Arctic Diamonds - TF4M | TF4M – Arctic Diamonds and the Arctic King

51st Scandinavian Activity Contest 2009 – TF4X

By TF4M On December 6, 2011 · 2 Comments · In Amateur Radio

Update 06 December, 2011:

The SAC Contest Committee, in their wisdom, have refused to acknowledge the fact that TF4X had the top score in Scandinavia in the category and only marked the certificate as 1st Place – Iceland…

All attempts at diplomacy failed, although the Contest Committee became divided over the issue.

I have therefore marked the Certificate accordingly myself. A simple and elegant solution.

It is a little known fact that TF4M/TF4X and socially mature TF stations have since 2009 boycotted the SAC to bring pressure onto the Contest Committe in this matter.

If you have wondered about the absense of the top TF stations, this is the explanation.

It has now become crystal clear that the top TF stations will never again take part in the Scandinavian Activity Contest.

It is easy to win a contest, when the competition is absent.

———————————————————————————————————————-

previously published in 2009:

Yngvi, TF3Y operated TF4X in the 51st Scandinavian Activity Contest on CW over the weekend.

sac_cw

The day before the contest, he made around 800 contacts to get acquainted with the new shack.

The score is higher than last year´s winning score in the Single Operator – 20M category.

Yngvi, TF3Y operating TF4X

At this point it looks like TF4X has the highest score in this category – this may of course change as scores get submitted…

UPDATE: The results have been published and TF4X is the winner of this category!

Single Op./Single TX/Single Band/14 MHz

[SINGLE-OP 20M]

Pl. Call QSO QSO-p Mult Score Op. --- ----------- ----- ----- ---- --------- ------
 1. TF4X         1.037   2.426    60     145.560   TF3Y
 2. OH7WW          771   1.882    55     103.510
 3. SM6A           632   1.577    63      99.351   SM6BGA
 4. SM3PZG         489   1.175    55      64.625
 5. SM7ZDI         503   1.244    51      63.444
 6. OH3I           390     992    47      46.624   OH9MM
 7. OH2AAZ         466   1.089    40      43.560   OH2BSI
 8. OH3LB          424     940    43      40.420
 9. SA3C           403     894    43      38.442   SM3CZS
10. OH2VZ          325     723    44      31.812

11. LA1QDA         364     792    36      28.512
12. OH2BCD         289     638    44      28.072
13. SM2CVH         298     637    44      28.028
14. SM7N           298     733    35      25.655   SM7NDX
15. SM3RL          297     657    35      22.995
16. SMØQ           274     604    37      22.348   SMØOGQ
17. SM1ALH         137     315    30       9.450
18. OH1ZE          123     261    32       8.352
19. OZ1IKY         123     291    25       7.275
20. OH6MBQ          92     213    32       6.816

21. OH3MC           99     241    28       6.748
22. OH1FJ           98     224    26       5.824
23. LA6GX           99     202    21       4.242
24. SM6WET          76     195    20       3.900
25. OH6NPV          70     155    22       3.410
26. SM3DFM          46     112    22       2.464
27. SM5DQE          33      76    14       1.064
28. SM6WZH          27      66    13         858
29. SM7DAY          21      51    16         816
30. OH2BN           13      30    10         300

31. OH7WV           11      25    10         250
32. SM6LTO           1       2     1           2

I made some recordings of the contest with my Beverage antenna system and the PERSEUS SDR.

You may download a file (147 MB) of the last few minutes of the contest spectrum on 20M CW and play back the spectrum using WinRad on your own computer.

In order for WinRad to be able to play back recordings made by the PERSEUS software, you will have to download the PERSEUS DLL for WinRad and extract the files to the WinRad directory.

If there is demand, I can provide larger files of the last hour of so on 20M during the contest.

The station performed as expected, except we discovered, when I operated TF4M on 80M, that the 80M antenna is located too close to the JA rhombic, causing 80M operation to trip the protection circuits on the amplifier on the 20M station.

I operated TF4M on 80M for 45 minutes out of the 24 hours and made 50 contacts.

Without bandpass filters in place, this discovery would have followed the total destruction of the 20M transceiver. As it were, there was no damage, although the JA rhombic was picking up 50W or so from the 80M antenna….

The first indication of a problem was that I could hear faint noise coming from the 20M operation when listening on the TX antenna – there was no trace of any noise using the Beverage system.

