Swiss Remote DX Amateur Radio Station at 1'660m
DXCC-Status 16-Nov-2024: DXCC Mixed 301, DXCC Challenge 2365, DXCC SAT: 152
August 2024: 5 years remote DX station anniversary
Frederic (HB9CQK) and me started our Remote DX-Station project in the Swiss mountains in September 2018. We have many challenges such as strong wind, ice, thunderstorms, lightning, big temperature differences, Windows 11 updates, etc. Since 2019, we made a lot of remote-station expierence and we are still learning news with such a great Remote Site.
Goal of the solution:
The aim of our Remote DX-Station is to operate a remote radio site via a fast Internet access, where there are almost no "man-made interference" (e.g. PLC, power supplies, solar power system, DSL-lines, etc.). Ideally, the location is slightly elevated and has a 360° all-round view.
Flexradio 6700, OptiBeam OB9-5 extra heavy duty Beam for 10m, 12m, 15m, 17m, and 20m, OptiBeam OB5-6 (6m), 54m Wire-Antenna with a Stockcorner JC-4s Tuner (30-160m), Expert 1.3k Amplifier, Prosistel PST61D Rotor, Genius Rotator, Balun Designs, Lightning Protection, Airspy HF+ with Spyserver SDR, KiwiSDR, Nport 5410 for Expert Remote-Control, and a public WebSDR Server (HF) with a Wellbrook ALA1530NL Loop and WebSDR Server (UHF/VHF) with a Diamond X-50N (2m/70cm) Antenna for the HAM community.
Artikel über unsere Remote DX-Station Rigi Scheidegg in CQ-DL 7/2024 [5’805 KB]
Artikel über unsere Remote DX-Station Rigi Scheidegg in HBRadio 2/2023 [492 KB]
Vortrag "Jagd nach DXCC Punkten - 2024" [25’296 KB]
21. Juni 2024 bei der Sektion HB9LU in Luzern
Live WebCam Picture
OptiBeam with Aurora and Moon in May 2024
Management Summary
Have a look at the public WebCam
Frédéric HB9CQK provides additional information
June 2020 - we have a 100 Mbit/s fiber optic Internet connection at 1'660m for our remote Flexradio connection
May 2022 - we installed the new OptiBeam OB9-5 extra heavy duty version in hopes that this beam will now stay in tact for longer than just one year. Since 2019, 3 beams have been lost due to the extreme weather conditions at this location at this height.
April 2023 - Our new Rigi Dashboard works now with a Node Red Solution running on a Raspberry Pi 4. Two big 34" Screens for the Rigi-Dashboard at home and a Shure SM58SE Studio MIC with the Scarlett Solo MIC preamp for an excellent remote audio completes the solution.
June 2023 - After several Flexradio SmartLink service outages we have now installed a Softether VPN-Server on a Raspberry Pi3 with the following benefits: Indpendent from Flexradio SmartLink Server Service (AWS-Cloud), Fast & reliable, Under own control, Low maintenance, No SmartLink Login anymore. Softether VPN-Server Documentation [1’627 KB]
in order to avoid SmartLink Service outages in the future as a backup solution
December 2023 - after problems with the potentiometer in the PST61D rotator, we have now installed the Genius Rotator solution from 4O3A with the magnetic azimuth sensor.
April 2024 - an element plate of a large element was bent by an ice and snow phase that lasted 4 days. See the details and video below.
