DF9CY Christoph Petermann - The Radio Site

50 MHz
until 26 August 2010: Only a few and not very strong Es openings were encountered. Via MS I worked GM6VXB (IO97) which was new.
12 August 2010: Again some Es to YO, OM, YO, SV with strong signals.
11 August 2010: Just for a late season surprise I could work D4C (HK76). Some EA1 and EA8AAW were worked too.
10 August 2010: Worked EI7IX via MS with the little FlexRadio
08 August 2010: Got only one station from OH.
07 August 2010: Again the Es "point" was above us. I could reach a few QSOs.
06 August 2010: A few stations worked. Not much activity.
05 August 2010: I worked more than 30 stations in OH, DL, YU, GW, HA, OE ...
04 August 2010: A little Es to YU and LZ in the morning. In the afternoon the Aurora returned and I worked a bunch of stations. Nothing special.
03 August 2010: I made a few aurora QSOs with LA8AJA, LA7DFA SM0EJR and others.

144 MHz
14 August 2010: Got RZ1AWO/1 (KP81) too with 20w only after my Dressler D200 PA went up in smoke minutes before.
12 August 2010: Worked RZ1AWO/1 (KP80) via FSK441.
11 August 2010: IK8BIZ (JN70) and IT9VDQ (JM68) worked via FSK441 Meteorscatter.

7 MHz
I made some contacts with the Flex-1500, which works very fine.

WSPR
After a long pause WSPR ran for two nights on 40m and 30m with the Flex-1500 SDR at 5w and 2w levels with great success. Compared to last year the activity on 40m seems to be very low, while having been increased on 30m.

Posted by Christoph Petermann

August
The D200 PA went up in smoke when switching it on. I sold it then for good money and purchaed a used Mirage B1030G 300w+ transitor PA which is hopefully a good replacement.

May
Not only this below - now the IC820 VHF rig developped a fault. But after cleaning all flat wire contacts it is working again.

May
After the TS690 my D200s 2m PA had a big bang without being switched on !! PCB tracks seem to grow ... and sometimes they contact each other. I do not know the reason, but the was a short circuit between two tracks of the mains leads on the board. I had to clean all that, because it looked like a major explosion to have happened there and replace the tracks by wires. Voila the amplifier is running again.

April
My Kenwood TS690s developped an error in the IF chain. It looked like a defective IC (TC9174F) which is hard to get nowadays. The integrated circuit is a serial/parallel controller which switches the 455 kHz filter bank. But it turned out to be the Murata 455kHz filter (CFW455F - 12kHz BW). I removed it and the radio is working well - no 12 kHz filter available. As soon as I have the replacement the box will be repaired. I have never seen before such a filter going mad.

Update: The fault returned - it does not seem to be the filter. I desoldered the two double switching diodes. Now the rig is working again, but no AM and FM possible. I try to get the TC9174F IC now for replacement.

Posted by Christoph Petermann

After years I had the chance of imaging an Aurora (Polar Light) display. See them HERE

Posted by Christoph Petermann