Hi to all!

After 1 year off, I resumed my radio activity with great satisfaction. Thanks to friends who were close to me at this time.

I completed the arrangement of the new station, which now includes an ICOM IC-710H and a Kenwood TS2000.

The whole station is controlled by software, the transmitters are connected to the PC with its own IP address, thanks to that wonderful program called HAM RADIO DELUXE.

The next project is the modification of the rotor controls to interface them to HRD.

IZ3BUG ... still running under the water ... !!

Thanks to the help of my little daughter, Martina/IZ3BUG...(!), this evening I had the possibility of talking to my collegues from Rodriguez Island 3B9EME. A lot of QRM, some natural noise plus some disturb from Europe but after the second call... IZ3..UG, pls repeat again.. the other stations stand by, please.... This is the second QSO, first was on 17 mts, the second on 40 mts: I hope to have the fortune to catch them on the other bands.
The vertical GAP is always a great antenna! As soon as possible I release the photos of Martina, my little partner in that moments

Experiments in local path

This is my place to have fun, I will not dwell on to describe the components of the station because you can find them in any store. A few nights this becomes a place where meeting friends and people I have never met, with whom I would like to have a chat. It is not always possible because the propagation does not meet my schedule, so It happens to make QSOs with close friends, trying to find a bit of fun in the testing of various frequency bands: a few days ago, in QSO with Ettore IZ3ZVO we tried the bands from 10 to 40 meters, and found that in the summer the 15 meters are also perfect for short-distance connections: obviously in the absence of propagation. With the new Hexbeam installed we did not make any experiments but I think the performances will be definitely better.

Greetings to those who read me, see you soon.

Belgian ops ON5JT, ON6QO, ON4CCP, ON4LEM and ON8VP will be active from Market Reef (EU-053) between July 1-6, 2013 as OJØV. QRV on HF – SSB & CW.

QSL via ON8VP to the bureau

Beautiful DX Speditionbut unfortunately between my station and Market Reef there is a mountain of 2200 meters above sea level, just to the north, the base of the mountain is 400 meters from my station .... I had a hard time connecting it in various bands, I listened well on the HF bands but the pile-up and the impossibility of "beaming" to Northern Europe were insurmountable obstacles. However, in the 20-meter vertical antenna was fitted with high signal. 

Congratulations to the Belgian team for their professionalism and patience with all the operators.

A quiet evening listening to the radio .... suddenly enters my little Julia, telling me: "Dad, do you hear the Martians.... I would like to hear the martians... me and Martina, yes?" - "Sure little Giula,  but you should wear headphones so you can hear them better ...!" After ten long minutes of listening to 20 meters, "Dad, Martina is very happy now, figured out how to speak the Martians!""Ok Julia, you want me to try to talk to them?" - " Yes dad, please. ". I call on 20 meters and find a gentle Tuscan operator, I explain the family situation, he laughs and tells me that he has children, not worry about the "QRM family"!
 Julia tells me that she is happy that the Martians speak Italian .... thought to be more difficult ....! Martina then she started to "beat" with the vertical keyer , and between a "sound of CW" and that the Martians who spoke we have endedd  the evening.

Of course the day after Giulia asked me to talk to the  inhabitants of the moon,  they are  much closer to us......!

Yesterday evening, I have had great satisfaction with the new antenna hexbeam. I talked to Saint Lucia Island, the United States and Japan in 15, 17 and 20 meters. Then I went up to 10 meters and.... Central America listened well with good signals. I'm having fun with the same desire to make radio as ten years ago. Then I made a QSO with Kuwait and with a colleague on a flight to India on 15 meters. This antenna is giving me a lot of satisfaction, paying me for the effort made to install the trellis and all changes made to the mechanical.
Good day to all and good DX!

Spring in Cadore, Dolomites

This is the view from my terrace in a beautiful sunny day. Do not miss anything! When I get up in the morning I hear the birds chirping, squirrels arguing in the treetops, near the creek with flowing water. Even today will be a beautiful day, I think to myself. Two hundred meters from my house there are beautiful deer and fallow deer, a few days will begin to warm and the mushroom season. Good day to all!

Finally .... ! Saturday and Sunday, thanks to my friend Ettore IZ3ZVO and to the  final shot of Enrico IK3HHV, we were able to install the Hexbeam of SP7IDX (http://sp7idx-hexbeam.eu). I posted some photos of the result, I must say very charming.

Picture from the ground

Two days incredibly stressful, with thunderstorms and lightning, so we climbed on the roof "part-time" and only on Sunday afternoon we finished at 17.00, just 5 minutes before to come down the last lightening .... the first tests, the antenna has a low noise to a good gain when compared with the vertical GAP, in fact with only 100W in full pile-up I reached the Cameroon with a real SR of 5/9 with QRM. In the evening I did just listening, always taking as reference the Gap Titan, I'm really happy with this new antenna.

The antenna is mounted about 8 meters from the roof and 20 meters above the ground, the next evening, after work and after playing with my girls, I hope that the propagation is at a good level so as to do some tests.

