The NTC QSO party from Spain, EA/PG4I

A few days before the QSO party we arrived in Llanes on the north coast of Spain. I brought along a small trusdx transceiver (QRP-5W), a palm mini paddle and a loaded vertical for 40 meters with 2 radials on a 12m Spiderbeam pole. 45 minutes before the QSO party I set up my station. Made a first QSO with SM/DL3JJ/P from near Stockholm and almost worked a OZ station but QSB was to strong. Then I did a quick CQ which showed RBN spots from PA, DL, F, G and CT. So things were looking good!

At 19:00 UTC the skies darkened and I needed to take a break because of the rain coming in. Then a first QSO at 19:08 with Dali OK2BVX, 559 reports. In the next 50 minutes I contacted 6 Dutch stations: Frank PA7F, Theo PA3HEN, Rene PA3GPX, Carel PA0CMU, Marcel PA3HEB and Wim PA0VAM. Also worked Andy DK9HE from France and Vanni I5ECW, being my last QSO. The QSOs with Marcel and Wim took a while to complete because of my weak signal. 9 contacts in total, I was surprised that it worked so well!

Evening activation of Everdingerwaard PAFF-0261

Purpose of this activation was to test a loaded 40 meter vertical of 7 meters long with 2 radials on a 10 meter Spiderbeam pole. I also brought a 5-band trusdx transceiver, being curious how it would behave on a band with strong signals.

PAFF-0261 at the river Lek

I was QRV around 18 UTC for 45 minutes and called CQ all of the time with about 5 Watts output. The results: 23 contacts with OM1AX being the best DX at 1050 km. One 2-way QRP QSO with HB9DAX and a park2park QSO with SP2BMX. Experiment successful!