T7/LY3UM (JN63) - San Marino.

T7 San Marino

I am excited to share that I have received a temporary 3-month guest license to operate from San Marino. Between August 20 and 25, I plan to be active on the 23 cm band and will also attempt to operate on the 13 cm band.

To the best of my knowledge, the last activation on 23 cm in San Marino was in 2008, so I hope this opportunity will generate significant interest. With a lunar window available at night, I’m optimistic the conditions will be favorable and not too hot.

I will be operating on battery power, so conserving energy is a priority. This means I won’t be sending out long CQs. Instead, I will start transmitting upon request via the HB9Q chat.

Reached my spot and set up the antenna. After some troubleshooting, everything is working perfectly. The sun is shining, and the sky is cold, with a 6 dB. Moonrise is at 19:00, and I’ll be active on 1296.100 MHz.

A big thanks to Tony T77C and and Rino I4GHG for their support!

Everything started off perfectly, which, in hindsight, should have been my first warning sign. When things go too smoothly, it’s often a setup for Mr. Murphy to make his inevitable appearance. But after a long journey, I let my guard down, forgetting that anything can happen.

In the early afternoon, I turned on my radio and immediately had two successful fast airscatter CW QSOs with strong signals:

Aug 20, 2024, 15:22 - YO5LD CW 599/599

Aug 20, 2024, 15:24 - YP52DX CW 599/599

I then heard several other stations via tropospheric propagation, but despite calling out to them, I didn’t receive any replies.

The weather was beautiful—clear skies, no wind—and the moon was set to rise in half an hour. Everything seemed perfect. But then, as if on cue, things started to go awry.

First, the internet connection on my mobile phone disappeared. No big deal, I thought—I had a backup plan with an eSIM card I purchased specifically for this trip. However, that too stopped working.

It turns out that the only mobile operator in San Marino charges an outrageous 8.26 euros per megabyte! To put that in perspective, a gigabyte of roaming data would cost a staggering 8,260 euros! Naturally, all the data limits I had set for roaming were consumed within the first 10 minutes, and to make matters worse, none of my eSIM cards functioned after that.

But don’t worry—I have a plan to counter such extortion! Stay tuned for more on how I handled this unexpected twist.

Just before moonrise, I decided to run a couple of cycles to perform a full systems check. That’s when a new problem arose.

In my RV, I originally had a 500-watt inverter that worked flawlessly during my trip to EA9, with no complaints whatsoever. But, in a moment of overconfidence, I decided to upgrade. While in Lithuania, I took my car to a service center and asked them to swap out the 500-watt inverter for a 1000-watt one. After all, more is always better than less, right? Or so I thought.

Unfortunately, during transmission, likely due to interference, the new inverter would shut off around the 10th second of transmission! So there I was, left relying solely on battery power, with approximately 5 kWh of reserve. That should be enough for a couple of moon passes, but after that, I’d need to find somewhere to recharge.

I hoped that would be the end of my troubles, but of course, that would have been too easy. After moonrise and the first QSO, I noticed that the elevation control had stopped working. In the dark, I couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong. The only option was to disassemble everything and reassemble it for manual control. At that point, all the little mishaps, like the flashlight I’d forgotten at home and the dead batteries in my backup flashlight, just seemed like minor annoyances.

In the end, I managed to log 34 QSOs.

