I will be doing a new portable operation from 7th August until 11th August.
As usual I will be located at OK30to.
Working conditions will be the Buddihex from Buddipole as well as the FTDX 10 and the SPE Expert 1.3K-FA.
I hope to be able to work N5J but also work a lot of DX from this location which is much quieter than from home downtown HCMC.
See you then
My three last “portable at the beach” operation were made from a new house with a bigger garden next door to the previous house.
From 18th April until 21st April I went there for a new portable operation. I knew I would have the opportunity to contact new ones with better antenna condition / less noise especially 3G0YA which was starting its activity.
We arrived with my wife and kids at around 2pm on Thursday and I started to erect the antenna immediately. The 40°C makes it very hard to work on antennas but as usual I do not want to lose time.
I started with the 7 meters Mastwerks and then the Buddihex, it took around 1h15 minutes due to the need to take a few breaks and drink. I mounted 5 bands from 20m to 10m as 6m is not allowed here.
Then followed by the DX Commander classic only with 30m and 40m element.
I started to operate at 8.59 UTC (15.59 local time) with JH0QEV on 10m SSB and second contact with 5Z4APA Martin which was a nice surprise.
A bit later and as usual a nice contact with my friend Amir 4X6TT so we tried and made contact on 10m/12m/15m/17m while 20m did not work and we were not able to listen to each other.
Propagation was not really good and as usual during the day time it was very quiet. I was switching between SSB and CW.
As always while portable I go on 14.207 at 11.30 UTC for KE5EE net. No matter what I always hear Stan.
That Thursday night I had a good run on 15m with Europe and ended up the day with 238 contacts. I worked a few US / Canadian stations in the middle of the European such as K1XT, K5UR, VE3DOU, KR4I, KI2Y, K9PPY, K0JU, WA2BCK, K9SO, K9TRX, KC1AB and a few more. USA is always difficult from Vietnam.
The following day on Friday I managed to work A52CI on FT8 17m for a new one for me from Vietnam.
Then on 15m a bit later on SSB, 3G0YA, for a ATNO and immediately after TX7W for a new one from Vietnam as well on 12m FT8. Finally for a third contact in a row and a third new one I worked RI1ANE Antarctica on 17m CW.
On Friday night, again I worked KE5EE with AJ4EN and NK4R.
I ended the Friday with 240 contacts.
On Saturday I saw that my friend Fabien A92HK was spotted on 10m so went and said hi as I did not speak with him for quite some time. Fabien with his delta loop 3 elements was very strong (59+20db).
Nice contact with XX9CM which is not too common and who was strong here as well on 15m SSB with a good pile up.
Third evening with KE5EE and I managed to work a new one YN9H immediately followed by YN2N, Central America is VERY hard for me from Ho Chi Minh, almost impossible with the QRM.
Sunday morning, last day and very short time as I need to start putting down the antennas and the station at 10am local time (03.00 UTC).
First QSO of the day with 3G0YA on 10m SSB followed by TT8XX (Tchad) on 17m FT8 for a new one from Vietnam.
Then 3G0YA for a third slot on 12m FT8 and finally E6SP (Niue Island) on 10m FT8 for another new one from Vietnam.
Total of 689 contacts with 6 new ones during this activity, I was very happy with the result.
The Buddihex is still amazing me with such a portable antenna to be able to work some new ones with heavy pile up. It is always very hard to get through the Japanese wall or sometimes the EU wall when we are located in South East Asia.
Working conditions:
As you may know I face a lot of QRM from home with usually around S8 of noise on all bands. This is why I try to do portable at the beach as often as I can.
The location is around 2h30 drive from my home QTH. The benefits of this location is that there is absolutely no noise when beamed towards the sea from around 80 degres to 200 degres.
The noise goes up to S5/7 while beaming towards Europe.
My working conditions when I am portable are:
From this location I am able to discover real radio again, it is crazy to see how bands seems to be opened while at home it feels like they are always closed just because of noise. Without all this noise I can see that there is a lot of DX to work and it feels really like being in a different area. Pile ups seems bigger also due to the fact that I hear more stations with the low noise.
I will be portable again on 17th until 19th November.