My two stations

Somehow, I have the chance to have two stations. However, things are not so simple but that is the way I have been operating since I got my license in 1991 !

My station in Paris, France

I did not grew up here but I have been living in Paris downtown for about 30 years, starting in the 12th arrondissement, then in the 19th arrondissement (Buttes Chaumont).

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Here is the point: it is somehow possible to erect an antenna onto the buildings in Paris, except in some very specific and protected locations, but even if possible, it requires a more than significant motivation to do so … just as it is for many hams arround the world facing strong antenna restrictions. A while ago, with the help of our local association of radioamateurs of Paris (ARP), I filled a dossier in order to obtain the necessary authorization but finally gave up.

However, even without what we can call a decent antenna placed on top of the roof, in every place I have lived, I have always managed to be active by one way or another with very limited antennas (small wires attached anywhere, indoor antennas, magnetic loops, … see more on my antenna page).

Current location

I am currently located in the 19th arrondissement of Paris (Buttes Chaumont) in JN18EU in a 7 floors “Haussmanian” building.

Current Station Configuration

My antenna is a small wire of 6 meters length externally placed between one window and another building (my window is on the 3rd floor and my building has seven floors) and is surrounded by buildings everywhere except in only 90° azimuth. I call is my “shorted long wire” !

The counterpoise is composed of two radials of about the same lenght and the antenna is currently tuned by an automatic antenna tuner (CG-3000) located just at the base of the radiating wire, (it was used previously with a 1/10 balun in conjunction of the tranceiver internal tuner providing acceptable results only from 40 to 10 meters but was useless below 40 meters). Then, a 50 ohm coaxial is run to the station.

The trafic I can do with this setup is obviously very limited by the poor efficiency of the antenna system but I also restrict myself in term of power output to avoid any (if possible) TVI that I coud cause and also to limit the RF exposure of my neighbors and family. I usually run about 50W in CW mainly from 30 to 10 m. However, with these limited conditions, I have been able to contact almost a lot of European countries and have also logged some north America, north Africa and few Asian stations ! This is  somehow QRP trafic if I calculate the radiated RF fraction and we all know that QRP trafic allow to make contacts !

Not surprinsingly, the drawbacks of this setup are the very poor reception conditions with a heavy level of various noises (almost S9 QRM 24/7). I have been reported by some local stations that other stations were answering to my calls but unfortunatelly I was not able to hear them due to my strong local noise level.

Needless to say, this is not a satisfactory situation and I implemented this only for the pleasure to have a minimum setup at home that I can switch on from time to time but I do not account on this for decent trafic. In fact, most of my trafic is performed somewhere else (see below) and my hope is to have one of these days a genuine antenna system on the roof of the building.

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My station in my country side home

Being lucky is really the minimun I can say about the fact that I have always had the opportunity to keep my Grand Father’s house located in the country side at about 10 km in the north of Montlucon, France (Allier, 03) in JN16HK. It is close to a small village called Vaux.

This is a lovely place where my two kids, my wife and I try to go as often as we can during the weekends and vacations to have some rest (in principle !), enjoy the region, visit the family … and, concerning myself, have fun with my various hobbies including radioham.

As compared to Paris, this place is a Ham paradise: a house, no QRM, no close neighbours and a lot of space to erect antennas.

Over the years, I have tried various antennas: wire antennas, verticals, directives… Few of them are described in the Antenna page.

Obviously, for all the reasons previously explained, this is the place where I perform almost all of my Ham radio trafic.

The current antennas configuration

– 2 x 20 m center fed dipole used for 80m (and also 30 & 40 m)

– double G5RV (2×31 m)

– Mosley TA33JR three elements for 20, 15 and 10 m.

– vertical L antenna for 160 m

… and also few additional antennas for VHF and UHF, but I am not very active on these bands.

Update from Oct 2017 : My goal now is to set up a remote system to operate my country side station from Paris. More to come about that soon as it is on-going !

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