DARC Xmas Contest 2006

For years, the Xmas contest has virtually been my only ham radio activity. This year, after I had to take down the antenna in my parents’ yard, I put up the 40m part of a 80/40m dipole in the attic of my flat in Saarbrücken. The first tests were satisfying so I drove back to Saarbrücken for December 26th.

The contest started nice with a S9+50 signal from DR5S - of course DOK Q10 meant it was just very close. Unfortunately, things turned out much worse. The antenna wasn't as matched as I had hoped and I had to put my small MFJ tuner in. But, whatever I would tune to, the 1:1 would only withstand some second of transmission and I had to retune. The 1:1 there would pop back up, and I had to retune back to the original settings. GOTO 10.

After a bit more than one hour I gave up. The final log is here:

I don't know where the fault was, in the TRX, the tuner, or the antenna. I hope it is not the TRX.

• Afu