DIARY AND PHOTOS 2014-02-13-- 2014-06-29

2014-02-13

Work at SI9AM

The first day of work on SI9AM.

This Thursday SM3ESX/Christer and SM3FJF/Jörgen visited SI9AM, the Visitor´s Amateur Radio Station and checked the radio equipment and did the software updates in the computers.

They also did some work with structuring the log files from different logging programs. The ended the afternoon with some cleaning work.

2014-02-22 -- 2014-02-24

Guestvisitors ON5RZ/Raf and and his brother in law Bert

Friday, February 21

ON5RZ/Raf and his brother in law Bert arrives to Sundsvall on Friday. They were warmly welcome to Sundsvall by SM3JOS/René and his XYL Kerstin. They had dinner and stayed over the night with René and Kerstin.

Saturday, February 22

On Saturday it was "Ice fishing" on a lake outside Sundsvall and on Saturday night they visited “Fjällräven Arena” in Örnsköldsvik where the Swedish Television arranges “Melodifestivalen”, the Swedish selection for the Eurovision Song Contest.

At midnight ON5RZ/Raf and Bert arrived to SI9AM in Utanede.

Sunday, February 23

The boys visited the city of Östersund to see how it look likes in the winter and in the afternoon they travelled around in Ragunda.

Monday, February 24

On Monday morning the boys made a stop and have coffee on the SM3FJF Jørgen's work in Sundsvall's Centre. Then they travelled to Stockholm for the afternoon fly back to Belgium.

2014-03-09

Board meeting via Skype

Present during the meeting:

SM3EFS, SM3FJF, SM3ESX, SM3LIV, SM3CER, SM3EAE, SM3BQC, SM3GDT, SM3TIR, SM3PXO

Following was discussed/reported during the meeting:

• Reports:

Previous meeting minutes

ON5RZ/Raf – 2014-02-22 – 2014-02-24

• Economy:

Economic report until February

• Work planning:

Activity list

• Decisions:

Paying Mobile broadband

• Reservations:

SA2YLM/Maria, SA2AWO/Mats and SA0BYP/Palle during CQ WPX SSB

• Other questions:

Thanks to SM3EFS for the gift - WSPR

• Next meeting:

2014-03-22 after the annual meeting

2014-03-22

Annual meeting and Board Meeting

at SI9AM

Notice to the Annual Meeting

The date for the Annual Meeting was decided a long time ago and the notice to the Annual Meeting were sent out by mail and were also on our website.

Place and time

This year, we once again had chosen Holmstagården for the meeting and time was 11:00 local time.

Morning coffee

We started at 09.30 with coffee and sandwich.

Skype-QSO

At 10:45 ON6UQ/Marcel was online via Skype. Marcel expressed his best wishes to SI9AM annual meeting and talked about the great opportunity to visit SI9AM in Utanede.

Welcome

At about eleven a' clock the annual meeting started. SM3FJF/Jörgen wished everyone welcome and showed a short slide show on different activities where SM3CVM/Lars participated during the recent years (SM3CVM/Lars silent key 2013-10-22).

Chariman for the meeting

To chairman for the annual meeting we elected SM3GHE/Nils and to secretary we elected SM3ESX/Christer.

Reports over the past year

SM3GHE/Nils presented to activity report for 2013 and SM3FJF/Jörgen thanked all well done in 2013. SM3LIV/Ulla presented the annual report for 2013.

Elections

New Chairman of SI9AM elected SM3FJF/Jörgen, Deputy Chairman elected SM3ESX/Christer, the secretary was elected SM3PXO/Petter, treasurer elected SM3LIV/Ulla. Other members of the board are SM3CER/Janne, SM3YKF/Kent, SM3JBO/Bo, SM3WMU/Tomas, SM3GHE/Nils, SA3BPE/Henrik and SM3GDT/Hans

The annual meeting ended

The annual meeting ended with SM3FJF/Jörgen thanked for the confidence to become the President for SI9AM

Lunch

At noon, we made a break for lunch.

