Lake Seliger, 8 kм from begin of river Volga
MS-pedition KO67 or one man show
This expedition became possible with the help of Guy DL8EBW with DH3YAK and Peter
PA3BIY. First time planed crew RA3IS UA3ICK UA3ISW, but in last moment
Swetlana and Andy was shold cancel this trip. Sweta say sorry with tear. But
i can"t deceive
waiting operators and nevertheless make lonely venture trip.
Antenna was F9FT 16 el.(homebrew UA3IGL). Now i know, why this antenna was break.
Boom from aluminium 16 mm diam. - too thin. I had restore boom and moutaged
on mast 6 m high,
antenna shake twist and bend really as sausage! Ooo...Sausages. I like it! But
4 days only
cucumber, potatoes and tee was my food :-(
There was no camera, but on my way I stopped in
Torzhok and Fedor UA3ITK
made a couple of photographs (sended to DK3WG and DL8EBW) and added me garlic
and cucumber.
A suitable location was found 8 km from the well of the river Volga, on the
shore of Lake Sterzh.
I had to install the antenna in the twilight in an open terrain.
The next day at sunrise I looked around and I saw ant-hills around me,
almost every 5 meters I saw one.
Sometimes I accidentally stepped on them.
People say that red ants are very agressive, but fortunately none has bitten
me, although I was wearing my summer sandals.
Could that be because I loudly apologized myself?
The first evening was rainy and gnats bit me all over my body.
The second evening was clear, I saw an open sky with many stars, but the
flock of small gnats visited me again.
They attacked me mercilessly and flew into the ears, mouth, nose, hair, all
around me.
Unfortunately, I did not have any means to protect myself against the
insects, but this was about the only thing that I did not have with me.
When the battery of my mobile phone went flat, I took some power from the
car battery.
I was located near a village, but I was all on myself, no public electricity
or whatsoever.
I had some 75 Ah batteries but the charger was not working properly, so
after the first 2 QSO's I decided to lower my RF-output power from 40W down
to 15W.
This way the batteries would probably give me enough energy for 3 days.
In my first sked with Peter he did not hear me at all.
After some investigations I found that the outer conductor of the coax was
interrupted, but I heard PA3BIY Peter 7 dB!
It was necessary to lower the mast and to do some soldering, but that was
certainly not simple with the wind coming in from the lake.
My soldering iron was heated in the flame of a gas stove, in which I cooked
potatoes as well.
In the sked with PA0JMV I had some difficulties with the decoding.
Apparently the ZAP function was causing this trouble, as soon as I switched
that off, everything was normal.
Changing S-settings (ping strength) also sometimes helped me.
Just like all evenings, the days were all different as well.
One day it was very warm, I walked in shorts and it was so hot that I
thought I had to expiate.
Another evening was like autumn: cloudy, cold and rainy.
I ran out of gas after two days and it became less convenient to prepare
food etc.
It wasn't easy to make a small fire in the wind and the rain.
The water for the tea was collected from a brooklet at 100 meters from the
car.
The entire equipment - notebook, FT-290RII,
IC706mk2g and batteries
(tnx fr this rig UA3INY, UA3IBK, UA3ICK) had been
installed in my car.
I had built the antenna on the fixed ground, so I was not entitled to use
RA3IS/M as callsign.
One evening there was so much interference that the best thing I could do
was to lay down and try to sleep.
Very frequwently sparkle QRN and lightning. Noise blanker was useless.
Waking up on the rear seat of a car was experienced by me as the opening of
a flower, and again with my head into to radio!
The antenna was almost always to the West. Pointing to the north and the
south was only a waste of time, heard some calls, but no reply to me.
Thus far UA3ICK Andrej and Sveta UA3ISW ( Tver) spread info via the cluster,
there were plenty of stations on 144.380.
But then the prepaid cell phone ran out of credit and it was necessary to
work on 144.370.
My weak signal was sink in strong bursts of eastern stations.
Bojan S57TW told me later about big refl from LY2CI, ES6RQ, RW3PF, RX1AS,
UX5UL, RW3WR....
That was difficult with my QRP power between the powerful bursts of some
stations.
After discharging 4 spare batteries + 1 under the cowl, I left in the
opposite direction, estimating that my first MS-expedition had been
completely successful.
Unfortunately that appeared to be too early yet!
At the entrance to the city of Tver I became invloved into an accident... I
had a collision with another car, driven by 3 young persons who violated the
traffic rules.
There were no victims but my car can not be repaired anymore.
It will not make sense to proceed against them as they did not have a job.
I would need a lot of money to have my car repaired and it will be better to
sell it now for a song.
