G/EU Bearing for E51

Please all...
The short path to E5 from G is the same bearing as VE7(330) rather than ZL(14) or VK(60).

Hopefully some from G might manage a QSO.

The week after BERU I will have a bungalow on the west coast right on the sea so the antennas will be right at the high water mark. I should have clear horizon to the South West right around to almost East. Antenna likely to be GP but might be vertical dipoles/beams.

I will take LF antennas as well as the more usual 20m up so will put something up on 40/80 I expect a GP on 30/17/12 might get used. I don't expect to be on 160m.

If you need the DXCC you could email me (see qrz pages) and see if I can help.

Will take WSPR and QRSS beacon and these should be up and running whilst there.

E51KTA update

I can confirm dates...

E51KTA should be QRV 10th March to 19th March.

Can only promise BERU w/e on S Cook dunno exactly where I will be after
that maybe N Cook maybe not... best listen on air.

20m 40m and 80m during IOTA contest

At one point I connected up SDR-RX (SDRPlay) to an antenna and grabbed these...

The regular lines were my adding QRM :-)

Use a hex beam vertically by the sea

I have use a 20m vertical moxon before to good effect. So was interested in one option with an antenna I have..... take the Hex-beam and turn it through 90 degrees and stick it on a pole next to the sea....

Well modelling says it will work.... thanks to F5VHN

vertical Hexbeam over sea water on a pole of 4m ,  ie 4m to the boom . Higher is NOT better as it creates high lobes .  see 10m

Now to try it out.

EU-011 Site Photos

These were taken by one of the staff at the farm/campsite who had a drone were taken before everything was up... whilst the weather was nice.

The small wooden shed in middle left by itself surrounded by hedges was the 'shack'. Was bumped out of the milking parlor/ shed and field as they needed those and the shed was piled high with fodder they had just collected before wet weather came in. The 10m, 15m and 20m VDA are up in the scruffy looking patch nearer the bottom. To the right you can see the 80m vertical. After this was taken I put up a 2el 40m in the field next to it. The whole area was covered with radials and I had to add extra guys to most things. You are looking almost due west.

Sadly the empty field nearest the sea had some calves in it with very protective mum's so was off limits.

I'll put up some more photos of the setup later...

40m 4 SQ now 40m 2 el....

I went old school.... had some spare 50ohm line. Once got one 40m GP up added a second and the phased one (added length to feeder) and fed both at same time so sort of directional. I can remove the 'reflector', undo a bit of coax. Far from ideal but it is for contest, on an island with nothing but what I brought so no time now... Works was qrp with 35dB SNR into EU last night which is good enough.

The CAT5... yukk was some copper coated steel rubbish... the 60m voltage drop was so bad I junked it.

Internet as jumped on the garbage boat at 5am.... but returning now...

MK1KTA QRV in about 6 hours

On way to islands qrv in about 6 hours.

Light weight!

I cannot believe I have 360m of feeder for the antennas... and 64 sets of radials for the 80m and 40 4 sq. Who ever said QRP DXped/contesting was light weight.

E5 2017

Ok will be going, E51KTA I can confirm that now.

BERU 2017 (Middle w/e in March) w/e so that means during contest BERU ONLY I will ignore everyone else, outside will also be looking at WARC bands.




From start I will seek out qrp ops (I know the calls) and IOTA hunters looking for a new one before I qso with anyone else.

I'll confirm exact dates in time as suspect couple days before hand and the week after.

Antenna amendment & SDR

Will be

80m GP
40m 4 Square
20m GP
15m VDA
10m VDA

Dual KX3 and SDRPlay RX

And might test out a homebrew noise cancelling project on 80m, using diversity active antenna.

Hope the sacrifice of the FT817ND to the gods of propagation and land fill was enough.

I WILL have a 6m quad loop for outside the contest to activate QRA IN69/EU-011 if wanted... please let me know if you are interested. I will not have internet on the island so zero idea if anything E happens.... blame some bod on St Mary's they killed the internet signal to the island.

Antenna poles for trip

Just grabbing the poles for the trip and will sort out antennas...

The antennas should be....

80m inverted L
40m GP
20m 4 square
15m VDA or GP
10m VDA or GP

I will also have a Wifi 4G hotspot plus 35dbI antenna will probably use the remains of the 10m pole for it.