Board meeting

During the meeting following was discussed/reported:

Reports:

Previous meeting minutes

HS0DZY - fellows

Economy:

The membership fee

Work planning:

Going throw the Activity list

Work day May 17th

Work day August 29 – Repair Spiderbeam

Decisions:

Member of qrz.com

Reservations:

SA2YLM/Maria, SA2AWO/Mats and SA0BYP/Palle during CQ WPX

Other questions:

Friedrichshafen

Internet

Next meeting:

2014-05-07

Present during the Annual Meeting and the Board Meeting

SM3EFS/Lennart, SM3ESX/Christer, SM3EXM/Erik, SM3FJF/Jörgen, SM3GDT/Hans, SM3GHE/Nils, SM3LIV/Ulla, SM3YKF/Kent, SA3ALO/Lars-Erik, SM3TIR/Sven, SM3EAE/Lars

Via Skype: SM3PXO/Petter, SA3BPE/Henrik

Present in the radio room at SI9AM

Fredrik, Robin and Christina

2014-03-28 -- 2014-03-30

Guest operators SA2YLM/Maria, SA2AWO/Mats and SAØBYP/Palle, was running the CQ World-Wide WPX Contest SSB from SI9AM

Friday 28:th of March

At midday, SA2YLM/Maria and SA2AWO/Mats arrives at SI9AM in Utanede.

At the same time, SAØBYP/Palle arrives in Njurrunda to meet up with SM3FJF/Jörgen.

Palle and Jörgen visit the "Rail road café" for a cup of coffee and a "semla".

When the delicious "semla" is gone, a visit at Jörgens house is on the schedule. Some discussions about radio is done in the shack.

At 3 pm, Palle joins the other at SI9AM in Utanede.

Saturday 29:th of March -- Sunday 30:th or March CQ WPX Contest SSB

Good conditions for radio contest.

But to run a 48 hour contest on 3 operators is a challenge.

SA2YLM/Maria did combine her radio operating skills with the kitchen skills during this weekend.

In total the team managed to get 1316 QSO:s in the log.

CQWW WPX Contest, SSB

Call: SI9AM

Operators: SA2YLM, SA2AWO, SAØBYP

Station: SI9AM

Class: M/S HP

QTH: Utanede

Operating Time (hrs): 45

Summary:

Band QSOs

------------

160:        0

80:      152

40:      168

20:      591

15:      373

10:        32

------------

Total: 1316

Prefixes = 636

Total Score = 1,324,788

Club: SI9AM

Monday 31:th of March

Monday morning... Even harder than a normal Monday morning. Running the contest into early morning causes a tired body.

Cleaning of SI9AM was on the schedule. Upload of logs. Soon it's time to start the long way home.

Everything has worked over expectations and 100% of the time.

We are now looking forward to the next visit at SI9AM.

2014-04-04

A Working day at SI9AM

The second work day this year

This Friday SM3EFS/Lennart, SM3ESX/Christer and SM3FJF/Jörgen went to SI9AM to continue the work with the radio equipment and software updates in the computers. They arrived at 10.00 and started with a cup of coffee and a cake.

Weak Signal Propagation Report - WSPR

After the coffee break they began to install a WSPR transmitter which SM3EFS/Lennart had built and donated to SI9AM. There was a hole in the wall earlier, but it was too small so they had to drill it out more. Now they could use the hole for the feeder from the GPS antenna and place the antenna outside the wall. Then they were ready to test WSPR unit. Output power 200 mW and after few minutes SI9AM was QRV from 80-40-30-20-15-10 meters.

Follow the wave propagation

Follow the wave propagation live on http://wsprnet.org/drupal/wsprnet/map

Do this:

1. Under the map write SI9AM in the box "Call"
2. In the box "Band" select "ALL"
3. In the box  "Time Period", select the time interval that you want to look backwards.
4. Check the box "Day/Night Overlay" to get the day and night on the map.
5. Under the map press "UPLOAD"

Thanks for the gift!

Many thanks Lennart for the nice gift to SI9AM and that you now have placed SI9AM on the world map for wave propagation from Utanede. The antenna for the WSPR is a FD4 Windom multiband antenna. Then it was time for lunch.

Wireless internet

After lunch SM3EFS/Lennart and SM3FJF/Jörgen checked if there was any possibilities to wireless internet access to SI9AM. A neighbor to SI9AM is willing to sponsor SI9AM with internet but we need external antennas to get acceptable signal strength.

Spiderbeam

Meanwhile SM3ESX/Christer checked the cables behind the radio stations and connected them to the ground. After than we read the manual for the Spiderbeam to see what spare parts we need to repair the broken Spiderbeam.

Computer logging

We have used several different logging programs and we tried to structure the log files.

