KNL07 - Knollehof DXped 10-13 January 2020

Another Knollehof DXPeditions is once again over. It was a bit a dull edition especially when comparing to the outstanding one last November during which lots of Japanese and further away North Americans where logged. Must be the "winter-anomaly" about which there was some talk on different io groups the last few weeks. 

The reversible Beverage antenna

Beverage antenna setup was the same like during KNL06 with the exception that for the Japan 40° beverage that is fed through a 400 m long coax, common mode chockes were added to prevent bleeding in Spanish stations. Unfortunately, the effect was only minor. We are always glad that the farmers give permission to put our antennas on their fields but this time we grumbled and cursed a bit than usual because of the very sticky mud. Other antennas were also the usual ones except from the fact an old school longwire was added. Always nice to compare.

When looking at the consecutive days, we see that propagation following a northern path was mostly very weak.  The Sunday/Monday night was the better one, or should I say the least bad... Not a single Japanese stations was received (with the exception of a very weak and faint music box interval signal from NHK on 1386 kHz. Strangely enough we were able to receive a snatch of KBRW, Barrow/Utqiaġvik Alaska just strong enough to be able to verify it was them by comparing the webstream.  Unfortunately, no ID was catched. Signals to the South were much better but not outstanding.  Receiving the down-under ABC Adelaide on 891 might be disappearing in our dreams.  Last time, that channel was already occupied by the Dutch LPAM stations and now even by the much more powerful Algerian transmitter is active again there. A few nice Firsts from Latin America were received on the reversible 400 m beverage antenna.  Always nice to see this antenna is performing well. Nevertheless, we had to go out in the dark on Sunday while signals dropped considerably on that antenna caused by some bad contact. 

When packing for DXpeditions, you have to be careful not to forget important things like your receiver, headphones or an antenna switch.  I think I never forgot  important things for the DX hobby. But this time I forgot something really different that might be of some importance: underpants! So I had to drive to Veurne's city center to buy a few. Frank Thijs, most of the time the funny guy (yes most of the time) he advised me to buy the type in the picture below.  Unfortunately they were sold out. It might have been interesting to see if it would bring Nordic DX-conditions. 

For food we had the regular Chinese take away meals accompanied by some well chosen wines. Hugo's wife provided us once again with tasty self made Belgian waffles. Thanks again for that and also for delivering the collect and go shopping. Always nice to have a local guy that knows the region. 

This time there were 8 participants: Aart Rouw, David Onley, Frank Huyghe, Frank Thijs, Guido Schotmans, Jan Feenstra, Leen van Oeveren, Marc Vissers, 

As usual, lots of files to analyse afterwards, so our KNL-07 logbooks are far from complete. When we stumble upon special ones, they will be added here as well.