Aeronautical Mobile

Part of my work involves being posted overseas during the WInter on work detachments, and as part of my current detachment I have to fly from Gran Canaria to either Sweden or Finland every fourth day. Aeronautical mobile is currently forbidden in the UK, along with Italy, however the rest of EU allows /AM. If I apply CEPT temporary recommendation TR61-01 whilst operating from a foreign country I am bound by the rules and limitations of that particular country. Each country retains sovereignty for it's own airspace and therefore that countries rules apply, so as long as I'm not in UK airspace, and follow TR61-01 recommendations, I can operate aeronautical mobile in the airspace of a country that allows such.

Still with me? good.

So yesterday I had to fly to Oulou in Finland, some 6hrs 10min flight time, the captain had no problem with me operating /AM so I decided to put out a call. During the outbound and inbound sector I operated on 15, 17, and 20m and made 167 contacts with the following country prefixes:

VK, ZL, JA, YB, CT, DL, F, EA, SP, PA, OE, OK, OH, OM, SM, LA, 9A, I, SV, D, GI, GM, GW, ZD8, V21, J69, V44, 8P6, W1, W2, W3, W4, W5, W8, W9, VE1, VE2, VE3, VE5, RA, UY, YO, YL.

I'll be flying again on Friday morning, please listen out for operating /AM

Stephen G7DIE

Portable location Gran Canaria

I guess I should have posted this some time ago, however with work commitments I've been very busy until recently, this has curtailed my ambition to be on air as often as possible, however that situation has now been rectified so here's the latest update.

My location is on the South East coast, just North from Playa Del Ingles and approximately 40km South from the capital Las Palmas, below is a simple map of the location:

The equipment is simple, an Icom 703 with a small amplifier and a Buddipole antenna, using the antenna in different locations and different configurations can be a bit of a bind, however the various locations around the Island are a must to operate portable, so I just accept the inconvenience of building and dismantling the antenna so often. This brings with it another problem, wear and tear, whilst not fragile, the antenna elements don't take kindly to rough handling and have had to be repaired a number of times, so much so that I will be replacing the telescopic whips when I get home and figuring a more robust way of attaching the various jumper wire and coax connector, maybe even adding a SO239 socket to the antenna centre. Here's a pic of the antenna overlooking the sea from a cliff location:

It beats working in the UK that's for sure.

73

Stephen EA8/G7DIE

EA8/G7DIE and eQSL

Less than a week to go before I fly out to Gran Canaria for six months, I've been considering how I will maintain a logbook and how people can get a QSL card. 
I don't currently have any plans to produce a specific QSL card for my time in Gran Canaria, as a result I've decided to use eQSL and design an electronic QSL card, I'll be using HamLog on my iPhone as the log source and this will be uploaded to eQSL at regular intervals.

The callsign I plan to use if EA8/G7DIE and have set this up as a profile in eQSL, see the link below for the eQSL website

eQSL.cc

Gran Canaria

So my line of work sometimes takes me overseas, I've had the pleasure of being able to operate from Canada, USA, Crete, Mainland Spain and Gran Canaria previously, but never for more than a month or so at a time, however this Winter I get to spend 6 months on the island of Gran Canaria, I'll be operating holiday style from my apartment and portable at the beach, I'll be using around 80W at the apartment and 10W when on the beach with the following equipment:

Icom IC703
100W portable amp
Buddipole antenna system
MFJ1979 telescopic antenna
LiPo cells portable
Mydel power supply at the apartment
Bands 10-40m

I'll also be taking a paddle key with me and hope to brush up on my CW skills, it's probably 11/12 years since I last used CW, so it's going to be a steep learning curve, again!

My equipment has already been shipped out and I fly out on 28th October, returning to the UK on 28th April.

