PD6MILL

Last weekend we were again active from the Windmill the Eendracht in Gieterveen,JO33KA.We are then active from friday till sunday afternoon.

We did start friday morning at 7:30 UTC to put the SWAN Tribander together.It was laying on a small trailer,what made it easier for us.When it was complete we did first look how the SWR was....and we got shocked.Putting the radio on we did hear ZL2 with 5/8...so all looked ok,hi.

After this we did put up a small militair tower and did put the tribander on it.Then we wanted to put the antenna up...but it was much to heavy.So it was only 3 meters up from the ground.

The SWAN is a 31 year old US made antenna,it's the TB-3HA.

After this was done we had to wait for a tower what we borrowed from the neightbour pirates.A 18 meter tower on a trailer.We also did borrow it last Mai,when we we where also radio active from the Mill.

In the maintime while waiting for them,we put together the Diamond N300 (2/70) and did dismantle the PKW MHF1e40 at Jelle's (PD5JFK) house.This one we did use several times already for the 40Mband and works very well.

The guys with the tower came around 16:00 UTC and in 30 minutes time it was up with the antenna's in.Now we coult get the coax to the Windmill.

We made alraedy a few QSO's on the 20M but now we could really start.

We where active on friday mostly on the 40M and stopped at 21:00 UTC.We did get around 60 QSO's in the log.After that,we did dismantle our radio's and Laptops and went to Jelle's home,who lives close to the Mill.

Saturday morning at 7:00 UTC we where up and running again with two stations.One on 20M and the other on 40M.The 20M band was not really open yet and maybe also because of the low antenna it wasn't a succes yet in the start.

The 40M antenna worked very well and also the propagation into EU was good.The location also was great for the 40M with no QRN/QRM.The band was very quiet so also the weak signals we could pick up.We went QRT saturday around 20:00.

The 20M didn't seem to be very open and the 40M got very crowdy.Not easy to find a free place for us,as we only are allowed to TRX between 7050 and 7100.

Sunday morning we started again around 6:30 UTC.

After putting up the radio's again,we did listen VK3XL on 20M.Jelle did try to call him and yess...we got him.With the SWAN Tribander on just 3 meters above the ground and 25 watts,we got 5/5 back,as he was 5/7 at our end.This was really magic forus and we where also lucky that he just started calling CQ.After Jelle's QSO.....the Zoo started,hi.

Jelle was active on 20M and also some on the 2M band.I stayed mostly on 40M.

Sunday was also a Harvest market at the Mill and alot of farmproducts were sold.

People can then also visite the Windmill and look inside.They ask us then questions about what we are doing etc....We have a Worldmap in wich we get pins in the countries we work.This way people can see what we worked.

So that we are active in the Mill has different reasons.For us nice to be active on the radio,for the Windmill some extra advertisemend and also for our radio hobby.

Sunday at 14:45 we did stop our activity.We got still alot of OM's calling for us,but we also need time to get our things dismantled and get ready to transport it home again.

We where very happy with the results...

Total amount of QSO's : 411

Total amount of DXCC's : 48

Biggest Distance: 16345 Km

We will be active from the Windmill again in May 2011.That weekend will be the National Windmill's day.We did start to transmit in 2009 in this weekend and were the only Mill active.We made some advertisemend and got in 2010 6 Mills active.

From now we try again to get more on the air.In the UK are in that weekend around 50-60 Mills active.We hope in time that maybe that weekend can be a kind of International Mills Festival with Mills active all around the World.If someone wants info or also would like to activate in that weekend,just mail us please at: nationalemolendag@gmail.com

73's The PD6MILL team

Jelle (PD5JFK) / Bernard (PD7BZ)