2024-08-20,16:40:00,2024-08-20,16:43:57,IK4GNG,JN64,1296.174996,FT8,-21,-14,,,,

2024-08-20,19:08:00,2024-08-20,19:10:59,RA4HL,LO43,1296.100996,Q65,-24,-21,,,,

2024-08-20,19:50:00,2024-08-20,19:54:00,UA3PTW,KO93,1296.100996,Q65,-13,-19,,,,

2024-08-20,19:54:00,2024-08-20,19:58:00,DK4RC,,1296.100996,Q65,-13,-20,,,,

2024-08-20,19:57:00,2024-08-20,20:03:17,JA6AHB,,1296.100996,Q65,-19,-21,,,,

2024-08-20,20:02:00,2024-08-20,20:06:00,YO2LAM,,1296.100996,Q65,-18,-21,,,,

2024-08-20,20:06:00,2024-08-20,20:10:00,PA3DZL,,1296.100996,Q65,-17,-21,,,,

2024-08-20,20:10:00,2024-08-20,20:12:00,RD4D,LO42,1296.100996,Q65,-19,-18,,,,

2024-08-20,20:13:00,2024-08-20,20:18:00,SP7EXY,,1296.100996,Q65,-21,-23,,,,

2024-08-20,20:18:00,2024-08-20,20:20:00,OK1VUM,JN79,1296.100996,Q65,-20,-24,,,,

2024-08-20,20:19:00,2024-08-20,20:22:00,ZS4TX,KG30,1296.100996,Q65,-26,-24,,,,

2024-08-20,20:22:00,2024-08-20,20:26:00,IK3COJ,,1296.100996,Q65,-21,-19,,,,

2024-08-20,20:26:00,2024-08-20,20:28:00,DL1AT,JO61,1296.100996,Q65,-22,-23,,,,

2024-08-20,20:28:00,2024-08-20,20:32:00,UA9FAD,LO88,1296.100996,Q65,-24,-20,,,,

2024-08-20,20:34:00,2024-08-20,20:38:00,RA4HL,,1296.100996,Q65,-16,-16,,,,

2024-08-20,20:37:00,2024-08-20,20:40:00,OK1IL,JN69,1296.100996,Q65,-19,-27,,,,

2024-08-20,20:41:00,2024-08-20,20:46:00,DF2VJ,JN39,1296.100996,Q65,-27,-24,,,,

2024-08-20,20:45:00,2024-08-20,20:48:00,ON4AOI,JO21,1296.100996,Q65,-19,-15,,,,

2024-08-20,20:50:00,2024-08-20,20:52:00,HB9Q,JN47,1296.100996,Q65,-05,-14,,,,

2024-08-20,20:57:00,2024-08-20,21:00:00,SP7EXY,,1296.100996,Q65,-19,-22,,,,

2024-08-20,21:00:00,2024-08-20,21:04:00,ON4QQ,JO20,1296.100996,Q65,-24,-22,,,,

2024-08-20,21:04:00,2024-08-20,21:08:00,PA9RX,,1296.100996,Q65,-19,-20,,,,

2024-08-20,21:08:00,2024-08-20,21:16:00,DL4DTU,,1296.100996,Q65,-17,-22,,,,

2024-08-20,21:28:00,2024-08-20,21:28:00,PA0TBR,JO21,1296.100996,Q65,-27,-23,,,,

2024-08-20,21:29:00,2024-08-20,21:32:00,IQ2DB,JN45,1296.100996,Q65,-20,-25,,,,

2024-08-20,21:38:00,2024-08-20,21:44:00,DL1SUZ,JO53,1296.100996,Q65,-22,-25,,,,

2024-08-20,21:49:00,2024-08-20,21:54:00,DL8FBD,JO40,1296.100996,Q65,-27,-28,,,,

2024-08-20,21:59:00,2024-08-20,22:02:00,SP5GDM,KO02,1296.100996,Q65,-21,-24,,,,

2024-08-20,22:08:00,2024-08-20,22:12:00,G0LBK,,1296.100996,Q65,-21,-21,,,,

2024-08-20,22:17:00,2024-08-20,22:20:00,PY2BS,GG66,1296.100996,Q65,-14,-20,,,,

2024-08-20,22:49:00,2024-08-20,22:52:00,PA3EXV,JO32,1296.100996,Q65,-26,-23,,,,

2024-08-21,04:10:00,2024-08-21,04:12:00,KB2SA,DM13,1296.100996,Q65,-19,-28,,,,

Aug 21, 2024, 13:07 - S59GS CW 519/559

2-nd moon pass :

