The 2018 International Friendship Exchange (INFEX) and DX Contest took place on Feb 17th, 2018. DX1ACE participated from the National High School Dasmariñas.
INFEX 2018 – DX1ACE
80/40/30 m Dipole
For the lower bands I am using a 40/80 m trap dipole. In order to become qrv on 30 m, I added a radiation coupled lambda/2 element for 30 m, using 10 cm spreader. After cutting the additional wire to the right length, the resonance on 30 m is exactly at 10.1 MHz. The additional element has no influence on the resonance for 40 and 80 m, but the impedance on 30 m is with 150 Ohm significant higher than 50 Ohm.
Visit 4F1AR Ali
VHF/UHF Repeater in District 1 Philippines
I just installed a VHF/UHF antenna in Tagaytay, and tried to find a list of relay stations. It is quite difficult at the moment, most of the information found in the web was outdated. Here a short list of repeaters, I can access.
Bread Baking Gallery
I am baking my own bread for years already, but in the past I did it mainly with a bread baking machine using commercial yeast. In September 2017 I started my own sourdough, and over the last couple of months the breads became better and tastier. End of November 2017 I bought a kitchen machine, so that I can knead the dough with the machine. Important for a good bread is a slow fermentation of the dough. Usually it takes at least 16 to 24 hours from the first dough to the final loaf.
Spider beam in wind gusts
My spider beam is up for one year now in Tagaytay. Unfortunately we have a lot of wind here, and the element wires of the beam started tangling.
I can only get it down in March or April, to check and bring some more tension to the lines and wires.
Visit of Stephan DG1BGS
Meeting Stephan, DG1BGS, in Singapore. He is moving to Singapore in 2018 and will apply for a 9V license.
Linear Loaded Dipole for 20 m
As the propagation conditions getting worse for 15 m and 17 m, I extended my linear loaded dipole on both sides by 1.8 m in order to cover the 20 m band. SWR is ok without modification of the 1 : 4 transformation line.
Will see, how it works in the upcoming CQWW DX CW contest.
WAEDC CW Result 2017
CQ WW DX SSB contest 2017
My first participation in this contest. Would have preferred the CW part, but we will not be here end of November. Decided to enter the classic, non-assisted, single operator class for 20 m band only.
Propagation conditions were not bad. 77 DXCC entities, 31 CQ zones and 411 contacts result in a raw score of 121 thousand. Quite satisfied with the result!