Hope to work you as EA8/G7DIE/P

New DXCC total

A little effort on my behalf, checking my phone log from last year, and some recent DXpeditions, have taken my DXCC total to 225 all time and 174 for the year, this was bolstered by working TN2MS yesterday morning in the Democratic Republic of Congo, here's the morning session:

20m

YT1ET

YO6PSD

OH01

VK2WWE

VK2WC

VK3SIM

VK2DX

OE2LIP

GW0BTB

VK2NN

F4GHB

IZ2VAJ

17m

TN2MS

9L1JT

OH6LME

OE1/AH6CY/QRP

TF2MSN

EA7/G0WHX

On the subject of yesterday, what a great opening on 10m, sadly I didn't get in on the action until late afternoon, but made up for lost time by working the following:

10m

W8DLD

HI8JQE

K3RA

PY4ZE

ZY5Y

W0WM

EA8BCP

WB0ISK

VE2XIP

NF9V

W4IOW

EA8AZD

W9PT

LU6FOV

LW7DUC

LW6DG

PJ2/K5JP

12m

N1QEH

15m

TO2TT

PJ2/NT5V

ZS6BAF

3B8FA

17m

WV1H

2E0JOB/M

WJ2R

M5FHJ

KD2BMX

LU1ECZ

KB3USC

K2ZF

20m

VU2VID

VU3WIJ

VP8LP

VU2PHD

Fiji

Another all time new one thanks to the Scorpion SA680 antenna, 3D2RA/P on the Pacific Island of Fiji, he wasn't too strong with me at the time and there were plenty of people calling, and to be honest I didn't expect to be heard, but thought I'll never know for sure unless I try, anyway I did, and now it's in the log, two Pacific Islands I've never worked previously Samoa and Fiji are added to my DX list so far this year, with my total around 222DXCC, I say around, because they are a couple I haven't finished moving to my log yet from last year.

I also worked a few Californians yesterday on 15m, the California QSO party was in full swing so I saw the opportunity of adding a few counties worked, in fact I don't recall a time I worked so many Californian stations in one session, I think I might try and work all counties during next year's QSO party.

A couple of other good contacts yesterday was New Zealand whilst driving home from work on 40m, I also managed Mayotte, Angola, Trinidad & Tobago, and Hawaii, here's the summary:

40m

9Y2LAS

ZM4G

DL/G8OFQ

20m

D2SG

3D2RA/P

TO2TT

15m

NM6G

KW8L

KE6ZSN

WH7Z

K6Q

W6YX

N6OJ

KG4N

W0HJW/6

W6PZ

N6NF

N6N

N6O

WA6FGV

CY0P

PY3UK

W6AFA

K6ME

W6T

K6T

W6UE

NN3V/6

W6ML

WB6HYH

K6Z

PT7VB

Scorpion SA680

I've spent a fair amount of time, money and effort on mobile DXing, I get a real kick out of, however on my regular drive to and from work (120 mile round trip), I rely on my High Sierra Sidekick for quick change multiband operation, if I want better performance then I switch to one of my homebrew monoband antennas, this is a good compromise, but I don't really want compromise, I want it both ways, multiband and efficiency.

Earlier on this year I was working in Gran Canaria and had just ordered a VNA from Wimo in Germany, it had been a big decision which unit to buy and how much to spend, I already had an MFJ269, but wanted to add a two port VNA to my test equipment, it was only just after I ordered this VNA that a Scoprion SA680 was offered for sale on a forum I regularly use, this antenna would have fulfilled my having it 'both ways' requirement, efficient multiband performance, however it was expensive and I'd just spent a lot of money on the VNA, as much as I really wanted it, I couldn't afford it, I had to let it go.

Fast forward to August this year and the very same antenna was for sale, I had to have it and sent the seller a message as quick as I could,  roll forward a couple of days and I'd driven to Derby in order to collect the antenna, finally it was mine.

If anyone reading this has ever seen a Scorpion SA680, you'll know how big and how heavy this antenna is, it presents it's own unique problem when installing one on a European compact car, in fact the chap I bought the antenna from had it installed on a trailer hitch below his rear bumper. I wanted maximum efficiency from this antenna so a trailer hitch was out of the question, however mounting it on my roof was out of the question too. A compromise was sought and a tailgate mount was decided upon, a custom build tailgate mount in fact. I spoke to a local blacksmith who was able to make the required mount, it itself is big, but with reinforcing bar stock inside the tailgate I have no worries about it damaging the tailgate, except for the four bolt holes!