I cascaded two sets of bandpass filters on both 80M and 20M stations, but I could still hear faint interference and then we noticed the faulting of the 20M amplifier when the station was switched to the JA rhombic.

I will solve the problem by relocating the 80M transmit antenna.

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4U1ITU – ITU HQ

By TF4M On November 11, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Amateur Radio

The International Radio Club in the International Telecommunications Union, Geneva counts as a separate country in the DXCC program.

Their call sign 4U1ITU is activated regularly, but has been absent from 160 Meters until now.

It took an hour of calling to get their attention through the EU Wall, no easy task since their signals were quite weak with hordes of stations calling.

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This was country #173 worked on 160 Meters.

Update: The Postman delivered the QSL card on January 6., 2012.

7Q7GM – Malawi

By TF4M On November 11, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Amateur Radio

Rob GM3YTS & Gav GM0GAV are active from Malawi between 31st October and 13th November 2011.

They use the call sign 7Q7GM and battle high noise and frequent power cuts.

I have called them for hours on end on 160 Meters without any luck. It was also clear that their noise level must have been very high, as they did not answer any of the dozens of calling stations.

Last night the noise on their end must have subsided and once more the Arctic King showed his power.

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My totals now stand at 172 Countries Worked and 166 Countries Confirmed on Top Band.

TF4M new QSL Card

By TF4M On November 10, 2011 · 2 Comments · In Amateur Radio

The new QSL card has been designed.

front

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Arctic Gourmet

By TF4M On November 9, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Food

I have become interested in low temperature cooking for a while – Sous Vide – and after recent success with Leg of Lamb which was cooked at 55°C for 32 hours, I decided to try even longer cooking times.

In the absence of a regulated water bath, I simply put the pieces of meat into special cooking bags and put the bags into the middle of my oven set at 55°C.

This is the result after 74 hours of cooking – the Leg of Lamb slices were absolutely perfect – like no meat I have ever tasted, practically melted in my mouth, but the smoked pork was a bit over done for my taste – rather dry. This may be due to previous processing – smoking and salting.

This is the meat straight from the oven – 55°C for 74 hours.

sliced leg of Lamb straight out of the oven

Smoked pork straight out of the oven

The sliced leg of Lamb after searing them on a frying pan 25 seconds each side

The sliced leg of Lamb

The Pork

The Pork – yes, the knife is a Masahiro…

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Arctic Pinnacle Performance

By TF4M On October 31, 2011 · 4 Comments · In Amateur Radio, Food, The Arctic

Yngvi, TF3Y piloted TF4X in the CQ WorldWide SSB Contest in the Single-Operator, Single-Band, High Power Category.

TF3Y@TF4X

When the dust settled, the score was as follows:

3124 QSOs

93 Countries

25 CQ Zones

for a final score of 571,710 points.

Due to the recent sun spot minimum more or less since 2003, there has been little activity on 10-Meters and almost no activity from my station.

Yngvi´s score was 5 times higher than last year´s top score in this category from Europe and his QSO total is similar to what Multi-Operator stations in the US and top stations in the Caribbean accomplished this year.

KC1XX had 3061 QSO’s, the K3LR super station had 3033 QSOs on 10 meters and W2GD made 3356 contacts on 10 meters from P40W in Aruba to give a few examples from the contest this past weekend. TF4X´s 3124 QSOs compares very favorably considering the difference in propagation in the frigid north to what stations further south experience.

Most of the contest was recorded, both the audio and the 10 Meter Band spectrum using a Perseus SDR.

Here is a recording made on Sunday:

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Andrey, DL/KL1A sent me a link to a recording he made of TF4X in the Contest.

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Yngvi wrote in his Soap Box comments :

“Had a great time. Ten showed a bit of life but still big room for
improvement, e.g. no JA’s. Being able to transmit to many Rhombics
while selecting others for reception is a big plus. The performance
of the station was excellent apart from a 40 min. electricity outage
due to a fault at the power company. Thor’s station keeps improving
year by year. Due to poor conditions in the past few years there has
not been much activity from the station on ten meters. We now have
proof that the Rhombics do a great job on that band as well. “

It’s not all work and no play, we also take time to enjoy good food and wine, it has become a tradition that my visitors contribute to the food over the weekend in exchange for the use of the station.