But nevertheless I am dreaming about next year and I would like to repeat
the expedition, taking all lessons learned into account !
I was happy with a total of about 43 contacts (including those not
finished).
This story was translated from Russian into English by PA0JMV Joop.
Tnx also Jurgen DK3WG fer QSL-service.
Log RA3IS/p
QSOs by RA3IS (KO67HF) on 2 m.
Type of propagation: All Mode: All mode
From 12/08/2004 to 16/08/2004
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DATE TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX MODE REMARKS QRB
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12/08/2004 17:00 OK2ZW JN89HI 26 26 WSJT NOT COMPL.1371
12/08/2004 18:00 SM5FMX R26 26 WSJT
12/08/2004 18:43 DJ9YE JO43HV R27 27 WSJT 22dB 1545
12/08/2004 20:04 DL8EBW JO31NF R27 26 WSJT 19dB 1773
12/08/2004 20:27 PA2CHR JO21WX R27 27 WSJT 17dB 1805
12/08/2004 20:45 DK1KO JO53CT R27 27 WSJT 14 dB 1453
12/08/2004 21:30 OZ1LPR JO44UW R26 27 WSJT 6 dB 1437
12/08/2004 21:33 DF2ZC JO30RN R27 26 WSJT 21dB 1794
12/08/2004 22:00 DF7KF JO31GU R26 27 WSJT NOT COMPL.1772
12/08/2004 22:00 PA1T R27 27 WSJT 21 dB
12/08/2004 22:30 OZ1IEP JO55XU R26 26 WSJT NOT COMPL. 1271
12/08/2004 22:55 PA3BIY JO22EB 26 R26 WSJT 20 dB 1890
13/08/2004 00:04 PA2DW R26 27 WSJT NOT COMPL.
13/08/2004 06:40 OZ1IEP JO55XU R27 26 WSJT 21 dB 1271
13/08/2004 08:20 SP6GZZ JO81HI 27 R27 WSJT 1222
13/08/2004 08:20 DL6BF JO32QI R27 26 WSJT 1695
13/08/2004 09:00 DG0KW JO64MH 27 R27 WSJT at 8.55 z 1262
13/08/2004 18:00 HB9FAP JN46EW 27 R27 WSJT 18 dB 8 s 1996
13/08/2004 19:00 DL9MS JO54WC R26 26 WSJT NOT COMPL. 1341
13/08/2004 19:55 DJ9FG JO52UD R27 27 WSJT 22 dB 1451
13/08/2004 20:45 DC9YC JO31PI R27 26 WSJT 1756
13/08/2004 21:00 DL9MS JO54WC R27 26 WSJT 17 dB 1341
13/08/2004 21:30 DF7KF JO31GU R27 27 WSJT NOT COMPL. 1772
13/08/2004 21:41 PA0JMV JO21PM R27 27 WSJT 1865
13/08/2004 22:00 DJ9MG JO52TC R27 27 WSJT 22 dB 1458
13/08/2004 22:00 DL7FF JO62TJ R27 27 WSJT 20 sec burst 1325
13/08/2004 22:10 DK0OG JN68GI R27 27 WSJT NOT COMPL. 1662
13/08/2004 23:15 OK1DFC JO60RN 27 R26 WSJT 21 dB. 1450
14/08/2004 00:20 OK1MZM JN69PR R27 27 WSJT 18 dB 1518
14/08/2004 01:06 DG6JF/P JO31MM R27 27 WSJT 1761
14/08/2004 01:30 PA3DOL JO22MT R27 26 WSJT 1811
14/08/2004 01:42 PA3COB JO32MF R27 27 WSJT 20 dB 1722
14/08/2004 08:00 S57TW JN75EX 27 R27 WSJT 20 dB 1765
14/08/2004 08:13 DL2ARD JO60AR R27 26 WSJT 1519
14/08/2004 08:50 HA3UU JN96JO R27 29 WSJT 1509
14/08/2004 20:40 YU1EV KN04CN 27 R27 WSJT 14 dB 1650
14/08/2004 21:50 OE6IWG JN77PK R27 27 WSJT 23 dB 1595
15/08/2004 05:30 S53J JN75EV R27 27 WSJT 1772
15/08/2004 06:30 HA8CE KN06EN R27 27 WSJT 1449
15/08/2004 07:00 HA6NQ JN98 R27 26 WSJT 1325+-
15/08/2004 07:00 PA5KM R27 26 WSJT
15/08/2004 07:10 DF7KF JO31GU R27 26 WSJT 1772
15/08/2004 07:40 DL9MS JO54WC R27 27 WSJT NOT COMPL 1341
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total QSO: 43
Sergey ra3is
