ONFF-0475 Zevenbergerbos

Call: ON8WR/p
QSO': 79
Date : 13/17-08-2017 
Location : Ranst
Operators: Ward














Summary:

During my activity in ONFF-0475 I made 79 qso's spread over 2 days. Most of them were on 20m.
I made 3 park 2 park contacts, and a QSO with a WCA activator.

Transceiver:

Yaesu FT857d - 50w (powered by battery)
Antennas used:

-20m vertical on top of the car
-Random wire antenna +- 30m with mfj-16010 tuner at 5m high
-mobile whip 40m


Report:

My first attempt at activating the "zevenbergenbos" was on monday. I have tried for 2 hours to make enough contacts for a valid activation but failed. I could not stay longer since I had other plans.
In total I only made 18 qso's this day, things just didn't work out.
I used my good old 5m telescopic vertical on my car for 20m, and I tried to make a tuned random wire with the MFJ-16010 for 40m.

I put the random wire tuner on the roof of my car, with about 30m of wire connected to it, first 5m up and after just connected it to some trees. I tried to take a picture of it (in the qsl card) but the wire isn't really visible.
Tuning the wire was very easy, with 5W in FM, the SWR meter was flat.
A problem was that when I increase the power over 5W the FT857d turns itself off. I don't know why yet, SWR is perfect, but probably some RF is coming in somehow.

Since the activation was not completed on monday I went back on thursday.
I tried using a mobile whip first on 40m, but did not have succes with that. I heared a lot of portable stations but didn't manage to work many of them. Also calling CQ didn't really help.
I guess a 2m high vertical on a car that is not a perfect ground for 40m is not really the best idea.
After that I went to 20m, with my full lenght telescopic vertical on the roof of my car and things got better from there :)
On 20m I made about 70 qso's in 2 hours, with best DX W1OW.

Things to improve:
-Do more tests with the long wire tuner, and figure out where the problem with the radio that is switching off comes from
-Learn CW, 50W will get me much further in CW compared to using phone, I am working on this one.
-Make some counterpose wires for my car magnet mount, it might make performance on 20m even better, and definately performance on 40m
-work on a magnetic loop for 40m
-work on a really portable setup to operate in the park, and do some SOTA activations since not too many of the ONFF references have roads inside the activation area