Chers membres, collègues et amis,
Le week-end national portugais de modulation d’amplitude sur ondes courtes et VHF est de retour, pour sa 10 ème édition, organisé comme précédemment par l’ARLA (Associação de Radioamadores do Litoral Alentejano).
Bien que désigné comme « national », l’événement est ouvert à toute station et aux contacts internationaux.
The 2021’s happening will take place from 08:00 am UTC (Universal Time Coordinated) of November the 6th, up to 10 pm UTC of November the 7th (Saturday and Sunday).
During all the operation our official callsign, CS5ARLA, will be on the air for contacts on the AM mode.
The suggested HF frequencies for the event are generally located on the « all mode » segments, following the IARU Region 1 recommendations, but correspondingly to the traditional ones for international communications in AM as well, listed next by band:
80m – 3685/3705KHz
40m – 7060/7145KHz
20m – 14.330MHz
15m – 21.285MHz
10m – 29.050MHz
6m – 50.400MHz
2m – 144.550MHz
As usual, the spirit of this event, we encourage those who have a chance to operate classic and homemade (self-constructed) AM transceivers or transmitters, to prioritise its use.
Anyhow, as ham radio vintage stations are becoming rare, all sort of transceivers that allow you to transmit in AM mode are very welcome too. Nevertheless, please take all precautions to assure the correct AM emission standard on some modern equipment.
The CS5ARLA station will be on the air operated by CT4RK, using classical station, providing the highest modulation quality attainable.
In HF it will be operated a valve homemade emitter constructed by Carlos Mourato (CT4RK), with 200 Watts PEP output power (6146 plate-modulated by 2 EL34, with 50 Watts carrier) paired with a GELOSO G4/214 receiver.
On the 80 metres band in particular, the station it will be on the air as well with a Class D transceiver, with MOSFETs, modulated with a high level Pulse Wide Modulation capable of an output power up to 1.5 kW PEP in AM modulation, also self-constructed by Carlos Mourato (CT4RK).
The VHF CS5ARLA station will operate exclusively on 144,550 MHz, again with a separate line composed by a crystal controlled transmitter and receiver, both from an ancient air band communication station, modified by Carlos Mourato (CT4RK) to operate on the 2 metres band. The emitter can reach an output power of 200 Watts PEP in AM, as the HF station above mentioned.
The Portuguese national amplitude modulation weekend it’s not a contest, so there are no scores or points per contact. There is no participation diploma either.
It is based on free contacts, with no time limit and open to all chat issues and the radio usual « rag shoe ».
In this way, it is intended to re-stimulate the meaning of the QSO and not another way to get a simple diploma or a competition.
Once again on this edition, the event is aimed at the healthy interaction of amateur operators via radio, while at the same time paying a heartfelt tribute to the amateurs who once developed amateur radio, many of them, unfortunately, are no longer among us.
We also wish to recall the end of the AM shortwave broadcasts from the Portuguese territory, when, on October 30th, 2011, the Deutsche Welle radio station closed its facilities at the Sines broadcasting centre and Rádio Difusão Portuguesa Internacional (RDPi) suspended and later the respective short-wave emissions from Portugal in Modulated Amplitude.
The submission of the activity report (« Logbook ») is not mandatory, but it would be gratifying for the organization to receive those that can be sent to the email address: cs5arla@gmail.com.
Best regards and best 73 CT4RK