Funkerverein Zofingerrunde HB9FX / Surplus Party Zofingen

Surplus Party
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Hochwacht

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In 1976, the company "Telekabel Zofingen AG" installed tv-recevier antennas on a 50 meters high mast in the middle of the forest on the "Hochwacht" in Oftringen. From there, thousands of households in the region were provided with tv signals from Switzerland, Germany, France and Austria. That was truly a small revolution at this time. With the distribution of these signals through underground cables, whole forests of antennas on the rooftops could be eliminated. With the upcoming satellite technology in the 80's the facility was more and more superseded and was finally shut down about ten years ago.

After some years of clarification and preparation our club got all the necessary permissions for the conversion into a ham-radio facility. At March 13th, 2009 (hopefully friday 13th was a good omen) the contract has been signed. Since then we renovated the associated operational building in uncounted hours of work and started the installation of the equipment.

The Hochwacht can be approached either

  • via Küngoldingen, along the alte Bühnenbergstrasse until the "Esel" and from there in about 25 minutes walk (general ban on driving through the forest) or
  • via Mühlethal, on the "summit" Linde (bus stop) until the edge of the forest and from there in about 10 minutes walk

www.hb9fx.ch

Photos

The newest photos will be continuously published on the following pages.
Photos Hochwacht

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Status

A simple status page (work in progress) shows the operating status of the Hochwacht equipment on http://hb9fx.dyndns.org:83 and contains manuals for the internet remote operation.

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WebSDR

SDR = Software Defined Radio receiver (www.websdr.org) connected through the internet. SDR allows that different listeners, independent of frequency and transmission mode, use the same receiver.

Start the receiver: http://HB9FX-WebSDR.dyndns.org

The receiver on the Hochwacht consists of:

  • Antenna = 40m vertical tower
  • Radio Receiver = SDR 1000
  • PC = 1.6GHz Intel Atom, Ubuntu Linus operating system
  • Soundcard = Onboard Realtek
  • Interface = WebSDR
  • Receiver = 160m band

For testing purposes (rain scatter spotter) also a 3cm receiver is sometimes active.

www.hb9fx.ch

Relay

In co-operation with the UHF-group of the USKA (union of Swiss short wave amateurs) a 70cm relay is running on the Hochwacht.

Technical Details

CallsignHB9UF
LocationHochwacht, Zofingen, JN37XH
Tx-frequency439.150 MHz
Rx-frequency431.550 MHz
Tx-subaudio71.9 Hz
Rx-subaudio71.9 Hz
Bandwith25 kHz
Modulation modeFM, 16K0F3E
Power25 W
Power SupplyMean Well AD-155A, 13.8 V, 10.5 A
Elevation644 m asl
TransceiverKenwood TK-8180
ReceiverKenwood TK-8180
DuplexerCelWave
Antenna txDiamond X-5000, vertical, 8.3 dBi
Antenna rxDiamond X-5000, vertical, 8.3 dBi
ControllerHomebrew HB9TUF
Openingwith subaudio respectively CTCSS 71.9 Hz
IdentifierVoice "HB9UF Relais Zofingen JN37XH Subaudio 71.9"
transmitted without subaudio tone
Trailer5 seconds

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Mast base party, May 8th

On Saturday, May 8th, 2010 anyone interested was invited to visit the Hochwacht, check the facility, discuss with likeminded, ... summarized: experience a pleasant Saturday afternoon full of HAM spirit.

After a rainy week, the weather meant well with the radio amateurs and the Saturday was fortunately dry and not too cold. Nevertheless, we erected a tent and installed a heater in it to be prepared for all weather cases.

During the afternoon, totally 42 people visited the mast base party. A few photos from the event are published in the Hochwacht photo album in the register 2010-05.


 

© 2010 Funkerverein Zofingerrunde HB9FX