News

My ADS-B eqipments has been up and running for 3 years. Recently, I recognized some stability issues. For unknown reasons, the Raspberry Pi got frozen and only waked up after power off and power on again. Because the setup was based on Opensky SD card image and later on extended to much more functionality, I suffered also the problem of limited update and upgrade capability, possibly caused by this special image of the operating systems.

So, I decided to start from the scratch again with a new Raspberry Pi 4B, most recent original Raspberry Pi image (Debian Bookworm) and new installation of Airpsy-ADSB, readsb, tar1090, and feeders for Flightaware/Piaware, Opensky, Flighradar24, modesmixer 2 used to feed  OV3T’s ADS-B server for Airscout use.

The new setup really for the right step. The equipment is stable again and because I also took some time to optimize the parameter setting in Airspy-ADSB, I now get about 10% more airplanes and about 20% more positions received per day, see https://www.flightaware.com/adsb/stats/user/dl2akt#stats-181240

 

Thanks to some new German DOK worked during recent IARU-VHF-CW Contest I was granted the DLD 1000 VHF Award.

Very good tropo conds have been continueing since October 30th resulting in some good DX on both bands. The maps contain my 70cm contacts and 2m contacts respectively. The 2m map includes CW contest QSO. All other contacts are FT8.

432 MHz:

144 MHz:

The IARU-144MHz-CW contest is one of the view contests I am participating every year as single operator from my home QTH in JO50NV. I enjoyed better than usual tropo conds, especially on Sunday with some good DX to UK. Also, 220 QSO’s are much better than usual.

Nice ConDX today with a lot of contacts >1000km. I am looking forward to some good conds during Marconi 144 MHz CW contest.

Today, I tested ADS-B RX at Schneekopf mountain in JO50JP 978m a.s.l. No wonder the number of airplanes received almost doubled and the maximum distance increased by about 20% compared to my home in JO50NV with 413m a.s.l.

There are some good tropo condx today. Even with 100m higher hill in 1km distance in direction NO, I worked OH4LA in KP20LG, 1354km. Unfortunately, not all stations reported in PSKreporter were active.

Constraint by limited time, I participated just about 5 hours on Saturday. ConDX were just normal. I just worked 101 stations, 319km avarage distance resulting in 32.214 points from 45 grid squares and 14 DXCC. ODX 823km QSO with IQ5NN.

Thanks to DL2ALF’s Airscout software VHF/UHF/µWave amateurs can do much more DX using airplane scatter. After almost all commercial ASB-B date providers blocked free access to their data, the amateur radio community have their own ADS-B receivers and can share data, e.g. using OV3T’s server. I have been running ADS-B RX equipment for two years now and made several improvements and uprades. RTL-USB SDR stick replaced by Airspy SDR. 0.6 m (6.5 dBi)  antenna replaced by 1.2 m (8.5 dBi)  antenna some months ago and most recently I replaced a Chinese low cost LNA+Filer by Nooelec SAWbird+ ADS-B LNA+filter. This is a quite expensive device but worth it from my point of view. It improved the peak average range by ~10km (>405 km) and the number of airplanes and positions tracked per day by ~10%. You can check for more detailed RX performance at https://flightaware.com/adsb/stats/user/dl2akt

I missed the great Aurora opening in March and also the Es openings for various reasons. Even on 24th June I was still travelling when I received the first messages of Es opening on my smart phone. I thought that I would miss this one as well. Fortunately, I was still ongoing after I arrived at home.

So, I could still enjoy some good DX with CT and EA but also my second best ODX 3054 km on 144 MHz with CT9/OM3RG on Madeira island in IM12JU.

I had the big pleasure to participate the last big multiband contest of the season with the DK0NA contest team in JO50TI. The results look good and we hope for good ranks in the final results.

Just returned from some vacation, I was surprised today by good 2m tropo conditions in SW directions with ODX > 1,500 km.

The good tropo ConDX continued thanks to the stable high pressure system covering large area in Europe. Even, the take off from my location is rather poor from north to east, I enjoyed QSO’s to LA (ODX LA9AKA in JP20mm, 1136km) as well as YL.

