Kinkelenburg castle PA-00130 by PH0NO

Winter wonderland in Bemmel

Yesterday I activated PA-00130 (Kinkelenburg). Kinkelenburg is situated in the village of Bemmel and features an early 15th century tower.

PA-00130 - Kinkelenburg

Using Google Maps I found a spot within 1km from the castle towards the Waal river. The snow gave this quiet area a nice aura. The only downside was that I was freezing my hands off when setting up the antennas - as I forgot to bring gloves

Conditions on 20m were rather poor. I did see spots on 15m indicating contacts between EU and NA but I did not bring my 15m antenna with me. I stayed on 20m for almost one and a half hours logging only 54 calls. DX came in from the east only with EX8, UK8 and 4Z.

/P in the snow at PA-00130

It took me some time to set up my inverted V for 40m as my fibreglass pole segments were frozen together on several places. When I did get on the air again I found that 40m was quite lively. The first frequency I chose seemed clear but I was greeted with constant S9 QRN after about 15 minutes. So I changed to another frequency where QRM was around S7 "only".

Inverted V for 40m up in the air

Skip distance was rather peculiar as Gx stations boomed in but I could only copy - with a lot of difficulty - one DL station. DL OMs normally make up a fair share of the 40m contacts. I know there were more but I just could not hear them (sorry guys). In the hour I was on 40m I logged 50 more calls - most of them at 59+10 (actually only "+" on my FT-857). There was no real DX on this band but I did log a new band DXCC when GJ6TMM came by. I worked GJ before on 40m but I was on holiday in F at the time.

Logging more than 100 contacts with some time in between to have a proper QSO made this another pleasant /P activity. I did have to face one last challenge re. the frozen fibreglass pole. With a lot of patience and some brute force I managed to loosen some of the frozen segments of my fibreglass pole so I could fit it in the car to drive to a warm home. 

See you on the next activity.