HB0/DL2OBO Liechtenstein 2010 in Chalet Wanni near Masecha
We started our trip in January 1st, 2010 to visit the Hotel Schindlerhof in Nuernberg-Boxdorf and learn more about their management ideas and techniques.
Wwe had a good time, the meals were excellent and the staff very friendly. There are so many details to discover in that hotel, founded in 1984 by Klaus Kobjoll. Since then, Schindlerhof won many business awards. Klaus Kobjoll is sharing his knowledge with others in workshops.
After this experience, we are now looking forward to putting our experience into practice back at home......and I am prepared for the cold antenna work in HB0.....thanks for the hospitality.....sorry guys for the non-ham-related pictures...but you should know that :-) |
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All pictures were taken during the night with a tripod. 30sec F8 more or less. see my photography website www.carstendauer.de |
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We tried two different rooms in that hotel. One has more or less local design and an unforgettable wooden bath thub. The other one was Japanese style "Ryokan". This japanese style helped me to prepare working "JA" on the low bands, maybe ? who knows.............remember: these are not the pictures from the cottage in Liechtenstein ! theese pictures are taken just a few days earlier at Hotel Schindlerhof in Nürnberg. www.schindlerhof.de
We also met with Mike, DL3NED and talked about HamRadio. You know, antennas, amplifiers, DX and so on.....thanks Mike and "nein, ich sag nicht mehr "das Gerät". |
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After 3 days our journey continued and we went further south to Hippach in Zillertal/Tyrolia/Austria OE7. It was nice, seeing my relatives again. We had fun with a sleigh going down the slopes. |
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click here for the HB0 tourism site ! click here for map and booking info for Chalet Wanni ! the land lady does not like "men only groups", she prefers couples, in other words: she expects a wife to be within the group, she afraid, men do not clean the hut afterwards. no problem for couples and families------ real men:sorry?
There is enough land for a 80m 4 square or 2el 160m wire beam. Remember that EAST is covered by mountains! |
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Finally on January 6. , 2010 we arrived at the Chalet Wanni in Liechtenstein. It is located 1200m a.s.l.
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| The Chalet Wanni is an ideal place to stay for this kind of vacation. It offers a well-equiped kitchen, a nice living room with Satelite TV, but neither phone nor internet. The Chalet appears to be newly renovated, very clean and comfortable. Especially the bathroom is by far better than expected. This little place offers three bedrooms, each with two beds. You could stay here with a maximum of 6 persons, but I personally suggest to limit it to four, in order to leave one room for operating the radio. The rent is 75CHF/50Euro/75US$ per day with the max. of 6 Persons, plus costs for water, electricity and the local (tourism) tax. You should consider some advice from my experience in HB9/HB0: Because food being quite expensive (in comparison with Germany or Austria), you may want to bring your groceries with you when travelling through either one of the mentioned neighbouring countries. By the way, 20 minutes by car, down in the valley you can find a restaurant of an international chain with its unique symbol, the golden "M", where they offer free WiFi/WLAN/internet. |  |
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| Coming back to the center of interest in this article...
After our first night in HB0, I installed my first antenna. It is an 12,5m fishing rod, so the feed point for this 40m vertical is at 2m, also the 8 elevated radials are two meters above snow.
The second antenna followed the next day. This time I put up an 20m tall vertical for 80m. It has also 8 elevated radials about 2m above ground. My buddy André (non-ham) helped me cutting the alluminum tubes in length, so I was able to transport them in my Mercedes Vito.
The third antenna followed after the next sunrise, it was supposed to be the last as well, because promised my girl friend. It is a 28m tall vertical, build with 15m tapered alluminum tubes plus an additional 13m fishing rod (with an attached wire).
For this antenna, I used four elevated radials, each about 5 to 8m above ground.
On all three verticals, I use DX-Engineering RF-Chocks.
My antennas were set up in the front of the house, you need at least 40m of coax cable. My 160m 28m tall vertical antenna was 80m away in a big pine tree. When you use dipoles, you will need a lot of rope to reach from tree to tree ! If you work with elevated radials on verticals, you also will need a lot of rope. Ice on the antennas and guy ropes was a little problem, the fishing rods bent over by 90degrees over night. a short pull on the ropes removed the ice/snow and and everything was straight vertical again. |
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| The final work on the 160m antenna was done from 17-21h local time which was in darkness with a head lamp. I was happy to have a hot shower after that work into the cold weather. Imagine to handle with alu tubes at -10C. I think conditions have been much better than in the holiday 2009, but much worse than 2007 and 2008. Sometimes I called 10minutes on 160m CW without an answer, not even from EU stations. The Equipment is a FT1000MP with Heil Head set and Schurr Keyer and an Ameritron AL1200 amplifier. You never know what can happen so I have an IC7000 and also an ACOM 2000 amplifier as spare rig just in case. |
On all Vertical antennas I use www.dxengineering.com RF-Chokes.
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| My suggestion if you want to operate from Chalet Wanni:
In front of the house is a walkway, there are hikers or people walking the dog. During winter there is a snow plow working on this dead end road, the Chalet Wanni is the last house in the street.
Remind the plow and the pedestrians when laying your cables on the ground.!
