Newsticker

Feb. 1st 2004
The QSL cards are printed and will send first to all who has sent us a card directly.
The Kerkennah Award is also printed and will send out next week.

Daily news  (see also photos in the album)
Last update: Dec.11th, 05am

Dec. 11th
We are preparing the QSL and the Award. It will be ready to send out in Jan 2004. Be a bit patient, please.

Nov. 29/30th
The CW operators are working in the CQWW contest. Condx are fair, but a  bit Aurora at sunday evening in northern europa.
Mr. Murphy was everywhere at other contest teams. Our wireless CT network and the CT software are working excellent without any problems.
At the end we will have raw result of about 23.5 Mio. points. We are very happy about that success, because we are a DXpdition and had to build up all our antennas and equipment for that purpose.

Nov. 28th
After the stormy yesterday we had bright sunshine with calm wind today. Temperatur is 23 Celsius.The right weather to prepare everything  for the contest.
First we took down spiderbeam 1 to repair the 20m reflector. Then we assembled our second Spiderbeam to put it up at operation site 2.
It works excellent. In the afternoon we changed some installation with the computers and the stations to make the two sites ready for the contest.
The network is connected with the DX cluster via internet now.
We have 6 running operators and 2 Multi operators. Each of us has to make 2 hours of running and two hours at the multiplier station.
Then we can rest for 2 hours or 4 hours.
After Dinner we will instruct all ops to all stations. We plan to start operating at 160 and 80m. If you hear us, please put us into the DX cluster. Thanks!
These news will be the last ones before the contest. After the contest we will give you a short resumee.
Thanks to all of you working us, sometimes under bad circumstances. Thanks also to the Tunisian Scouts and the ASTRA. We enjoyed our stay here on the wonderful island of Kerkennah with his friendly people and their great hospitality. We recommend you to make your vacation here in hotel Cercina or hotel Residence Club. 

Nov. 27th
We apologize to all of you because we have problems to receive weak stations on 80m and 160m due to man made noise from a powerline nearby.
We hear stations calling us but cannot read the calls. Today we built another receiving antenna and we hope to have solved the problem a bit.
Preparations for the CQWW contest next weekend started. We have to move some equipment and antennas between our two operation sites.
But the wireles network is working fine. 
Some of our group visited the city of Sfax on the mainland today. We have to go with the ferry 1,5 hours. But unfortunately most of the shops were closed due to the religious holiday of Aid.
Weather was sunny but strong winds with beaufort 7 is blowing constantly from SW.
This morning we worked some Westcoast stations on 40m and VK/ZL on the LP. 10m was not so good as yesterday.

Nov. 26th
The strong winds yesterday (7-8 bft) demaged some antennas. Today we had to fixed it while the wind was still blowing strong.
Nice condx on 20m LP to JA and VK/ZL in the morning on 20m. 
We start to plan the contest installation for the WWDX next weekend. We will take part in M2 and we will have two running stations on two operation sites connected with WLAN. The WLAN is operating excellent now. Thanks to Manfred, DK1BT and Rein, PA0R. 
Our QSO-Counter is near 40.000 today. 

Nov. 25th
Volkmar, DF2SS and Willy, HB9AHL left us after one week of hard works on antennas and pileups. 
Also our good team souls Jutta and her daughter Sonja, Andy's family, are on the way home. Thanks to all of them!
This afternoon Hermann, HB9CRV arrived and will take part with us in the WWDX contest.
Weather changed today to rain and heavy winds. Our wireless network is working now. Thanks to Rein and Manfred.
Condx are very good on 10m today. First time west coast W6/W7 with good signals.
Since this morning our internet access is not working. So you will find this news updated tomorrow probably.

Nov. 24th
A surprising 6m opening yesterday evening. Worked 150 Europeans in SSB and CW.
Yesterday we put another 6000 QSOs to our log!
Today we had a sightseeing tour over the island with a little bus.We visited some really lovely places of this flat island.
People are very friendly here and we enjoy her hospitality.
In the afternoon we tried to install our wireless LAN to the second shack. Will continue tomorrow.
Tomorrow ends the Ramadan with celebration the Aid. This is a great holiday in islamic countries.

Nov. 23rd
We started with PSK31 and SSTV today.
Huge pileups on all bands. Good signals from JA today. NA was a bit weak.
On 80 and 160 high noise levels. Thats the reason why we couldn't hear any JA and W tonight.
20m is closing rather early. 30m is open all night.
At 9am we logged QSO no. 20.000!
Condx remain on a good level.
Weather: Blu sky, no clouds, temp 25 Celsius. We enjoy our stay here at hotel Cercina.

Nov. 22nd
We finished the station and antenna setup.
Running with 6 stations in parallel now. Never ending pileups on all bands.
We got a visit from Mr. Murphy this night: The tide was higher than exspected and layed down our V160.
It is fixed now for the next runs this night.
These are our antennas:
160m: V160 and another vertical 21m high
80m: V160 and 4square vertical
40m: 4sqare vertical, 3el vertical beam, HF9V
30m: HF9V, Inverted Vee
20m: Spiderbeam, Hexbeam
17m: Hexbeam, Optibeam 4-2WARC
15m: Spiderbeam, Hexbeam
12m: Optibeam 4-2WARC, Hexbeam
10m:  Spiderbeam, Hexbeam
6m: 4el Konni beam
Condx improved this morning after some blackouts tonight.
Weather is excellent: Bright sunshine and 23 Celsius.

Nov. 21st
Also a very busy day. 
We set up another vertical for 80m, a 4-square for 40m, a 3el vertical beam for 40m and a receiving ant for 160.
Running with 4 stations in parrallel now and will in the air with 6 stations during the weekend.
This afternoon we started our RTTY operation on 15m.
Condx have beeen poor during the nigth caused by some magnetic disturbance and havy QRN on low bands, but increased in the morning. 
Worked some JAs and ZL via LP on 30m this morning.
Weather is also getting nice with bright sunshine and 22 Celsius. The wind is calm.
Please excuse some inconveniance caused by our new tunisain operators. We are teaching the in running pile-ups!
This evening and tonight we will set the focus on JA and other DX.
We wish you a pleasant weekend and don't worry if you could not work us until now. We will be here until Dec. 1st

Nov. 20th
In the mornig: After the first night of runinng with 3 Stations on 30m, 40 and 15m we start to build up verticals for 80/40/160 at the second shack.
We had some problem with the V160 and hope to fix it today.
Weather conditions: Overcast, light rain showers, temp 18 Celsius.
In the afternoon: The HEXBeam is up and the V160 operates  now. 
We got a visit from Mr. Murphy: see Album

Nov. 19th
After having breakfast at 7am we started to put up the antennas: 
1. The 4el  Konni beam for 6m. QRV at 10am.
2. The Butternut HF9V. QRV on 10m at 11am
3.The Spiderbeam. QRV at 2pm
4. The Optibeam 4-2WARC. QRV at 4pm
5. The Titanex V160E. QRV at ? 

Nov. 18th
We arrived at our QTH in the late evening. After Dinner we went to sleep at midnight.