Living in the quiet part of the Netherlands there is still a lot of QRM. We (PD1ET, PA0T and PA1NG) decided to create our own interference-free shack in the middel of nowhere. We parked our camerbus in the fields between Wildervank en Spijkerboor. Power was taken from two ‘stand-alone’ jelly batteries from some 20Ah.
We used three set-up’s:
A Kenwood R1000 with a VLF convertor (from Funk Amateur) and a MiniWhip active antenna;
A Yaesu FRG7700 with NO convertor and it’s own MiniWhip;
A laptop with the SAQ DSP software on it and a piece of wire.
All three setups gave good reception of the tuning and the actual transmission of SAQ. Interference level was low and signals were som 20-30 dB over the noise floor.
The MiniWhips were mounted on a fiberglass mast some 5 meters above ground.
Next time we will bring in a seperate attenuator between the receiver and the antenna’s. It;s probably the only place to kill unwanted signals which might easaly arise. For instance: the regulator for the solar-panel on the camper-roof might cause interference… not that we noticed, but be aware! Fridges, ledlights… Round up the usual suspects!
All in all a succefull attempt to receive SAQ -with lessons learned!