July 2024 - we installed a new PhantomSDR Plus WebSDR and a 2m/70cm WebSDR Server
Final Equipment
Flexradio 6700 High End SDR Transceiver with 8 VFO's with SmartSDR v3.7.3
OptiBeam OB5-6 for 6m
OptiBeam OB9-5 extra heavy duty beam for 10m, 12m, 15m, 17m, and 20m
54m Wire-Antenna with JC-4s Stockcorner Tuner for 30m to 160m and 1kW
Expert 1.3k Amplifier as Antenna-Switch and Tuner
Prosistel PST61D Rotator
Genius Rotator solution with magnetic Azimuth sensor from 4O3A
Airspy HF + with Spyserver powered by a Raspberry Pi4
NPort 5410 serial port Mulitplexer for remote control of the Expert 1.3k amplifier
Winradio G33DDC Excalibur Pro professional SDR-Receiver with Wellbrook Loop ALA1530LN
RadarScape FlightRadar Receiver
Gas Lightning Protection from Huber+Suhner with three Coax-Relays
Remote 230V Power ON/OFF for 8 devices
Remote 8-port Web-Relais to Switch ON/OFF our HAM-Devices
Home-Made Stockcorner JC-4s Tuner-Protection Box
WEB Temperature Monitor-Device with 4 temp. sensors in the cabinet
1:1 5kW Choke from Balun Desings
SoftEther VPN-Server on a Raspberry Pi3 to avoid SmartLink Outages
Node Red Dashboard running on a Raspberry Pi4 (4GB)
Lenovo ThinkPad L580N Notebook with Windows 11 for local maintenance of our devices
150 watt cabinet-heater for the winter season
Main 13.8V / 40A Power-Supply PSU-1250
Main 5V / 7A Traco Power-Supply for all Raspberry Pi's
Hercules Starlight DJ-Controller for SmartSDR to control the remote Flex-6700
Software from DM5XX for the Hercules DJ-Controller
Node Red Remote DX-Station Dashboard
Dashboard Overview/Function:
More Details [2’710 KB]
about our Node Red Dashboard
Node Red Introduction [11’443 KB]
from Kyle AA0Z
- Rotor Control for Genius Rotator with magnetic sensor (4O3A)
- KM-Tronic temperature device with 4 sensors in our RIG-Cabinet
- Live local weather station at Rigi Scheidegg
- Live weather from Rigi Scheidegg openweathermap.org
- Solar and DR2W Propagtion Information
- Band Activity from DX-Heat.com and DX-Spots from My Summit
- KM-Tronic 8-Port Relay Board
- Detail Weather Diagrams from openweathermap.org
- Raspberry Pi4 (4 GB) System Information
- Lightning warning with Audio Notification (<25km)
Genius Rotator Solution with magnetic Az. Sensor
The sensor uses a magnetic compass that reads azimuth. This insures you will never have problems with pulse, pot meter sensors, broken indicators or innacurate readings.
- Accuracy within 1 degree
- No need for initial calibration
- User programmable true north and magnetic north correction
- The sensor can now be used independently from the motor control unit
- Windows application, Android App, and integrated into the SmartSDR App for iOS and MAC
Genius Rotator Solution from 4O3A
OB9-5 xhd snow damage repair July 2024
By the end of April heavy winter is usually more of less over in Switzerland and spring settles in, even on Mount Rigi. Wolfgang and myself were relieved because our OptiBeam OB9-5 xhd had survived its second winter unscathed. Little did we know then: April 22nd to April 25th brought 4 days of continuous snow fall on Mount Rigi. There was more snow during these 4 days than during the entire rest of the winter! And exactly during these 4 days neither Wolfgang nor myself ever turned the antenna because I was enjoying a few warm days south of the alps in Ticino with my family and Wolfgang was on a cruise. This led to one-sided snow accumulation on the antenna - not good, but see for yourself in the 2 minute video above.
Tom, the owner of OptiBeam could hardly believe what he saw when we sent him the picture of the bent element plate. He never had such an incident with several thousand(!) antennas installed and operational. He quickly sent us an element plate of a much larger antenna that was modified for the OB9-5 boom. Luckily the mobile crane became available on short notice and I could install two plates for both large xhd elements with the help of the crane operator Hugo.
