NAC Nordic Activity Contest 1296 MHz

The monthly NAC contests on Tuesdays, 17:00-20:00 UTC, gathers many VHF & up radio amateurs in northern Europe. On September 15 it was due time for the contest on the 1296 MHz band. Sven, SM5LE and I, Kjell, SM0FOB, decided to go for it as a "portable" station in the rare QTH locator square JO98 in Hammersta Nature Reserve, approx. 40 km SE of Stockholm and close to the Baltic Sea. There are few hams (ca 30) active in Sweden on the 1296 MHz band, mainly because that there are few commercial ham transceivers and other items on the market and they are very expensive. Another reason for this low activity is also that to handle this microwave equipment a little more skill than usual is required. Special measurement instrumentation is also required. This hampers the use of this very useful frequency band for amateur radio operation.

We kept on in fog and darkness (see video here) for 2 hours and managed with our low power and small antenna to have five contacts:

OH0JFP (165 km), SM0FZH (53 km), SK0CT (47 km), SM0UMU (31 km) and SM7LCB (309 km)