The DFØWA contest station started
to grow in 2002,
when we took the opportunity to install some antennas for the
CQWW contests in portable style at the farm of DG4BUL/Ulrichs`s father in
Scheidegg/Allgaeu, southern germany.
The QTH (JN47VN) is about 950m asl
and has especially clear takeoffs into eastern and western directions. The
border to Austria is only some few hundred metres away, therefore this is
probably the southermost contest station in Germany!
We could use a room in one of the farm`s barns and now call it our shack. In
2003
a lot of work was done to install a room, which can stand the rough
climatic conditions. (During DARC 10m-Contest it was -15 Celcius outside and not
much warmer inside!)
From 2002 to 2003 I used
homebrew monoband Yagis for 10m & 15m. See antenna
projects for details.
In 2004
I decided to invest into new
antennas... since end of September the Big Lift holds a 4ele SteppIR
and a Cushcraft XM240 above it.
This is maybe too much for the tower, but during high winds the tower will stay
down. (pray to heaven for no storm during every contest...)
The equipment normally consists of an IC781 & Alpha99 and a IC765 &
Alpha78. SO2R-switching is done by ZS4TX Super Combo Keyer (SCKII) in combination with Win-Test,
the best logging software on earth!
Antenna summary:
160m: invL with 2 elevated radials between trees
80m: Dipole @30m hanging between trees
40m: XM240 @19m
20m: 4ele SteppIR @17m, A3S @12m
15m: 4ele SteppIR @17m, A3S @12m
10m: 4ele SteppIR @17m, A3S @12m
2m: 2x7ele @12m
70cm: 19ele @14m