As usual, the best tropo conds are after the contest. The conditions during the IARU VHF contest were not bad at all but on Monday after the contest, the conditions were much better. Unfortunately, outside of contests, SSB is not used much anymore and all the activity is on FT8. For sure it makes sense since the more DX is possible in FT8.

I logged >20 UK stations, many QSO’s >800km and a few >1000km, all on 2m.

IARU VHF Contest is the top 2m contest event of the year. While all other contests are multi band events, this one is 2m only. Hence, the teams can focus on just one band resulting in much bigger equipment and results on 2m compared to multi band contests. In 2023, DL0GTH operators joined DK0NA team for the contest season and because there was no DL0GTH participation, we could use Schneekopf mountain in JO50JP with DK0NA/p.  We started to setup all the 4 antenna systems on Friday, unfortunately in rainy weather conditions. After 5 hours or work, we are were quite wet.

Fortunately, the weather conditions improved a lot on Saturday and Sunday, no rain anymore, raising temperatures and even more important, raising tropo conditions.

At the end, we enjoyed the best ever results from JO50JP.

Svxlink has been becoming very popular in Germany thanks to the FM-Funknetz initiative. I have been using the DJSPOT hotspot for some time. Users can configure which channels (called Talk Group) are monitored and if any communication takes place and just talk in the opened talk group. But if a want to open a specific talk group the selection via DTMF control with the handheld radio is not very handy. There is a web interface for the DJSPOT available which supports control functions such as change of talk group. And you need to visit the server dashboard if you would like to see if any other communication takes place (of talk groups not monitored by DJSPOT).

There is a great solution for all these inconvenience problems, the SVXcube, a monitor device which provides all these information and enables really easy change of talk groups. I really like this gadget. It also helped me to learn some basics of the MQTT protocol which is widely used for IoT and home automation. My specials thanks go to Jens DJ1JAY for great help via chat to get it up and running.

The DK0NA Team enjyoyed great fun during the contest. The propagation conditions were not really good but we were still happy with the good results achieved. Most of us missed the Ham Radio at Friedrichshafen two weeks ago but Michael DB6NT volunteered to travel there to collect all the DL0GTH 2022 contest trophies. The DARC championship as well as the IARU Region 1 trophies. On top the overall winner trophy.

Just one day after the good Es opening two days ago, I enjoyed a short Es opening on 15th June. The QSO with EA9ABC in IM75IV was a new DXCC on 2m for me.

There has not been so much Es at my location yet this year or I just missed most of the openings. Yesterday, I just returned home from work when I received a short message from my friend DL2ALF that Es opened to CT and EA from JO50. So, I made some nice QSO’s to EA and CT too:

The DKØNA team enjoyed sunny warm weather during last week’s contest which was dedicated to >1 GHz amateur radio bands. First time, we used 3 antenna systems on 23cm which worked very well, especially the new quados antenna created a new contest feeling on 23cm. The results were almost perfect. Based on claimed scores, the team achieved 2nd place on 10 GHz but 1st place in Europe on all other bands. Please find the claimed scores: slovhf.net/claimed/

I lookedfor some Es openings but found very good tropo condx instead:

16 QSO’s >1000km

ODX on 2m with EI3KD 1.342 km

ODX on 70cm with G7RAU 1.159 km

After 25 years of operations w/o any problem, the 144 MHz 9 element Yagi antenna had very poor SWR. Either the antenna feed system or the coax cable was defective. So, I decided to replace both, the antenna and the feed cable. The bigger problem was to rent a car with lifting platform. With the help of my brother DL3AKA, the replacement was successfully done and I returned on 2m band again. Now I hope that it will run another 25 years…

Contest operating is always fun, especially with good friends in multi operator section. We used the new 23 cm quados antenna (made by DB6NT) as 2nd antenna first time. Exciting. Sure, we were also satisfied with the results on other bands.

I received this nice award plate by mail.