to wait and see how the others did.... 73sss de Matt
23.05.2007: Today I had some time. I set up the tower to its height and tuned into 6m. I managed some QSOs to south Italy and Malta when I saw UK9AA in CW. I tuned to the QRG and found a loud signal on the frequency. But also a heavy pile up from all over EU, I eard YO, UR and I stations calling him. I was lucky after only 5 minutes I heard DJ8MG only a mstake in my call and I corrected it in the next over. Yeeeesss a new one om 6m with about 4600km. During the next weekend I will be a little bit on 160m during the WPX contest. I dont have much time and will play SOSB160mLP during the first night. CU on 160m ...
09.05.2007: With the last update I fixed the missing contests which I missed to publish. Last weekend I was during DARC VHF and up contest with the group of DR2X north of Frankfurt. WX was pretty cool and we had lots of fun on the hill. I set up a small 70cm station to make some QSOs during my shift on 2m, and I shared the station with Nino, DL3IAS. We made some nice contacts on 70cm.
I could also make some nice 6m contacts during the last week., EA8, EA6 and EA5 was readable with good sigs here in JO40
01.05.2007: 2 days ago I ha some time in the evening and 10m was wide open to south america. I could work alot of PY, LU and CX stations. Also a G, I and a south DL via backscatter, we couldnt hear us with antennas pointing to us. Yesterday moring 10m was agin open via sporadic e lots of east europeans were logged and from time to time I checked 6m for Es. I got a SV/8 station for the second Es contact this year and the first in this season. Im looking forward to see 6m open in the next few months. Hope to see you on this great band.
14.04.2007: Today I was on a hill north of Frankfurt about 550m asl (my QTH is only 185m als). I used 2m antennas from our conteststation DR2X. 4x 6 element. I operated about 5 hours on 2m. The condx were not very good and there was not really a good activity but I made some very nice contacts to F, HB9, OK and of course DL. 2 days ago I could manage a QSO with N8S on 20m in SSB and yesterday I got it on 20m CW, all other bands were impossible for me because the sigs were very low. It was a hard fight I tried 3 days without success but then I had a little bit luck and came thru.
04.04.2007: Today I received the final scores from WPX CW contest last year. Im 8th out of 42 in single Op all band assisted low power. In Germany Im 2nd in this catergory.
Early this morning I had a sked with GW8ASA in WSJT. We did the MS QSO in about 20 minutes. Im testing my rig because I want to be active in the next ms shower peaking 22.April. I hope I can do some nice QSOs during the shower.
26.03.2007: CQ WPX SSB contest is over. I had not much time during this weekend and so it was only a part time operation. I could beat my own set goal of 500 QSOs. This time I started in hp class, I dont care about the endscore and just wanted to have some fun. Usualy I dont enter the high poer class because my amplifier is only from 0m to 10m and the power is only 400W so it cant compete with high power stations. Anyway it was lots of fun, meeting friends and being called by some nice dx stations. Also I had some great DX QSOs on 80m, D44AC, some stateside QSOs, and on 160m with only 100W I could work CN2R very easy. Thanks for all who heard my sig, I hope to hear you all in 2 months again. Bye for now ...
18.03.2007: This weekend was the Russian DX Contest. I was active as SO-AB-SSB-LP like last year and wanted to improve my score from last year. Condx were not so good at the beginning, 15m was not open and only sometimes were some very small sigs there. So I started on 20m. The band was very crowded and it was almost impossible to keep a QRG clean with only 100W. So S&P was the answer. During the evening I could compensate the lost QSOs from the beginning. Lowbands were quite good but no US heard on 40m, 80m, and 160m also no VK and ZL there. But that was my own fault because I decided to take a little break at 4 o clock but I didnt heard my alarm clock and slept about 5 hours. When I came back 15m was open and I could work lots of new mults. The best was H44MS which is a new one for me. He heard my 100W with my first call very nice. The last hour was really good I found a good QRG on 20m and could keep it up to the end of the contest. UA and europens were coming back to my cq calls and I could break the 800Qs before the contest ends. It was a great contest and my 2 entry, Im looking forward to the next one. Very nice to meet lots of friends from all over the world. Next weekend is WPX contest but Im not sure if I will be there all weekend but some QSOs are sure. Hartwig (DL7BC) will be active from TA2 I hope to hear him on many bands. CU on air ...-.-
11.03.2007: Its 0:16 utc on sunday morning. I just came inside the house. I was in my shack and tried some MS with FSK441 on 2m. In the afternoon I could do my first QSOs after 3 and a half years with I8KPV in JN70KO and some hours later I met with OH6ZZ in KP12BO and SM5CUI in JO89WW for a MS QSO on 2m. So the new start was successfull with 3 complete QSOs in one day. I had to cancel a QSO to Russia because of bad reflections but we will do that someday again and will complete then. Its funny listening to those reflections. It really sounds funny. Never heard it? Try to listen carefully on 144.370 in USB and you will hear that sound. When all things are OK I will try to record such a sound and put it on the website. I hope I will do much more QSOs in the future in this mode. I did 4 MS FSK441 QSOs in August 2003 but then sold my 2m rig and concentrated on hf. Since last april my vhf rig is reinstalled and since January I have a soundcardinterface to connect my computer to my transceiver and here we go again. Setup is very simple. I use my FT-847 with about 100W to a 8 element, DK7ZB yagi with a preamp at the tower. I have a homebrew interface and a laptop with 2,4GHz, 512MB RAM and the software is from K1JT in the latest version 5.9.6. I have to do the PTT controll by myself because I couldnt find the command to switch ptt via CAT. Its not bad so you still have to work on the QSO hihi.Well thats all for now Im looking forward to the next ms shower in april. Hope to catch lots of calls in the next few weeks.
