Back in the shack I did immediately notice the low noise level and strong signals. Of course it’s high altitude is also responsible for that (less QRM) but the SWR is flat on all of the 15 meter band! Thus it’s design and construction is quite nice. In less then an hour I worked 5 new DXCC-entities (countries) on 15 meter: Bahrain, China, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Cuba!
I think we can safely say the BuddiPole is working nice! Next time I’m putting it up in open field.

The BuddiPole is a cool piece of hardware which you can build almost anything you (portable antenna-wise) would want. It’s usable for 40 to 2m. It’s possible to build a much smaller vertical BuddiStick with the components of a BuddiPole. An ideal solution for apartments or hotel stays where it almost impossible to setup a big (even portable) antenna.

On little side note: when you’re in the ordering process, consider what kind of base you going to add. You can choose the tripod or (in the BuddiStick-modus) the table clamb. Because when you don’t order a base(like I did) you have nothing to put the dipole on.

Now I really need to fix my Yaesu FT-817 so I can test my portable setup on a quiet place somewhere out there.

Seats
We have a shack at NERA (called Radiokamer, literally: radio room) with one seat. It has a dedicated radio for HF, a Kenwood TS-870S. We only had one CW-operator who want to participate in the contest so I decided the shack was all his. Only problem with the shack: it did not had a low ceiling. So light was shining in from the glass roof and it never gets nice warm because it was too high. So we build a little ceiling of wood in it. That ceiling would also be the spot where the band filters would be positioned.
The remaining four seats for voice where created in th part of the clubroom usually used for building/repairing stuff.

Antennas
We already had a 3 band beam for 10-15-20m and a 80m monoband dipole wire up in the air. Of course this is not enough for a multi-multi-station. So I hung up a mono band dipole for 40, 20, 15 and 10 meter. Big issue was we had to supply 2 antennas for each band (cw & voice). Eventually I put up a long wire of about 35 meter with a SG-230 antenna coupler to provide a good solution for the low bands. So the general idea was: CW works with the beam on high bands and on the long wire for low bands.
The “voicers” had to use the dipoles for 10, 15, 20, 40 and 80 meters. Problem that risen was the CW-signals had real impact on the receiving voice signals on other bands. So we had to put CW trough the band filters. Therefore it was possible for the voicers to also use the long wire (160M) or the beam(20m when the CW was elsewhere). I got a little nuts from climbing up the ceiling and reconnect this antenna to that seat and vice versa. We have to address this issue before the next contest! I think it’s better to just stay on each band and accept the fact that the guy on that band has busy times and silent times. But we all need to grow into this multi-multi thing and each of one is inclined to switch to the band with the most multipliers. We have to learn to trust each other that he will work the multipliers on his band when they are present.

Transceivers
So in the shack there is the permanent Kenwood TS-870S. But the voicers all bring their own transceiver. That turned out a little messy because of the voice keyer functionality in N1MM we wanted to use. I did bring my brand new Kenwood TS-590S and I got the voice keyer functionality up and running in a few minutes. Marco PH4M did bring his Icom IC-7200. It was a little hassle to get N1MM‘s voice keyer working with the Icom but we managed to get it working.
Sadly we didn’t get it to work on Peer PA2PBT’s Yaesu FT-2000 (just no sound interface available) and Hans PA3FYG’s Kenwood TS-870S. For Hans we had made a home made cable for only audio on the ACC2 Kenwood plug but it wouldn’t play any sound from the computer.
Before the next contest we need to fix this issue because even Peer agreed at the end of the contest that a voice keyer saves your voice in a contest

Software
With a little research and practice we’ve got N1MM into multi mode. All PC’s worked fine and N1MM was humming all contest without problems. It’s too bad that N1MM is not available for Linux. Then we could build a really low cost

Catering and sleeping facility
My lovely XYL voluntary agreed to supply the food and snacks during the contest. The guys where surprised with all the nice food, so at least one thing that went perfectly
Marco PH4M had arranged 4 field beds. So when someones want to crash for a couple of hours, it was no problem. All of us went for a few hours of sleep during the contest, so the beds where perfect!

We really need to get up more monoband dipoles and get them up high! Problem is there are enough high trees around our clubstation but almost none possibilities to climb them. I think we need to figure out how to get the antennas up. For the PACC next year we want to try a multi-multi-station for the first time. So that is gonna need some serious preparations!

When we arrived I immediately setup the ‘travelkit’ containing a fishing rod, about 6 meters high, a few wires for a 20m inverted V dipole, some coax cable and ofcourse my good old Kenwood TS-50 and AT-50. Very nice singals from all over Europe! Noise level below S0 what is so rare these days. Even made qso with Cuba and Florida!

But then again I remembered changing something else: I rotate the Cobwebb to be able to reach the elements. So it was in a different position now. Not that that should matter, the Cobwebb is multi directional. Time for a new experiment: the XYL behind the s-meter and me on the roof turning the Cobwebb around. Results? When I turned the front side of the Cobwebb (where the element ends are bound together) to the east, noise level drops to S1-2. When I turned the front in any other direction, noise level increases from S5 till S9! If you take a look at the construction of the Cobwebb, you notice there is less length of element in the front side. Maybe the Cobwebb is multidirectional from a bigger distance, but maybe when a signal (interference) is nearby, the Cobwebb behaves a little directional. It seams like there is a big interference east from my house. When I look at the other side of the street, there is a big old peoples home there. Maybe the source of interference is located there. Time to find out more about this. Although not sure how to begin… Any tips?

On the receiving part I notice very strong signals. The signal strength seems the same as on the 3 elements beam over at the club. Weird thing though is sometimes at 20m suddenly there is an enormous noise level. Up to S8! But a little later the noise level drops to S1 or 2 and I hear a great deal of signals from all over the world. Can it be the opening and closing of the band?