The only problem we had was in the assembly, the antenna is sold as a "plug & play", has no reference measurements, and we had a bit of difficulty because the first barrel of fiberglass did not have the correct measurements, we have repeated the distances between the loop and at the end, with the drafting of the wire loop .... we had to change everything. I need to send an email to Waldi to report this problem, when you are on top of a roof, , very tight, it is not easy to do stunts!!
In any case, the antenna is very well built, has a dress very professional and the explanations are very clear, I have to congratulate for the excellent workmanship, Waldi.

From the roof, impressive!

Rainbow of hope (of sun)

Just before the last efforts....                                                                      

Last thing, I was amazed by the values ​​of SWR, a slight peak on average 1.1 to 1.4 on 15 meters and the thing I liked most ... from 49 to 51 ohms impedance with total J practically zero!

So thanks to everyone, now I will keep you informed of the evidence on the amateur bands and the DX that I can do.

Hello, George

After a long, long winter with feet of snow, finally the Dolomites have some sun and this will allow me to install the antenna on the roof of the house HEXBEAM produced by SP9IDX, Waldi, customized to suit my needs. I am very curious to verify the performance of this antenna, my current set-up includes an antenna vertical GAP TITAN DX and a vertical bands 40/80/160 meters by IT9ZMX. The GAP TITAN works fine but I was curious to try this particular antenna, especially for directional antenna characteristics, of low noise so high S / N ratio. My philosophy is the continuous search for new solutions, especially low noise this antenna seems to meet my expectations. The HexBeam has always intrigued me but I was very doubtful about the mechanical seal and life expectations , after the appropriate checks and feedback from other fellow amateur radio operators, particularly those who live in climates similar to mine, I decided to buy it. Probably I will install the Hexbeam Saturday the 8th June with my friend Ettore IZ3ZVO, new entry in the world of amateur radio. We have already brought a trellis on the roof of 7 meters of total lencht, with base and mast of about 1.5 meters, then the antenna will be installed at about 9 meters from the roof and about 18 meters above the ground, considering the tall of my home .
One must consider that I live in the mountains in the Eastern Dolomites, at an altitude of about 1000 meters above sea level with large natural obstacles such as mountains of 2500-3200 meters covering the visual, but compared to other colleagues who live in the same area, I am lucky because about 160 degrees of the horizont are free so I can point the beam antenna and attempt for long path QSO. Also I have to say that in spite of what I thought using simulation programs, many times I get reports R / S above my expectations. So I think the trial is always better than a simulation program, as may be more accurate. In fact, the propagation conditions, the conductivity of the soil and a little skill factors are certainly important and influential in the success of a QSO.

I am a fan of radio since 1978, when I entered the world of CB and later of listening radio broadcasting. My first antenna was a long wire, placed on the roof of my parents' house and connected to the CB. Imagine the TVI with only 5 watts of power .... . Then my father gave me a receiver Grundig Satellite 3000 which allowed me to discover the emission in side band and CW. My business continued until 1984, then resumed in 1989 with the reception of SSB as SWL and activities in the "ten meters lower"....then in 1997 took the amateur radio license with the current call IZ3BUG. Since then my business has continued with the discovery of the uppermost band and then, as my business has moved in 40, 80 and 160 meter bands that I still find it difficult now but very stimulating. My current station is complete and adequate for my needs, built in compliance with the wish that my philosophy of efficient antennas, low-noise, then I do not use trapped antennas but only half-wave up to 40 meters. The whole station has a 230 VAC  filtered  power supply  inductive capacitive input with reference to the ground, so I deleted a lot of noise due to switching power supplies present in household appliances and filtered the sinusoid network. So I got a S / N ratio very favorable with the elimination of all transients coming from the network supply.
I spent a lot of time in studing the profile of the mountains around my station, thus because I wanted to calculate exactly my emission and the possibility of better signals: my choise felt on half wave antennas as Gap Titan DX and the Hexbeam made by SP9IDX. Being the dx activity my main interest, the choise was compulsory towards antennas with medium/low angle of radiation, not to low because the only open direction is from est to south-west (from from 40 to 240 degrees). Being also the mountains very closed to my station the radiation angle is a fundamental to get good performances. So I place my A3S by Cushcraft in the attic and decide to purchase an Hexbeam: better S/N, low noise and anyway a two elements half wave for 6 bands. The decision was also motivated by a though: The decision was also motivated by a number of considerations: the traps increase the noise, reduce the performance and limit the bands. Also I did not want to invest too much money on a demanding structure in which the price / performance ratio is unfavorable: After months of analysis techniques (ie grade of radiation antennas, power used, analysis of the signal / noise ratio of multiple antennas considered, etc ... ). So at the end I separate the power supply network with a filter 16A (Built specifically to eliminate the switching frequency to a few tens of kHz) with reference to ground equipotential which is connected to the roof, to the electrical system and to a good electrical ground. Thanks to some tools I own, I could verify that my studies have had a good outcome: eliminate the parasitic currents, deleted, voltage transients, voltage equipotential near zero between two points (and as roof and floor or between the ground of 'electrical system and roof). Good thought ... good result!
Now I want to focus on building the 1:1 balun to isolate the antenna from the radio as here in the Dolomites thunderstorms and static electricity often cause damage to the radio, I do not want to hurt the IC 756 PRO3 ...!

Hello, good day to those who read me.