10.03.2007: I checked all VHF and UHF squares which I worked before chrismas and during the last vhf and uhf contest and updated my vhf site again. I hope I can add some new squares in ms during the next weeks. Hope to hear you in this WSJT :-)
09.03.2007: This morning I could work a new DXCC for me. R1FJT on 17m is a new one for my, I got him after some minutes in a little pile up. A few minutes after this QSO I heard and worked JW/IN3SAU with a very heavy auroral sound on 20m. Since today in the afternoon Im active in meteorscatter again. I tried to get a QSO on 2m but no chance today but I heard some germans calling and I know now my station ist runnning ok and I can be active in the next few weeks.
07.03.2007: Last weekend I was active in the DARC VHF and up contest. I was QRV von 2m and 70cm. I could work some nice DX stations and met lots of friends. My station was a FT-847 about 100W and a 8 Element (DK7ZB) about 14m up with a preamp.
28.02.2007: Last weekend was the first DARC VHF and up contest. I had some time and was active on 2m and 70cm. I heard some stations from our local club. My first QSO was a italien station in JN65, well everything seems to be ok. I was not on al the time but I could collect some nice dx QSOs. My odx on 2m was I5PVY/6 in JN63GN (787km) and on 70cm my odx was SK7MW with 643km. I have to improve my 70cm station a little bit. A small amplifier with abt 200W abd a preamp would be nice. Next time I would use 2x 19 element antennas on 70cm to have a little bit more gain. Hope to see you in a few weeks in russian dx contest on hf, I will be single Op all band low power ssb. Cu in a few weeks, bye Matt, DJ8OG
28.02.2007: Last weekend I was active in CQ160m ssb contest. This was my first entry in this coontest. I had to fix some problems with the beverage antennas before the contest and then I could start at 0:00 utc. Band was very crowded and it was hard to keep the frequency clean and running. In the first night I tried to work some US at sunrise but condx were not so good, they were much better at sunday morning. I worked about 24 hours in the contest. I wanted to beat last years 1 place in DL and after the contest I was about 60000 points ahead. I head lots of fun during the contest on 160m, sometimes it was boring to call long time cq, anyway ... . Im sorry for those I couldnt copy due QRM. This weekend is a VHF contest and I will be active with the group of DR2X, hope to hear you on 144mhz.
14.02.2007: I just finished my QSL work and I checked contest efforts with my mainlog. In CQ160m cw contest I found 3 new DXCCs on 160m. I also updated my online logbook which now covers more than 30000 QSOs in my DJ8OG call. This database are also my 2 former vhf calls included, DO4FMK (1502 QSOs) and DM3FM (719 QSOs), since I have a full German licence I made 27883 QSOs between 160m and 70cm with my call DJ8OG since august 2002.
