KNL01 - Day 4 – Monday 23 October 2017

The last day night propagation was quite different from the previous ones. Propagation peak concentrate more around 0100 UTC while the other days it was around sunset. This can clearly be seen in the Jaguar JIX screen shown below.

In the early afternoon it was time for packing. Luckily the weather was much better this time and everything was running smoothly.  Around 2.30 pm local time most of us started their trip home well before the Antwerp rush hour.

Thanks to the owners for providing this wonderful location and allowing to carry out our strange hobby. Furthermore special thanks goes out to Hugo for all the huge job of making contacts with the owners of the fields and supplying us with food etc. Cheers !

If you want to book this place for your vacation look at 

http://knollehof.be/ or 

http://vakantiewoning-knollehof.blogspot.be/

KNL01 - Day 3 – Sunday 22 October 2017

This day will surely go into the history books as the best DX-day at Knollehof.  

Frank managed to hear a lot of “First” stations.Take a look here.

But the revelation of the day was 5AN Adelaide on 891 kHz from Australia.  We heard that one before but now with a really nice and clear ID and while Veurne is a bit further from Adelaide than Walsoorden we added 96 km to our DX-record 😊

Guido Schotmans · 5AN ABC Adelaide, Adelaide - Reynella 891 kHz - 2017-10-22 1835 UTC

Also on Sunday, we replaced the separated wire for half a day by the twisted pair beverage. At first sight it looked like the separated wire beverage performed better. Several IQ files were recorded for evaluation but this still has to be done in depth. We will probably not throw away the twisted pair concept completely while this is much easier to put up. If anybody is interested in the test files please get in contact. 

Here are a few pictures from the different set ups.

The Jaguar Team tables

Leo is sticked to the regular Perseus application.

Marc VL traditional set up

Jan receiving a Japanese Fax bulletin

KNL01 - Day 2 – Saturday 21 October 2017

In the morning we discovered that the 300° beverage did a good job with lots of east coasters while they were hardly present the last few weeks.  The non-terminated 40/220° beverage however was not really a success. So we considered to add 400 m of coax to the far end of the antenna to make it sensitive to the Far East only.  Luckily the weather was fine but still very windy.  It was really a good decision while soon JOFR, RKB Radio 1278 kHz from Japan popped up at good strength. Also Hebei RGD Xinwen Guangbo from China was really good for several minutes on the same frequency with lots of local ID’s during their sign on procedure. Later Leo managed to catch a short but very nice Navtex decode from Shangai Navtex on 518 kHz. 

Frank the bagpipe player

Around midday, our local contact man Hugo delivered freshly baked sandwiches and bread. Earlier he had provided already hand baked waffles that tasted very well.  Hugo was glad to have us there so he could learn more about the Jaguar SDR software, RTL sticks Airspy and weather balloon hunting.

Standing left to right: Pieter the landlord, Leo, Hugo our local DX contact and Guido.

Furthermore a few of us did some sightseeing in Veurne which is really a nice little city.

KNL01 - Day 1 - Friday 20 October 2017

Here is with some delay the report from our latest Dxpedition. I will add gradually the different stories and results.

On Friday morning we jumped early out of bed to see that the weather was absolutely not in line with the forecast. Lots of rain and wind we got instead of the promised slightly improvement. That resulted in a not so pleasant 150 km ride to our new location, Knollehof in Veurne. Jan had to bridge the longest route of 315 km. In our traffic congestion lowlands this is not a pleasant ride. Luckily all of us arrived safely and more or less in time.

We were greeted by a nice rainbow at our DX-location. Unfortunately, this was not the advent of better weather. On the contrary, more rain and heavy wind found their way to Flanders Fields. So erecting the beverage antennas in those muddy fields was quite a task.

We had a 300 m beverage to N.America 300°, another 300 m beverage that was initially not terminated pointing to 40/220°. As third antenna we put up a 400m reversible beverage with separated wires fed by 2 coaxes. That one was for Bolivia/Far East 80/260°. And finally, just for testing, we erected a 300m twisted pair beverage just to compare with the separated wires beverage.

The separated wire reversible beverage next to the twisted pair one for comparison

Click here to see the Beverage Map

Furthermore, also a T2FD, a Boniwhip and a vertical were set up.

We were glad that everything worked straight away. Setting up the shacks was going fast while the house was larger than expected. Even for a quite large group of 8 participants.

Dave

Frank

Guido 

Jan

Leen

Leo

Marc

Marc VL is supervising a DX discussion

Kim has found another toy, but he is apparently not aware that the Jaguar SDR software has great >one click< logging feature. So he don't need all those assistants to note his logs. 😀








Time for dinner.

Kim was not really behaving himself. He kept on arguing that he wanted McDonald's for dinner while all of us voted for ordering Chinese. So we've sent him home again. Unfortunately the food tasted a bit North Korean 😄

And then there was sunset

and soon a lot of North American started to pop up. The 300° beverage did a it very well and the sorrows about putting it up were forgotten soon.

The loggings itself will be published in due course. 

Countdown to DXped

Only a few hours left before our DX-pedition at the new location Knollehof in Veurne, Belgium starts.  The DXped will last until next Monday. Luckily the effects of the coronal hole a few days ago are reducing so we have hope to hear a few special thing. 

The weather looks fine for erecting antennas, so that is a plus. Besides putting up several beverage antennas we will also experiment a bit like comparing how a separated two wire reversible beverage versus a twisted pair beverage.

You will hear more from us tomorrow if time permits.