Planned activity on December 24

PH0NO will be activating PAFF-049 Mortelen in the morning and PAFF-059 Kampina in the afternoon of next Tuesday (December 24). Activity will be on 40m, 20m and higher bands if they are open.

Both nature reserves have been activated once before but are still on the "most wanted" list.

ON activity from PAFF-015 (2)

As mentioned before we had a team of ON operators visiting PAFF-015.

Below you can find a few pictures of their activity. The crew had two stations in the air, using three different call signs PA/ON8VP/P,  PA/ON6QO/P and  PA/ON5TQ/P.

Activity was on 10, 17, 20, 30 and 40m CW logging a total of 287 contacts.

Peter ON8VP	Michel ON6QO
Cécile ON5TC and Ronald ON5TQ	Nice portable antenna for multi band operation

ON team activity from PAFF-015

Peter ON8VP lets us know that a group of Belgian OMs will be activating PAFF-015 - Oosterschelde on Sunday Nov 10 from 8:00am CET.

The team will be using the following call-signs:

• PA/ON5TC/P, Cécile
• PA/ON5TQ/P, Ronald
• PA/ON6QO/P, Michel
• PA/ON8VP/P, Peter

They will be on 40, 30, 20, 17 and 15m using CW.

Good luck hunting.

PD7BZ from PAFF-061 this weekend

This weekend Bernard PD7BZ will be active during the IARU field day contest from WWFF PAFF-061 (Sleenerzand).

He will use the 10, 20 and 40M band
QSL automatically via Buro, eQSL and LoTW.
Logs are also uploaded to HRDlog, Clublog and the WWFF logsearch.

ON2WAB active from the north of PA

While on holiday in the north of the Netherlands last week, Peter ON2WAB headed over to two nature parks: PAFF-009 (NP De Weerribben) and PAFF-013 (NP Dwingelderveld).
During his activity from these parks he logged 270 contacts.

Beautiful surroundings of Giethoorn near PAFF-009

Peter's temporary shack

PD5MVH will activate PAFF-017

PD5MVH will be active from Schiermonnikoog Island (EU-038) from August 31 till September 14.
 
On his stay there he will activate LH-2175 and PAFF-017.

Happy chasing!

PC5Z Holiday Tour

Harm PC5Z was active from the north of The Netherlands this summer - as far across the country as one can get from his QTH in the south west. He activated five nature parks during his one week holiday, quite rightly dubbed “PAFF Holiday Tour 2013”.

PC5Z/P from PAFF-039 - Fochteloerveen

Harm activated PAFF-065, PAFF-061, PAFF-041, PAFF-039 & PAFF-028 using a portable dipole for 20m and an end fed wire for 40m.

PC5Z/P fron PAFF-065 - Zuidlaardermeergebied

Although band conditions were so-so he did manage to log a large number (900) of hunters that week. Expect to hear more from him /P - although probably from ON which is just around the corner from where he lives.

First /MM PAFF activity

PA1WBU was active from PAFF-014 Lauwersmeer - which is water for a large part of its surface ("meer" = lake). That is why he went on a boat with his equipment. 
Below is what he wrote about the activity. You can find more about his activity on his QRZ page.

"My first ever Flora & Fauna activation, to add to the fun this was done /MM from a small sailing vessel owned by fellow ham Robert PE1MJA (in the background of the picture below).

The homegrown 20/40m endfed was a bit too long to conveniently attach it to the mast (arguably, the mast was too low HI.) but we got it to work in the end. You can see the antenna wire dangling down from the boat hook doing double duty as the secondary antenna mast. I'll build a monoband 20m wire for this kind of work."

Wilko PA1WBU/MM from PAFF-014 (Lauwersmeer)

Planned activities by PG7V and PH0NO - June 7 & 8

Activating the last remaining "new one" and one or two "most wanted" references

Joining GreenParty 2013 this Saturday June 8, JanJaap PG7V will travel to the last unactivated PAFF nature park: PAFF-071, De Boschplaat. This nature reserve is located on the island of Terschelling, IOTA EU-038.