14.02.2007: Some days ago I saw the results of the IARU region I contest 2006. YEEESSS, Im 10th worldwide and first in Germany. Compared to 2005 (9th place worldwide) its not so good but I could end up with about 200000points more this time. Next context activity will be the CQ160m SSB contest in february. I will use the station at DJ6QT, we just fixed the beverage switch and checked the beverages and the tx antennas, all is in good condition and I cant wait to try my best in my first 160m ssb contest. I hope I will do a good job because low bands are not my best bands yet, but I hope I can improve my skills there. I hope to see you on 160m ... de DJ8OG
04.02.2007: CQ160m contest is over and I changed my antenna setup back again. The big inverted L is down and my normal 160m antenna is up. The big L is to tall and I cant rotate my beams when its on the tower. I worked very well during the contest and I could work a new ODX into the states. K9DX in Illinois is my first US state which is not directly on the east coast. The contest was runnning very well and I could beat my own score after 10 hours in the test but then people told me about my bad signal and I could find out what it was so I went QRT after only 12,5hours on air. It was only a plug from my new soundcard interface which caused the bad sig, when its out everything is fine, but I solved that problem after the contest, there would be more possible without that problem. Anyway it was fun working some nice DX stations on the band like ST, K9, UA9 ... almost same result like last year. I will be on in the ssb part for the first time. I could not manage it in the last two years but this year this date is free for the contest. Hope the see you all there, greetings Matt, DJ8OG
26.01.2007: I finished my antenna work at 16:30 right before sundown. I changed my small inverted L to a bigger one. Therefore I installed another 10m mast on my tower and now I have about 24m vertical and 16m horizontal down to the house. Its the same antenna like last year. This year I have to use my small transceiver Yaesu FT-847 because my FT-1000 still is out of order. I made the first test QSO and broke an little pile up to greece J46J at 16:28 utc. I hope to beat my own score from last year, with 103078 points and 370 QSOs. We will see, 73 for now and maybe see you later in the contest, gl es gd dx
14.01.2007: We had heavy winds today and they are still on out there. They were about 65Mph and made some trouble at my antennas. My FB-33 is looking in another direction like my other beams. I can solve this problem very easy in the next few days when the wind will be over. It should last til sunday but it will be weaker tomorow. My other problem ist my GP for 40m and 30m. It broke at the bottom and crashed on a metalbox near by. I have to fixe the upper end from the antenna and the mount at the bottom. I will publish two videos from the winds during this afternoon in my picture galery. Vy73 de Matt
14.01.2007: The first contest is over. Today I was active in 10m DARC contest. Yesterday I built a GP and put it on the tower to have a vertical antenne. I wanted to beat my score from 2003 and I did it. 2nd goal was to come into the first 50 in low power we will see if that was enough. I tooked the GP down after the contest. The first few expeditions are on in this year, 1A, XT and S21 are logged on several band and brought some new ones to me. 252 worked DXCCs are now in my log, but the confirmation is far behind :-)
I was skiing in Austria and I was 2 days active with a little handheld 2m Rig from a mountain about 1843m above sea level. It was fun talking thru echolink with guys at home while sitting in the snow.
16.12.2006: I just spotted some contest results today. I found RDXC, WAE/CW, 2m and 70cm IARU results on the internet. In Russian DX contest I did first in Germany low power ssb only and this was my first entry in RDXC. Im looking forward to the next RDXC because of better antennas now it will be more fun to work on the low bands during the night.
07.12.2006: I just checked CQWW-SSB and found 2 new DXCC and lots of bandpoints. I worked 17 on 10m, 15 on 15m, 7 on 20m, 6 on 40m, 12 on 80m and 3 on 160m new DXCCs on the bands. I broke the 100DXCCs on 80m, now I have 5 Bands which are over 100DXCCs
Today I got my 250th DXCC. VU7LD/VU2PAI was calling simplex on 20m and it was so easy without pile up. Before I tried 2x about half a hour to catch them on 15m without luck. I was just tuning to a spottet frequency when I heard him calling, very fine, he came back in german language.
27.11.2006: Today I finished my antenna projects. I installed a rotary dipole for 12m and 17m on the boom of my FB-33. No Im ready for all bands from 160m up to 70cm. It was a nice and sunny warm day, now everything should be done outside and the cold season can start. Only my 80m dipole must be switched over to ssb again, but thats no big deal. I uploaded a new picture from today with my hole antenna setup.
Last weekend I was a little bit on air during cqww-cw. My plan was to operate as much as I can with my new repaired FT-1000 and cw filter but its still in maintainence and I had to play with my FT-847 without cw filter. So Walter, DJ6QT, gave me some nf filter which were very helpful. I had not much time during saturday and sunday at daylight. So I tried my new 160m antenna and spent lots of time on 40m to 160m. With 100W I managed some 650 Qs with a total of about 373k points. It was mostly fun, and sometimes very easy to break pileups even with 100W but sometimes it was impossible to come thru even when the station was way above S9. Anyway great fun, hope to hear you soon, Matt.
18.11.2006: At monday Walter and I were at the meeting with K1LZ and K3LP in F27 clubroom for a picture show about VU4, KP5 and 6Y1V. After those nice pics we went for dinner and had a very pleasant evening.
Friday I could work 5A7A on 15m in SSB after repairing my amp. Couldnt break the pile up with 100W. In the evening I was at the F-04 meeting and after that I tried to work 5A on the low bands. Tried several times 160m but with 100W its hard to do. Anyway, amp is ok down to 80m so go for it. Managed 80m CW and SSB and 40m SSB and what a surprise, just before closing the station 2nd call on 160m CW and here we go. I was so lucky, my new antenna works. Anyway an amp for this band would be great ... someday ... . We will repair DJ6QTs antennas in some hours and tune them down for cw, hopefully without rain :-)
11.11.2006: I just checked the WAG contest I found 1 new DXCC, new bandpoints are: 2 on 10m, 15m and 20m and 80m and 3 on 40m. Im still checking the QSOs which I recorded during cqww so I can give a clean log to the the contest manager. There are still 1800 QSOs to hear...
09.11.2006: Today Im starting my english news site. I startet the german news site in April 2006. I will puplish from time to time news, contest reports and information about my activity on this site.