Category Archives: General

One year since last post

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And a lot happened in the past year. After 6 years in Bangkok (HS0ZLE) and 6 years in Vietnam (XV9Q, XB9BPO) we finally came back to live in France with my wife and 2 kids. We arrived on December 22nd. We were installed in Geneva for the first 3 months and then moved in a house beginning of March next to Swiss boarder.

Thanks to the help of F8KCF, Annemasse Ham club, I was able to mount an Ultrabeam VL2.3 which I had in the boxes new since Thailand (more than 8 years) on my Prosistel Mast at currently 10.5m above the ground.

The station has improved also. As soon as I arrived in France I bought a Power Genius XL to have the full Flex/4O3A line for SO2R.

Current working conditions are:

  • Flex 8600 (Flex 6600 as well)
  • Maestro C
  • Tuner Genius XL 2×2
  • Power Genius XL 2kw
  • Antennas:
    • Ultrabeam VL2.3 @ 10.5m above the ground
    • DX Commander Classic with 80m i/o 30m which is covered by the UB VL2.3
  • Antenna Genius 8×2

This has helped me improved drastically my DXCC count as I added around 49 new DXCC from France reaching now 249.

When I arrived in France in December 2024 I had in my log around 3000 QSOs overall from France while having my license since 1997. Which means only a few contacts were made while living in France. I am almost reaching 10,000 now thus 7,000 QSOs were added in the past 9 months.

I have been working on a few projects since I am now in France such as a program I have been developing lately and which I will discuss in a separate post. Also the CQ WW SSB is coming in a week and I will do it with a new Contest team TM3P, I will also discuss about it later.

Poor Propagation

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It is very difficult to work European stations in SSB due to my poor working conditions.

I am currently mainly using the inverted V dipole as it is the one giving the best results both in rx and tx.

I had a good opening on 7th September and I could log 94 stations on 20M.

Hope to work more SSB in the coming weeks.

Finally back on air

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Finally after such a long time I am able to go back on the air.

Indeed, I ordered a Baby Loop from Ciro Mazzoni more than a year ago but it could be sent only to France.

It took a very long time for me to find a way to ship it from France to Vietnam.

Due to covid situation the shipping costs were also very high.

Since 1st June I am active on the air.

My working conditions are quite modest as the Baby Loop, despite the fact it is a good antenna, will not allow me to be heard the same way I was with my Optibeam OB9-5 from Thailand.

Mainly active on FT8 for the time being and starting all DXCC from scratch.

I will confirm QSL only through Lotw and probably EQSL.cc

I do not think I will print a QSL card this time unless some people request it.

Hope to catch you on the air in FT8, CW or SSB.