On Thursday I put a leg of Mountain Lamb into the oven to slow cook for 24 hours at 60°C – it turned out absolutely magnificent – I will be using this method often in the future.

Yngvi generously brought a very nice aged T-Bone steak 5cm thick which I prepared in my gourmet kitchen for Saturday’s evening meal.

The raw T-Bone steak ready to cook

Ready to eat!

Perfect ! – details of cooking method provided on request.

The best T-Bone in the Arctic.

Sunday morning we had Spinach Shakshukah and in the evening slow cooked chicken…all dishes washed down with conservative amounts of fine wines.

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TL0CW – Central African Republic

By TF4M On October 27, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Amateur Radio

Despite generally poor conditions on 160 Meters due to the recent Aurora, I heard TL0CW in Bangui, Central African Republic last night.

He is staying in Bangui for only one week from the 25th of October, so it was important that I make the QSO since TL is quite rare DX.

Rudi, DK7PE is on a one man DXpedition around the world and has visited 152 countries and operated from 127 countries!

I was unable to raise him last night, but tonight his signals were slightly stronger and I became convinced I would eventually get through the pile up of stations from Japan, Asia, Europe and the USA who were calling him by the thousands.

At times it was quite obvious that he was having reception difficulties due to QRN, since he would not come back to any of the callers.

It took about two hours of calling to get through, thanks to the magnificent signal of the Arctic King.

This is my 160 meter entity number 170 worked – I now have 166 entities confirmed.

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Aurora 24. October 2011

By TF4M On October 25, 2011 · 3 Comments · In Amateur Radio, The Arctic

A massive Aurora graced the southern sky last night, October 24. around 2300 UTC.

I used a variation of Tony´s Magic Cloth technique on some of the photos.

I took a bunch of photos. They may be viewed in this album:

aurora24oct2011

172 Photos

Below are the photos I selected for further processing by DxO Optics Pro.

Click on the photos to view larger size.

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TF3CW visit

By TF4M On October 21, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Amateur Radio, Visitors at TF4M

Siggi, TF3CW visited my station during a working trip and made a few contacts on 160 Meters with the Arctic King using my call sign. - (20. October 1850z – 1925z)

TF3CW operating TF4M with the Arctic King

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Arctic Noon

By TF4M On October 20, 2011 · 1 Comment · In Amateur Radio

Back at my station after a brief absence due to illness, I find the 10 Meter band wide open. What surprises me is that 160 Meters is wide open for DX at the same time.

It has been common knowledge that with an increase in sun spots, the higher frequencies would improve and the lower frequency bands would be unusable.

This belief probably stems from the herd mentality, where most people move up in frequency as the conditions improve and simply neglect the lower frequencies.

The fact that I am enjoying good propagation on both high and low bands bodes well for the future, since I have not the slightest interest in the higher bands.

I heard VK3PA with good signals, but since we had already worked each other I did not call him.

The first QSO with JA was with JA7NI who was the first ever JA a station to have a QSO with TF on Top Band and around noon today I heard an extremely weak signal calling CQ. - This signal was not audible on my Beverage antennas, but I was able to read him by listening directly with the Arctic King.

It is absolutely mindboggling to be able to work such weak signals – in broad daylight as well, for this to be possible both locations must have excellent receive capability.

T32C was worked on 160 meters at 1141Z – almost high noon at my location!

There is no doubt in my mind that this is the First Ever QSO between Kiribati and Iceland on Top Band.

160M QSO Confirmed !

I did not record the QSO, but I heard them the following day (Oct. 21 at 1140z) with similar signal levels. This recording is made directly from my transmit antenna the Arctic King since they were inaudible on my Beverage antennas.

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T32C QSO 160 1141z oct2011

The display of Day and Night is taken from VE3NEA´s program – DX Atlas

Villi, TF3DX/M worked them on all bands, 160 – 10 by using his experience and technical abilities to the fullest.

On 160 Meters, the signals from his mobile antenna fed by 100W ( 2.5% of that power is radiated ) may be around 25-30dB lower than that of the Arctic King.

The Arctic King does not have a Salt Water path in this direction as a mountain is in the way and affects this direction.

TF3DX/M worked them on 160 Meters by parking his car practically in the water in a location which gave him a Salt Water path to T32C and y using Gray – Line propagation enhancement to his advantage. Congratulations !

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