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Big loop antenna my father TF3T constructed in Eyrarbakki in the 80′s – found those films and decided to share… It was constructed from 30mm copper tubing – with a big 15Kv variable capacitor in the maching section. He had a long standing argument with his neighbors and he suspected they cut some of the guy’s in a big storm – it fell down. 
Contest : CQ World Wide WPX Contest Callsign : TF1CY Mode : PHONE Category : Single Operator (SO) Overlay : --- Band(s) : All bands (AB) Class : High Power (HP) Zone/State/... : Locator : HP94AD Operating time : 23h32 BAND QSO DUP PFX POINTS AVG ----------------------------------- 160 0 0 0 0 0.00 80 148 2 85 355 2.40 40 24 0 6 48 2.00 20 523 8 293 729 1.39 15 307 0 188 345 1.12 10 3 0 2 9 3.00 ----------------------------------- TOTAL 1005 10 574 1486 1.48 =================================== TOTAL SCORE : 852 964 Dupes are not included in QSO counts neither avg calculations Operators : Soapbox : Powered by Win-Test 4.9.1 http://www.win-test.com Fun contest, but as I had to work all Friday I rushed to the summer house late Friday, raised the 22m high vertical and assembled the th7dx. Then it was dark and I finished connecting everything and tune out on 80m. I started the contest on 80m but I was then just to tired to continue throughout the night. I woke up early and finished getting the Th7dx mounted and raised the antenna. I got into a sticky situation when I forgot a u-clamp in the last taper section of the mast just under the rotor. The mast was bent there and I was very scared of losing the antenna. I got my brother (TF3SG) to come to my rescue – we lowered the antenna and after inspecting the tubing and installing the clamp we raised the antenna again and proper guy’s. Conditions on 15m where hard and I kept losing my running freq. I tried few times to move to 20m but the QRM was just to much. I went back to 15. Sunday was better on 20m – and I got to around 800 contacts. I was not being heard well on 40m (tuning into the quarter wave intended for 80m). I decided to go to 80m and I found a nice clean frequency and got a nice run mostly EU but with handful of VE/W – I ended there with 1005 QSO’s. 
73, Benni TF3CY / TF1CY
I decided to put the antennas up and take part in the ARRL contest as the WX forecast was good – specially so late in the winter. I have had some issues with aiming the antenna as the feedback from the G-5600B has been very flaky – I found out that it’s very likely a dirty pot in the back of the control unit. Then my beloved amp blew a fuse I’m hearing quite well – but sometimes it’s like people dont hear me!
I’m sad to have missed Japan and other Asia stations – but I have houses obstructing the east path to the moonrise! Now there is a clear plan forming to try to get VK/ZL/JA in the 2m EME log! I might have to wait for the moon to be in a northern declination – and perhaps move my QTH temporarily. From my current QTH I dont see the moon from about 280° – 0 – 80° – and I always have to have at least 6° elevation. update: Thank you for all your patience ! this was really fun – just under 100 QSO’s total in this try! All QSO’s logged here on this page: http://www.tf3cy.is/eme-qso 73, Benni TF3CY Currently I’m on a small “eurotrip” with my family. I visited my brother TF3SG, that is staying with his family just outside of Zürich, Switzerland. I looked up some EU big guns and was very happy to see that we where staying just 60km from the HB9Q EME station. I was even happier when Dan HB9CRQ responded to my email and invited me to visit the station. Unforunatly Dan could not receive us the one evening we could make the trip, but Nick HB9EFK was going to be operating the station that evening. We made the journey and Nick showed us around. We where amazed to put it mildly, this is a truly unique station. Here are some pictures of the station I took – I’m still thinking about all the good ideas I got from this visit – this truly drives me to do better on EME
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View from my window: 2M EME ! IT’S ON! having so much fun and frustration working the moon! 73, Benni TF3CY I made 3 2m EME QSO’s using a borrowed Kenwood TS-2000 I had the moon low but getting close to my neighbors – so not wanting to send around 15-30KW EIRP into their houses I had to quit. N7NW, AD7TJ and W7MEM where all finished within 30 minutes – reports where about -22 to -26db. so I will be QRV next few days during the best-cond with my borrowed TS2000 – but I really hope I can get my beloved K3 working soon. Okay – now to elaborate on this problem. I bought my dream transceiver and have been generally pleased with the performance of the K3. It’s amazing how easy it is to interface to it and it’s a pure experimenters dream. Now I’m playing with LP-PAN adapter. I had a DEMI 60W 2m transverter on order but decided to buy the K144XV-K module for the K3 as my amplifier only needs about 10W for a 500W output. I was very eager to get on the air – but to my great dissapointment the K3 + K144XV has problems. 1. frequency stability after 50s transmit cycle. I see signals in RX drift up to 60hz after TX sequence. Littlebit less if I lower the drive.
In this picture, you can see HA6NQ’s drace on 0Hz DF – and some birdies. After TX you can see everything moving. When I ordered the K3+K144XV I saw no option of the RFLK board. So it must have just gotten available shortly after I made the order, or perhaps I just did not notice it. My K3 has the TCXO option installed. As it appears, the K144XV is unusable on JT65B. I have not yet gotten the RFLK board delivered so the problem will hopefully go away when I lock the K144XV to the master XO. Now in my oppinion, Elecraft should have a BIG warning sign when ordering the K144XV that it is unusable on JT65 – as they must have tested this. I got an answer from Elecraft saying that K144XV with the RFLK has been field tested and is working well. I’m not very happy to have spent $390 on a transverter where I could have spent little more and gotten a 60W transverter from DEMI (not that I know how that is performing). So Elecraft is selling a bad product there and then letting you spend more to fix it. The RFLK should just be a free upgrade from them! Birdies: Now I hope hope hope the $89 RFLK board will fix this. and darn, I was going to buy a IC-748PRO – but as it was rumored to be unstable on 2m in I decided to get the super stable K3 not thrashing K3 – know it’s a great radio – but I put a question mark over the K144XV and that you have to pay more to get it usable. 73, Benni TF3CY The antennas are up – made a new mast that I can lower to around 3,5m – goes to 6,5m that is enough. 
I have some strange problem with my setup, not sure if it’s the K3+K144XV or the soundcard or computer…
After now 2-3 months of constant pondering, ebay browsing, googling, pestering people with questions I have something to show – amplifier is near completion ! 5 watts in, 250w out quite good gain I must say – 15dB Due to a faulty Bird element – I could not go all the way, also missing a bigger fuse. so I will hopefully be able to borrow a bigger element to fully test the amplifier – now called Gandalf the gray! here is a link to the project: http://www.tf3cy.is/2m-linear Now I just have the issue that the MCU control board is rebooting when in XMIT – and I have some programming to do so I will get accurate voltage / current readings. Hope closing the RF unit will solve the reboot issue – perhaps I have to go to ebay and buy some old analog front panel meters ;/ - Benni TF3CY
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