JanJaap will be working QRP with his FT-817 and MP1 antenna in CW and SSB.

Preceding this activity PH0NO will be active Friday June 7 from one or possibly two "most wanted" PAFF areas in the north of PA. First park will be PAFF-029 - De Velden - and when propagation is good enough the second park on the list is PAFF-001 - NP Olde Feanen.

PG7V was active from PAFF-064 (IOTA EU-038)

CW operation during field day contest from PAFF-064
 
During the weekend of 1 and 2 june 2013 JanJaap PG7V was QRV from the island of Vlieland, EU-038. A part of the island is a nature reserve with reference PAFF-064. This was the first activation of this reference.
 
It is not allowed to take a car on to the island so JanJaap brought his stuff (radio + tent) by bicycle. He worked QRP and although he tried some SSB he only logged CW contacts.

JanJaap PG7V, working CW on Vlieland

A full report can be found here: http://www.pg7v.com/fieldday-operation-from-vlieland-eu-038-paff-064

Two weekend activities from PAFF

This weekend we will have Nick PA2NJC trying his first PAFF activity from De Meinweg (PAFF-008). He will be active on Saturday morning from around 10 UTC.

PAFF veteran JanJaap PG7V will be active the whole weekend from the island Vlieland (IOTA EU-038), activating the new PAFF-064. He is active in the IARU R1 Fieldday CW so if you contact him, please give him a serial number. Outside the contest he will try SSB as well.

PA3FYG and PH0NO from PAFF-048

Multi operator activity from PAFF-048 this Friday (May 10)

So far Hans and I have worked together to run the PAFF program and we have been active from the same references with only as little as one day in between, but we never activated a reference together.

This Friday will change that when we go over to Ooijpolder & Millingerwaard. We expect to be active from around 12:30 to about 16:30 UTC. 

The operation might be hampered by rain - as it seems we have to operate outside to be inside the nature park.

PG7V was active from PAFF-069

JanJaap PG7V used the excuse of a new portable antenna to go out and activate PAFF-069 - Ugchelen Hoenderloo.
Working QRP the conditions turned out to be challenging.
His report can be found here: http://www.pg7v.com/paff-069-ugchelen-hoenderloo

Activation of Duinen bij Bergen PAFF-050 by PA3FYG/P

Duinen bij Bergen  PAFF-050                                   



Windy beach at PAFF-050



2013 - April 28

I made about 40 QSOs on 20m.  

On 40m I got no replay from chasers,

but worked some stations that called CQ.

After50 minutes there were no chases anymore.

Only DX was a VE2 station.



Activation Schoorlse Duinen PAFF-062 PA3FYG/P

Schoorlse Duinen

Schoorlse Duinen PAFF-062

 2013  - April 28

I made about 50 QSOs on 20m

On 40m I got no replay at all.

After 40 minutes there were no chases anymore.

Only DX was a VE3 station.



Highest Dune in the Netherlands - 54m high







QRV near Visitor Center







PAFF-053 Loenermark activity on Friday April 19

PH0NO will activate Loenermark WWFF PAFF-053 Friday afternoon.
Operation somewhere between 12h-16h UTC. Bands: 40m, 20m and possibly higher bands (depending on conditions).

Update:
A lot of people dropped by. I was able to activate the park on three bands and logged 272 calls from 40 different DXCCs. Short report can be found here: http://www.ph0no.net/2013/04/busy-3-band-activity-at-paff-053.html

First PAFF Gold Award issued

Today we issued the first Gold Award to Axel DL1EBR for his achievement of contacting 50 different PAFF nature parks. 

Starting at the end of 2010 Axel contacted 79 different PAFF activities - meeting most of the activators in PA and collecting 49 nature parks in The Netherlands and one on the former Dutch Caribbean Islands.

Congratulations Axel!