Spring cleaning

The afternoon ended with a spring cleaning.

Thanks for this time

Next time we have a working day we will check the cables outside at the antenna mast.

2014-05-01 -- 2014-05-07

SI9AM activities associated with

SF3HF radio camp at Hemsö Fortress

Background

The 2 to 5 May 2014 SK3BG, Sundsvall Radio Amateurs arranged a radio camp at Hemsö fortress on Hemsön, north of Härnösand (IOTA EU-087). The signal was SF3HF. A short-time award was issued and besides SF3HF you had do work SK3BG and SI9AM.

Thursday, May 1

On Thursday SM3FJF/Jörgen and SM5SIC/Göran went up to Utanede to prepare working QSOs for the award.

Friday, May 2

Friday, May 2 they updated the log program. They also discovered a bad connection in a coaxial cable, which was fixed by SM5SIC/Göran. Then they began to work with callsign SI9AM and there were several who needed the callsign to later apply for the award.

In the afternoon they made a visit at Krångede Hydro electric Powerplant Museum and met Sune Gissler who guided them around the museum. SM3FJF/Jörgen needed material for a forthcoming advertising and needed information and pictures.

On Friday afternoon, SM5SIC/Göran went to Hemsö fortress to participate in the radio camp SF3HF. SM3FJF/Jörgen continued to work from SI9AM. In the evening SM3VRG/K-G visited SI9AM on his way home to Östersund.

During Friday and Saturday SM3FJF/Jörgen at times had pile-up on 40 and 80 meters from radio amateurs who wanted to get the SF3HF award.

Saturday to Wednesday

On Saturday afternoon SM3TLG/Hans arrived and SM3FJF/Jörgen went home. Hans continued to activate SI9AM for the SF3HF award until Sunday evening. Hans stayed until Wednesday, May 7 and was QRV on the bands.

Summing-up

Totally about 450 QSOs were worked from SI9AM for the SF3HF award.

SM3TLG/Hans worked another 350 QSOs and Hans also worked from three SMFF areas near Utanede.

Quote from our guestbook May 2014

“I can highly recommend that you rent a place at SI9AM! Moreover, there are still many un-worked SMFF areas here in eastern Jämtland!"

73/44 de Hans – SM3TLG”

2014-06-14

SI9AM Working meeting and

board meeting

On Saturday 14th June we had a working meeting on SI9AM which ended with a board meeting. It was a great participation with 12 hams on place in Utande.

From FRO Sollefteå: SM3GHE/Nils, SA3CNC/Robin and SA3CNW/Fredrik

From SK3JR: SM3TIR/Sven and SM3EAE/Lasse and SM3VLC/Tomas with YL Ana

From SK3BG: SM3BQC/Arne, SM3EFS/Lennart, SM3ESX/Christer, SM3FJF/Jörgen and

From SSA:DL3 SM3GDT/Hans

During the board meeting SM3CER/Janne participated via SKYPE

During the work meeting following was done:

• We discussed and checked what parts we had to order before we can go on with  repairing the Spiderbeam
• We dismounted the parabolic antenna, which we have had mounted on the roof to the entrance building of the Thai Pavilion
• Then we mounted the parabolic antenna on the wall outside SI9AMs window, in the direction to a nearby neighbor who has promised to assist us a wireless internet connection. Some more work remains before everything will be ready.
• SM3FJF Jorgen showed how the new SI9AM brochures will look like
• DL3 SM3GDT/Hans and SM3EFS/Lennart planned for SI9AMs marketing on the International Exhibition for Radio Amateurs in Friedricshafen June 26 to 29

At the Board meeting following was discussed:

• SI9AMs participation at the Radio Museum in Kälarne Saturday, July 5
• Bookings on SI9AM during  summer and autumn 2014
• QSL 
• Open house at SI9AM July 19

2014-06-27 -- 2014-06-29

Ham Radio convention in Friedrichshafen

The 38th edition of Ham Radio in Friedrichshafen in Germany took place in June 27-29, 2014. There were hams and other interested from 31 countries who had travelled to Friedrichshafen to attend Europe´s largest amateur radio exhibition with 203 exhibitors and about 14 800 visitors.

SSA, Swedish Amateur Radio Society, was one of the exhibitors and SM3GDT/Hans and SM3EFS/Lennart took the opportunity to answer questions  andtell the visitors everything about SI9AM.