2018 has been a rather slow year at SE0X with limited activity due to family and work commitments. Therefor it feels great that the few efforts are paying off! The results of CQ-160 and CQ-WPX brought the excitement levels up right in time for the contest season. Read more ›
Rewiring the station for IARU HF Championship. This year I am going to enter the Single Operator Unlimited CW High Power category with the goal so set a decent record. The station will be using only SDR, Software Defined Radio equipment, and at this moment preparation is in full force. Read more ›
This morning a nice surprise appeared in the mail. It seems like I had the highest combined CW + SSB score in SOAB HP Unassisted in the Scandinavian Activity Contest (SAC). Not an official category, but very nice plack för the wall. Thanks to the sponsor SM3EVR Tord Julander! Read more ›
CQ160 SSB is one of the most challenging phone contests. With thousands of operators sharing the narrow 160 meter band good filters and a lot of patience is crucial to survive this weekend while producing a respectable score. SM0MDG and SM0MLZ teamed up and logged on via remote to SE0X with the goal of breaking the Multi Operator SM record from 1995. How did it go? Read on to find out. Read more ›
The 2018 edition of the CQ160 CW provided lots of fun and SE0X broke the SM Record from 2004 in the Single Operator Low Power category. But right before the contest it looked like we had to cancel because of antenna problems. Full story follows, keep reading. Read more ›
After years of successfully keeping my Topband vertical in service during winter storms in costal environment my streak of luck has finally come to an end. This season alone I had more problems with the Topband vertical than in the past 10 years. Heres a quick recap of the so far very eventful season at SE0X. Read more ›
It seems like CQWW CW will be a single band effort! The Topband Vertical a SE0X didn’t even make it through the first storm of the season. This week it was discovered to be resting on the ground after a few days of rough weather with storm. One of the guy line supports didn’t hold up to the forces of nature. After 10 years of loyal service it decided it was time to give up. The antenna itself is in one piece but rather deformed. The FCP and loading coil is a mess. It will be a challenge to get it back up and into service before the CQ160 contest.
The skimmer receiver at SE0X has been offline a few weeks. Some of the local species find RG6 coaxial cable delicious. Our 100 meter coax was temporarily repaired this past winter after being chewed off. This summer when replacing the coax, I found deep cuts caused by animals in several places were the coax crosses trails.
The new coax now cross these trails inside a rubber hose which hopefully will protect the coax a little better. Protecting your expensive coax against the wild life is definitely something to if your station is in the woods. Luckily the SE0X skimmer is located away from the main station. At SE0X wild life is limited to birds, fish and the occasional fox who doesn’t mind a swim.
Skimmer spots are being reported to the Reverse Beacon Network by SE0X and can been seen here.
Challenged by the QRM picked up by my omni directional active RX vertical when trying to work TL8TT on Topband, I decided it was time for a directional RX antenna pointing south in addition to my N/W and N/E Pennants. I had a transformer and termination resistors collecting dust so I decided to throw out some wire to make a short BOG, Beverage On Ground. Since I didn’t have any proper common mode chokes at hand I just wound about 10-12 turns of the coax around a FT-240-31 core. How does this quick fix compare with a proper RF choke? Read more ›