PAFF-037 Horsterwold by PA3FYG/P on Monday April 8

I want to activate Horsterwold  PAFF-037 on. Monday April 8.

Start around 10.00 UTC.

Frequency  around 7.144KHz and 14.244 KHz, perhaps later on other bands as well.

73 de Hans PA3FYG/p

WWFF: WorldWide Flora and Fauna

Boosting the Flora & Fauna programs worldwide

PAFF takes part in the WWFF WorldWide Flora & Fauna program. This program was initiated in the summer of 2012 as a followup of the old WFF program and joins at this moment 26 national flora and fauna programs (and growing). 

The program is collecting all historic flora and fauna activation logs to support a future WWFF award program. All PAFF activation logs are already available and can be searched through the WWFF log search at http://logsearch.wwff.co

Any new activity log for a PAFF activity should be sent to paffcoordinator@gmail.com Validated logs will be uploaded to the WWFF Log database. 

If you want to stay informed about activities you can join the WWFF Forum on http://forum.wwff.co

WWFF also has a Twitter account where important updates about the program are posted @wwff44

Busy activation of Deelerwoud by PH0NO

Second activation of PAFF-055 on two bands

A last minute opportunity brought me to PAFF-055 Deelerwoud. It was snowing lightly - nothing to really spoil the late afternoon. I had been to this nature park before in the autumn but activity level was not very high at that time. A good reason for a revisit.

PH0NO / P with an end fed for 20m in the snow

With 2,5 hours of radio time I focused on 20m and 40m. On 20m the first OM to respond was in VE1. So, there were at least some conditions into NA. This was confirmed by another VE OM (this time VE2) and four USA OMs (W1/3/8). In total I logged more than 100 calls in over an hour of radio time on 20m.

When I felt that 20m was slowing down I got out and set up my 40m inverted V.

Full size inverted V for 40m - works very effectively in EU

In the next 70 minutes I logged another 90 calls from all over EU. 

In the more than 2 hours I was on the radio I logged a total of 196 calls from 38 DXCCs. Luciano I5FLN, Max IK1GPG, Jakob OZ7AEI and Vadim R7GA and Alex UR7ET came by on both bands.
DX came in from VE, W, 4X, 7X, and R9.

Thanks all for stopping by.

Activations of PAFF-065 and PAFF-058 by PH0NO

End of the year activation rally

The end of the year brought some opportunities to go out and activate new PAFF areas. 

I was out at Zuidlaardermeergebied (PAFF-065) for two hours on December 24. This is one of the new areas that had not been activated before - a good reason to drive up north. As you can read on my blog it was a wet and grey day. The first hour it was not very busy, but I was to my surprise greeted by VK5PAS. The second hour we (PA1AT visited me) did not log more than 5 contacts due to the mistake of staying on the high bands. This makes PAFF-065 worth another visit.

PAFF-058 Strabrecht

Later that week - on December 28 - I was at Strabrecht (PAFF-058), another "new" area. I had a bit more time on my hands and I did not make the mistake of staying on the high bands too long. I started out on 15m, where I logged 20 contacts. 4 DX stations came by (4X, VE2, K3, N3). I then went down to 20m to log just over 40 contacts. DX came in from 4X, R9 and W1. The most interesting contact however was a PAFF <=> PAFF contact with Hans PA3FYG @ PAFF-044. I have made more FF <=> FF contacts before but never within PA.

Wet and muddy again..

When things started to slow down on 20m I went down to 40m using my inverted V. There I logged almost 100 contacts (which makes all the difference compared to the activity at PAFF-065). DX came in from R9 again.
Tony DL1EKO, Luciano I5FLN, Max IK1GPG, Maurizio IZ0ARL, Hans PA3FYG (/P and from home), Alexander UR7ET and Bosko YU3A all made the trip on two of the three bands.

All in all I logged 221 FF contacts in the last week of 2012 and 3.710 in 27 activations (PAFF & FFF) in total in 2012.

Thanks all for stopping by & have a great 2013!

73, PH0NO