I took the opportunity to install the new magnetic sensor for our Rotator Genius controller that we got from 4O3A at the HamRadio show in Friedrichshafen (see previous post). The original sensor lost connection when we transmitted even low power on 15m. After a few months it totally failed. I installed 8 ferrites on the cable close to the sensor. It works and it does not fail even when transmitting QRO on 15m now.
Installation OptiBeam OB9-5 extra heavy duty 2022
Installation new OptiBeam - May 2022
June 17 - 2022
Below some audio examples: 20m in SSB, from SDR receiver K3FEF in Milford, Pennsylvania, USA with a G5RV antenna. Distance: 6366.42 km (3979.012 miles) and from Brasil on 10m.
Audio 20m WebSDR K3FEF USA - Jabra Headset WIDE
Audio 10m WebSDR in Brasil - Jabra Headset WIDE
Bad news:
Our great OptiBeam OBDYA12-5 suffered a broken boom due to very heavy ice/snow load combined with high wind speeds (2. Feb. 2022). It looks like no regular antenna design can survive the exteme WX conditions that we encounter on Mount Rigi. However, the 6m 5 element OptiBeam ist still doing fine and the 54m longwire although torn apart by the broken antenna was an easy fix and works OK. The OBDYA12-5 was a fantastic antenna and we already miss it a lot. We hope Tom from OptiBeam will be able to create an antenna for us with a much stronger boom that has a chance to suvive these storms, although we are very much aware that this will not be easy. Sadly below you can find the "final pictures - RIP" from our OBDYA12-5.
February 2022
December 2021
October 2021 - Drone Flight
Drone Flight - 11. October 2021
Drone Flight - 360 View at 1'660m
October 2021 - OptiBeam Repair & Maintenance
11. June 2021 - Installation of new Cabinet
17. June 2021 - Installation of new OptiBeam
17. June 21 Installation of New OptiBeam OBDYA12-5
6. Aug. 20 - Installing JC-4s Tuner with 54m Wire
26. June 2020 - Rebuild after Winter-Storm
First Installation 28. August 2019
Installation of OptiBeam OBLY14-5 at 28. Aug. 2019
2. Jan. 2020 - Drone Video of the old OptiBeam
View from the Mountain at 1'660m
Winter Storms in February 2020 - Rebuild in June 2020
Three strong winter storms (Petra, Sabine and Bianca) totally destroy all our antennas.
Our remote station had already survived several severe thunderstorms (including one that un-rootet a large fir tree close by), so we thought we were safe. The trouble started with storm Petra. There was already ice on the antennas and storm Petra came with heavy snow and strong winds. It broke off two elements of the the 6m beam and bent the top tube. The 40m EndFed wire was torn apart. The pictures below show the state after storm Petra.
The next storm (Sabine) was even stronger than Petra, but it did not do additional damage because there was little snow on the antenna at that time. Snow and ice have an incredible effect on the wind load. The following picture shows the antenna after storm Sabine. The HF beam recovered nicely once the snow and ice was gone and was still working OK.
The last storm Bianca did the rest. There was again a lot of snow and ice on the antenna. The top tube broke apart and everything came down (see the picture below from the morning after).
Due to the current world-wide Corona health crisis we cannot replace the antennas immediately. However, we have already fixed the EndFed antenna and the KiwiSDR is back online for you. We have replaced the FlexRadio 6500 with a FlexRadio 6700 and added two AirspyHF+ SDR's that are able to monitor the bands 24/7 using WSPR and FT8.
First Beam Installation 29. August 2019
Almost 2 years ago we carried out first talks with representatives from Rigi Railways Inc. about the possibility of renting a no longer used mast 1660 metres above sea level and using it for Amateur Radio. In autumn of 2018 we installed a temporary G5RV and two Colibri SDR receivers to find out if this location could be used for amateur radio. We found that we had some noise up there, but it was A LOT better than what we encounter at the home QTH of HB9RYZ and HB9CQK! Planning went ahead and Frédéric HB9CQK and myself decided to get our HAM Dream finalized.
