Pictures

Events

Kochelsberg 2002

This is held annually at the QTH of the DK0PX contest group in JN48JC. A large number of well known microwave operators meet together, I took the opportunity to photograph a few people. I met Nino DL3IAS there also, but forgot to photograph him.

On the left is a conversation between Arnold HB9AMH (left) and Rudi OE5VRL (right). I do not know the identity of the person in the middle. On the right is Phillip DL2AM showing off a selection of his microwave amplifiers.

Ham Radio 2002

This is the biggest amateur radio meeting in Europe. It is not too far from my QTH so going is not a problem, in fact the journey is very beautiful and only takes 90 minutes. I remember it mostly for buying a 10W amplifier for 3cms from DB6NT, see later.

These pictures were taken by the DB6NT stand at lunchtime. In the left photograph are (from left to right), Chris DL3MBG, Rico DF2CK and Heino DJ6JJ. Rico was my ODX on 3cms at the time and I got my QSL card personally from him. In the picture on the right are the holders of the 3cms region 1 RS record. Left is Lorenz DL6NCI and right is Andrea IW4CJM. Between them in the background is Michael DB6NT manning his stand.

Friends

Juergen DG1KJG

Shack left and antennas right. The antennas are, from left to right, top 9ele Yagi for 2m, next 4 x 27ele Yagis for 70cms, the Smiley 1.4m Dish is for 13/9/6cms, right top is a 4ele Yagi for 6m and 4 x 43ele Yagi for 23cms, On the right is the1m Dish for 3cms, a vertical for local fm, 10GHz ATV RX antenna.

Heino DJ6JJ

QTH and Antennas.

Nino DL3IAS

Views of Nino's shack, note the "Armstrong" rotator system on the left. There is an an Icom HF radio driving an LT2S for 2m, and an Icom IC-202 for driving the microwave transverters and an Icom IC-402 for 70cms.

A closer look at the amplifiers and transverters. At the extreme left is an LT2S 10m to 2m transverter, the large box is the 100W 23cms amplifier, the box to the left on top of the large box is the 23cms transverter, and the box on the right holds the 13cms, 9cms and 6cms transverters.

General view of the antennas. An original 16 element Tonna yagi is at the top of the mast, brings back memories ! Using the 16 element Tonna and JT44 on his laptop, Nino has heard some EME signals.

A closer look at the antennas. As well as the 2m 16 ele Tonna, he has 2 x 12 element yagis for 70cms, a 60 element Wimo (DL6WU design) yagi for 23cms, a 1m dish for 13, 9 and 6 cms, and a 48cms dish for 3cms. The box near the dishes holds the 3cms transverter.

A close-up view of the 3cms dish, the dish for the lower microwave bands is behind 3cms.

Reinhard OE8MI

With his 90cms dish.

HB9DRD QTH in Pfaffhausen, JN47HI, April 2001 - April 2003

These two pictures give an idea of my QTH at Pfaffhausen. It was 635m ASL and is clear to the North, but not to the East to West through South. These pictures give an idea of what I could see. Because I could have no outside antennas, my antennas must point through windows, these views are taken from the two windows.

This was my best direction, this picture is looking NNW from my shack window. On a clear day I could see the Black Forest in Germany. The azimuth range from this window was 330 to 20. The picture on the right is the view of the shack window which is the window above the entrance to the flats, approximately in the middle of the upper level.

This was the view from the spare bedroom. This was one of my main directions for Rain Scatter and covered the azimuth range from 0 to 55, this is when the house on the right gets in the way. Before it was built I could see a further 15 degrees to my East, but the loss was not too great. The direction to Lorenz DL6NCI/P in JO50VA via tropo is through the branches on the right hand side of the tree. The window is the leftmost window in the upper level which can be seen in the picture on the right.

This is an aerial view of this QTH from Google maps. Although it isn't obvious, the land was higher to the south and lower to the north. My azimuthal range was limited by other buildings, but was not really a problem most of the time. The location of my AO-40 system was on the south-east side of the building.

HB9DRD Contest QTH

Most of the contests that I operated in in Switzerland were from Mt. Säntis in eastern Switzerland in JN47QG/JN47QF. Here is a picture of the QTH complete with an indication of where we operated from. It is in the Kanton of Appenzell Inner-Rhoden.

G4KLX Contest and Portable QTH

In the UK my favourite QTH for portable work is Alport Heights in IO94FB44 at 314m ASL, also the home of the GB3DY 70cms voice repeater on RB10. I did my first microwave opration in the UK at the end of May 2003, while I was setting up Alan G2HIO took this picture of me and my equipment. The dish fell over in the wind a short while later, the logs from this operation can be found on my logs page.

Because of the problem with the dish falling over, I changed my tripod to something heavier and also with a very accurate azimuth scale on it. This new tripod was bought from Paul G8AFC and weighs a lot, with its legs attached it is more than I can carry. The centre core is the heavist part and thankfully can be removed from its legs, I intend to use it as the base for my 23cms EME experiements later, its that good. These pictures were taken by Matt G7OBR, his dish can be seen in the background.

Unfortunately later in the day the dish fell over in the wind again. With the old tripod I probably wouldn't have even started operating that day, up until it fell over the new tripod had withstood the wind without even a slight movement but then it went over. My 90cms dish was heavily bent, and mt gray box used to hold cables and things was damaged by the impact, the effect on the transverter is unknown. I have decided to move down to a smaller dish, probably 60cms, and in future I will guy the tripod down for safety.

HB9DRD MkII Antenna System (June 2000 - June 2002)

This was an excellent antenna system, but suffered from pointing accuracy problems caused by the mast rather than the dish itself. I decided to replace it in Summer 2002 after the old one has been in use for two years. The dish is now permanently in use for the AO-40 downlink on 2.4GHz.

Complete 6/3cms system (September 2000).

HB9DRD adjusting the 3cms feed (September 2000).

Dual-Band feed in use (Summer 2001).

HB9DRD MKIII Antenna System (June 2002 to Present)

This was built up in the Summer of 2002 and represents a considerable improvement over the previous system. The dish is now 90cms giving me approximately 3dB more gain than the previous system, also the reduction in cable lengths and connectors is probably worth a dB or more also. At the same time as the new antenna becoming operational, I bought a 10W amplifier for 3cms, 6dB more transmit power. Work it out for yourself !

A view of the new system in operation, this tripod and head are from Manfrotto (via eBay.de), the dish is from Philips. This picture was taken in the time between me building the new system and buying the amplifier, no QSOs were made on this system.

Close-up view of the transverter, the fins are for the 10W amplifier and get quite warm on extended transmit periods.

Close-up of the dish feed and part of the dish mounting. The dish feed is for 6cms and 3cms and was bought from Hans DD7MH it is from an idea by Karl DJ9HO (SK).

HB9DRD 6/3cms Transverter

Setting up the 6cms transverter (October 1999).

Side view of the dual-band transverter (Summer 2000).

The complete transverter laid out (Summer 2000). Since this picture was taken some changes have taken place, the relays have been replaced by sequencing units (SEQ2 and SEQ3 from DB6NT) (Summer 2001) and the 3cms PA has been replaced by a 10W unit (July 2002).

Last modified on 30.06.2005