Actually, we are in the process of pumping out the QSL card for our 2006 contest QSOs. The front side looks like this:

Not much is happening during the “winter break”. We finished 5th place in the German contest Trophy, and already received our certificate for that. DR5A will take part in the major VHF/UHF/SHF/MW contests from JO30EM as usual during 2007. Actually, the weather is much too warm and wet, but i am sure when March contest approaches, it will get cold, nasty, and snowy. Soon we will have our annual casual contest team meeting in a nice restaurant to forge new plans for the upcoming year, and I am sure some of our team will attend the Dorsten GHz-Tagung ro shake some hands of other fellow contesters.

I also updated the link on the sidebar to the OK2KKW contest news site to point to their new (and finally fast!) www.ok2kkw.com homepage.

While i am still waiting for our logs of that event, i already uploaded some pictures of the October 2006 UHF & Microwave Contest. Please check back regularly into that album, as more pictures will be added shortly.

The next (and for us: last) contest of this year is lying ahead: IARU region I UHF/SHF/microwave-contest. We will take part from the usual location in JO30EM featuring a new 2 m diameter dish for 23cm (200w power) and 13cm (40w power), and our usual 8×11el+700w for 70cm and 70cm dish+10w for 3cm. We hope for many nice QSOs to complete our VHF contest 2006 season, as we are normally omitting the November Marconi contest.

But this time, the October contest will not be our last visit to the JO30EM-site: At the last weekend of October parts of the NRCOCOS-Team will set up some HF antennas there and take part in the CQWW-SSB-DX contest as DR5A in die Multi/Single category, enjoying a sidekick from the VHF&up work :-).

The guys at OM3KHE again recorded our QSO in the September IARU VHF contest, and wow, we were really loud! :-)
Its nice to hear that from a point of view 904km away. For comparison: That is how they sounded at JO30EM.
Thank you for your recording! We hope too see you again in the October UHF contest.

For the first time, DR5A will use two separate turnable 4×9el antenna groups in September contest, effectively putting our old F9FT 9el antennas to good use. We will transmit on both antennas, and receive on one of them (selectable by foot switch). Receiving on both simultanously poses a too big risk of catching all that nasty QRM in September. Most likely one antenna will be devoted to G and F only, while the other is for QTF 0-180.

During his holidays in Sweden, Lars DF1LON visited the site of the famous SK7MW VHF&up contest station and took some impressive photos. We hope for many more contact with that guys on as many bands as possible.

The boys of OM3KHE again took an audio clip of us working them over a distance of 904km. Thank you very much, and we hope to get another one in September :->. Beside that, they also have other audio and video clips on their site.

Ouch. To be at home at 1700 local for the Germany-vs-Argentinia football match, we will start setting up the first antennas on friday rather early this time. When operating all our 5 bands in a contest, we have to set up the first stuff on friday to get everything up on time on saturday (we drive home again on friday evening and return to the site on saturday). Normally we meet at 1400 local on friday, but this time we will start before 1100 local to be finished with our preparatory work before the match starts. Strange world :-)

IO62 will be active during May contest on 144MHZ and 432MHz (at least). While it would be very nice to get that square in the log again on 2m, it would be a new one on 70cm. With around 900km distance, it is possible without doubt. Unfortunately, May is no good month to beam to G or EI, as there is no contest there in parallel to the other subregional ones. We will see.