6m 2el quad (from Gavin MM1BXF) for post contest.
30m GP post contest
17m and 12m GP post contest

Missing from these are:

15m Heavy Duty
12.5 Heavy Duty
10m pole
another 10m pole
2 traveller 10m poles

The poles here are:

2 4m (actually for VDA cross members) the ones still in plastic... the other two not in photo are attached to the centres

2 4m (3.9m)
2 5m (4.9m)
2 x 6m (5.8m)
1 7m (6.8m) there is a second in M1KTA QTH (somewhere)
Remains of 10m pole last of four used as a 4 square for 20m from KH8
DX wire light (very whip) 12.5m pole

No Internet on EU-011

Hopefully this might explain why if asked I will NOT be doing uploads during the contest, and I will not see anything on email, twitter, RBN etc... so don't try and ask me to look for you or beam to heading (no yagi anyway). I expect I will make use of the 4square ability to rotate where I can hear.

There IS NO INTERNET COVERAGE on the island. I have been advised I could TRY and tape a USB dongle on a 10m pole and tie that to a TV pole and hope it is not raining and you 'might' have internet but locals have tried and failed.  The Wifi mast is the wrong side of the fort outside Hugh Town with no direct line of site. I will be about 3.5km from the WiFi mask the different mobile phone companies use.

ATNi and QRP

Before RSGB IOTA contest I will be looking to see if ATNi helps on that first day and always looking for QRP callers. I can usually tell the weak signals from the strong ones and upside down logic but I tend to work them first.

For those not in the know about ATNi, this similar to ATNO for DXCC but apply to IOTA...  and you do it as soon as QRV not on the last day. There are about 1500 IOTA and about 1400 IOTA chasers, there are about 35,000 DXCC chasers for 336 DXCC. Most IOTA island activators get many more non-IOTA chasers in the log irrespective of new DXCC or not especially if it is a needed DXCC.

For me ATNi is a concept and it means I will qso with IOTA chasers first if there are a few of you calling, the logging software should advise me (I hope) if a caller is an IOTA chaser or not. I will not have a note of which IOTA they may or may not have so I cannot stop them calling if they have the reference already but I will know if they are an IOTA HR member with over 100 confirmed IOTA. (I see there are c1400 of you out there and I can get that list of callsigns see the links here)

https://www.rsgbiota.org/info/index.php
and
http://www.g3kma.dsl.pipex.com/

Please listen for "HRAL ATNi KN". If you get HRAL as a return it was not a mistake and I didn't send 5NN it means I KNOW you may be chasing the IOTA.

Now EU-011 isn't rare, neither is the DXCC UK so I'll be testing this out to see if it works.

May sound dumb but if outside the contest if you already HAVE EU-011 please do NOT call and give others that need the IOTA reference a chance.


Please if spotted note <IOTA ref> HRAL ATNi so that others might notice it.

I've checked my AF-060 and AF-045 logs against IOTA Honor Roll and less than 20% were serious IOTA chasers.

6m maybe from St Agnes

Will be outside IOTA contest but should be able (if asked) to operate some 6m

Squares...

St Agnes covers IN69TV73, and 83, 84, 92, 93, 94 and IN69UV03, 04, 05

Should be based in IN69TV73

but can move to 83 easily, like 10 yards away...

6m from KX3 into a 2el quad.

No will not be in the pre historic bits of St Agnes

I know the Cairns of Castella, these are way off to one side of where I'll be putting up antennas which will be in a field that has been used for generations and has half a dozen 1 ton milk cows wandering and crapping all over it much of the year.

There is a pre-history field system https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1015697 but I'll not be on that bit either but I suspect walkers that go around the island will probably just wander through the downs without realising what they are until they see the Cairns.

What they might spot are:

Periglis beach where I MIGHT if time have a go at 160m during the night.

 Cove Vean bay where there is a very shallow section, where I might test a 4 square

Something known as the Giant's Punchbowl

I suspect I might post contest  just wander around to Gugh and see the sand bar 

before going to the Turks Head.

That is bishops light house in the background... I did a drift dive down about 20m passing that at about 12 knots the current is so strong (that was back in 1986!)

Where is St Agnes EU-011?

OK satellite image...

The stations antennas will be at the far left of the island in the green area just below Troytown farm in the image. The station will be in the shed next to the milking parlour of the farm. This is the furthest West in the UK of any IOTA station in the contest.

Where is this in relationship to mainland UK?

Activate EU-011 29th July - 1st August 2016

Will activate St Agnes EU-011 29th July - 1st August 2016 including during the RSGB IOTA contest.

MK1K

My call sign is M1KTA, I hold SCC M1K and
'K' prefix NoV's held for MK1KTA and MK1K