2024-08-21,19:34:00,2024-08-21,19:38:08,ZS6JON,KG33,1296.100996,Q65,-25,-23,,,,

2024-08-21,19:45:00,2024-08-21,19:52:01,VK4CDI,QG63,1296.100996,Q65,-28,-24,,,,

2024-08-21,19:58:00,2024-08-21,20:00:00,UA4LCF,LO44,1296.100996,Q65,-29,-23,,,,

2024-08-21,20:00:00,2024-08-21,20:04:00,UA9YLU,,1296.100996,Q65,-25,-22,,,,

2024-08-21,20:07:00,2024-08-21,20:10:00,OK1KIR,JN79,1296.100996,Q65,-15,-19,,,,

2024-08-21,21:53:00,2024-08-21,21:56:00,PA0BAT,JO31,1296.100996,Q65,-21,-25,,,,

2024-08-21,21:57:00,2024-08-21,22:00:00,YB2MDU,OI53,1296.100996,Q65,-25,-24,,,,

2024-08-21,22:06:00,2024-08-21,22:08:00,G4YTL,IO92,1296.100996,Q65,-24,-25,,,,

2024-08-22,03:38:00,2024-08-22,03:40:00,NC1I,FN32,1296.100996,Q65,-10,-12,,,,

2024-08-22,03:42:00,2024-08-22,03:46:00,K5DN,,1296.100996,Q65,-18,-20,,,,

2024-08-22,03:54:00,2024-08-22,04:00:00,N5TM,EL29,1296.100996,Q65,-25,-27,,,,

2024-08-22,04:07:00,2024-08-22,04:10:00,DL7UDA,,1296.100996,Q65,-23,-22,,,,

2024-08-22,04:12:00,2024-08-22,04:16:00,DG0FE,,1296.100996,Q65,-22,-23,,,,

2024-08-22,04:16:00,2024-08-22,04:26:01,K5DOG,,1296.100996,Q65,-21,-26,,,,

2024-08-22,04:30:00,2024-08-22,04:30:00,OK2DL,JN79,1296.100996,Q65,-14,-17,,,,

3-rd moon pass :

2024-08-22,19:18:45,2024-08-22,19:19:30,IK3MLF,JN55,1296.175040,FT8,+10,+12,,,,

2024-08-22,19:25:30,2024-08-22,19:26:30,IW4EGP,JN64,1296.175500,FT8,+02,-03,,,,

2024-08-22,19:53:00,2024-08-22,19:58:00,YO2LAM,,1296.101002,Q65,-23,-22,,,,

2024-08-22,20:08:00,2024-08-22,20:10:00,SM5DGX,JO89,1296.101002,Q65,-19,-22,,,,

2024-08-22,20:17:00,2024-08-22,20:20:00,OK1UGA,JO80,1296.101002,Q65,-18,-22,,,,

2024-08-22,20:54:00,2024-08-22,20:58:00,OK1DFC,,1296.101002,Q65,-23,-14,,,,

2024-08-22,21:14:00,2024-08-22,21:14:00,ES3RF,KO29,1296.101002,Q65,-26,-14,,,,

2024-08-22,21:15:00,2024-08-22,21:18:00,YL2GD,KO37,1296.101002,Q65,-25,-16,,,,

2024-08-22,21:32:00,2024-08-22,21:32:00,JJ3JHP,PM75,1296.101002,Q65,-19,-24,,,,

2024-08-22,21:38:00,2024-08-22,21:52:00,JQ3JWF,PM75,1296.101002,Q65,-21,-23,,,,

2024-08-22,21:55:00,2024-08-22,21:58:00,PA3FXB,JO33,1296.101002,Q65,-23,-22,,,,

2024-08-22,22:07:00,2024-08-22,22:10:00,DK3WG,JO72,1296.101002,Q65,-22,-28,,,,

2024-08-22,23:18:00,2024-08-22,23:22:00,EA8DBM,IL18OH,1296.101002,Q65,-24,-26,,,,

2024-08-23,04:21:00,2024-08-23,04:24:00,KA1GT,FN54,1296.101002,Q65,-19,-20,,,,

2024-08-23,04:27:00,2024-08-23,04:30:00,DJ2DY,JN39,1296.101002,Q65,-24,-21,,,,

2024-08-23,04:33:00,2024-08-23,04:36:00,9H1BN,JM75,1296.101002,Q65,-28,-22,,,,

2024-08-23,05:28:00,2024-08-23,05:30:00,N6RZJ,CM99,1296.101002,Q65,-27,-20,,,,

2024-08-23,05:47:00,2024-08-23,05:50:00,IK2DDR,JN55,1296.101002,Q65,-20,-19,,,,

2024-08-23,06:01:00,2024-08-23,06:04:00,DG5CST,JO60,1296.101002,Q65,-12,-15,,,,

Total: 69 QSO

The expedition is over, thanks to Tony T77C and Rino I4GHG for meeting and helping with the organization. Also thanks to Jan PA3FXB for the donation.