The locals seems to be used to see antennas in front of the house, no one ever asked what they are for or complained (at least not loud) During summertime, I do not know if there is cattle. During all seasons, make your antennas dear safe, the might run into your radials and feedlines and make a mess of it There are some other cabins nearby, some are also for rent but some are only for private use. There might be TVI problem or local man made noise. During my stay I had no problems with one or the other.In front of the house is a walkway, there are hikers or people walking the dog. During winter there is a snow plow working on this dead end road, the Chalet Wanni is the last house in the street. Remind the plow and the pedestrians when laying your cables on the ground.! The locals seems to be used to see antennas in front of the house, no one ever asked what they are for or complained (at least not loud) During summertime, I do not know if there is cattle. During all seasons, make your antennas dear safe, the might run into your radials and feedlines and make a mess of it My antennas were set up in the front of the house, you need at least 40m of coax cable. My 160m 28m tall vertical antenna was 80m away in a big pine tree. When you use dipoles, you will need a lot of rope to reach from tree to tree ! If you work with elevated radials on verticals, you also will need a lot of rope. In front of the house is a walkway, there are hikers or people walking the dog. During winter there is a snow plow working on this dead end road, the Chalet Wanni is the last house in the street. Remind the plow and the pedestrians when laying your cables on the ground.! The locals seems to be used to see antennas in front of the house, no one ever asked what they are for or complained (at least not loud) During summertime, I do not know if there is cattle. During all seasons, make your antennas dear safe, the might run into your radials and feedlines and make a mess of it You must use one power outlet in the room for the TRX, Laptop etc. and bring a long power cord in your equipment to get power for your amplifier from the other room. Both from one room is too much for the fuse. btw. the fuses are downstairs in the garage! so prepare to have a torch lamp if any fuse blows up during the night (and its cold in winter outside :-) ) You might need your own small table for the TRX, there is only the one in the dining/ living room which you will need for breakfast, lunch and dinner. There is a camping table in the garage which I used. Adresse of Emmi Beck, Obergufer, Triesenberg, no email available. Make clear with your booking that you are a ham and want to put antennas in front of the house.To work JA on 40m it is the easiest to work them longpath at EU sunrise Be prepared that she asks you to leave the house cleaned very very tide and do not forget to open the bath room window after you had a shower......To work JA on 40m it is the easiest to work them longpath at EU sunrise HB0 is located in the Rhine-Valley. The eastern directions are covered by high mountains, so it is very difficult to work VK and JA, but easy to work W6. To work JA on 40m it is the easiest to work them longpath at EU sunrise Around 16UTC it is good propagation to VE7/W6. I am logging with Logic by www.hosenose.com please have a look there for "the ultimate logging software". Dennis from PDA will make my online log check available after my return to DL. a comment on EU-Behavior in pile ups: Everyone once has forgotten the RIT or did not hear a "5 up" at one or another ocasion. Me included. But I can not understand when a station - with semi-seldom DXCC status or not- asks for "DX" a station from the same continent, actually from a neighbor country to HB0- is calling when it is asked for "DX". not once but 5-10 times. Even when I asked for "JA" at their sunrise on 80m CW there were EU stations calling and calling on top of the weaker "JAs". As I said, everyone once has not heard a "DX only" but to me it seems that some guys do NOT know what DX means ( when a stations is calling CQ DX, he/she wants to talk to stations from another continent/long distance). Generally I think we EU's are not better or worse in pile ups than other continents, it is just a contintent with high population dense and many individuals. Please, when you train newcomers or hear newcomers, explain what "DX" means, tell them, what split means or "up" and tell them NOT TO TUNE THEIR AMPLIFIER/ANTENNA_TUNER ON A STATIONS FREQUENCY. Most of the times, when I asked EU to QRX they did, thank you for that. I was more than 22 times in HB0. Maybe it has now been the last time for me being here, at least I am not here the next few years. I will try to spend my January holiday in some warmer parts of the world. Maybe I will also have a rig with me and I will operate from another nice "semi-rare" DXCC. Maybe I will also come again to operate from here..... later, when the kids are grown up :-) Thank you for reading my story. Hopefully you like the text and the pictures and this is of help for you to plan your own HB0- holiday. Don't hesitate to send an email with your questions about the QTH and the conditions from HB0. |
This picture was taken at 12AM !!! sometime it was so foggy, I couldn't see the vertical when stringing the 3,5MHz elevated radials in 20m distance. Other days were blue sky and sunny. |
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My special thanks go to all who called me or had the interest to read all of this long info. Special greetings to Paul PA0GMW for the good cooperation, and also to EI2IU Peter who "worked the night shift" with me that one evening on 80m. Very, very, very special thanks to André (not a ham yet). yeeeehaaaaa |
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Soundfiles recorded by me in HB0 (using Audacity programm, freeware |
80m SSB, some together with EI2IU Peter on frequency 7J4AAL OM Kan-san |
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some recording from Trevor M0TCA 2 MB |
Videos from HB0/DL2OBO Sareiser Joch Mountain Top. 2MB
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| I apology that I was not able to operate in RTTY yet, I made only a handful of RTTY qsoS and that 15 years ago, sorry guys, asking for RTTY. 73 Tom DL2OBO and please leave a comment in my guestbook. Below are more nice pictures. please check in again later, I will also upload some more audio files. If you also have recorded a QSO, please send it to me by email. |
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HB0/DL2OBO Liechtenstein 2010 www.dl2obo.com
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