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.
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.
Meeting Stephan, DG1BGS, in Singapore. He is moving to Singapore in 2018 and will apply for a 9V license.
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.
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!
After replacement of my 80/40 m trap dipole with the G5RV antenna, I made some measurements. The antenna has a height of 12 m at the center, and is hanging as an inverted V with both ends still 4 to 5 meter above ground. The symmetric feeder line is connected via a 1:1 balun to 12.9 m 50 Ohm coaxial cable.
Just finished the Worked All Europe DX Contest (WAEDC) in CW. It was my first participation as a non-European station using my vanity callsign 4E1A in the single operator low power class. Only contacts to European stations are allowed, and you can sent telegrams (QTCs) to them to earn additional points. Poor propagation conditions made it very difficult this year. On the 40 m band there was a lot of noise due to lightening (QRN), and I could only make 3 contacts (QSOs). Nevertheless, it was fun to participate again after more than 25 years (!) ago 1991 under my German call sign DK4TB.
Finally, with the help of PARA, I received the vanity call sign 4E1A. Will use it for the first time during the upcoming All Asian DX Contest CW contest.
