9M2CNC (ex. 9M2/G4ZFE)

I have lived and worked in Kuala Lumpur since August 2000. I was relocated from the UK to work in the Asia Pacific office of my company. I am fortunate to live within one kilometre of the Petronas Twin Towers where I also work. Sadly my job involves a lot of overseas travel so I am not on the air as often as I would like to be!

I have been licensed in Malaysia since January 2001 as 9M2/G4ZFE and made 45,000 QSOs under that callsign. Thanks to Sangat Singh, 9M2SS I was able to obtain a permanent callsign of 9M2CNC from 8th February 2005 - a better callsign for contesting. I had originally requested 9M2CC but since 2004 all new Malaysian callsigns have three letter suffixes. Amateur Radio Licensing for foreigners is getting steadily easier but can be slow.

I enjoy contesting (RTTY, CW and SSB in that order) and am fortunate to operate from 9M2RPN (Radio Planetarium Negara) the Satellite Tracking Station at the National Planetarium. The station is managed by Sangat Singh, 9M2SS who allows me to operate from his station.

The Satellite Tracking Station (9M2RPN) has a multitude of antennas and dishes for tracking mainly HRPT weather satellites. The station has also be used for making contacts through amateur satellites. Recently Sangat Singh, 9M2SS has made contacts through ISS when it was operating in repeater mode. 9M2RPN also has a large C-band satellite dish on the roof for watching BBC World :-)

9M2RPN is located in the grounds of the National Planetarium (Planetarium Negara in Bahasa Malay) in the outskirts of the city near to the KL Bird Park. The station is situated on a hill with great views over the city. The grounds of the Planetarium are large and make the station a tranquil place to operate contests away from the hussle and bussle of Kuala Lumpur city.

The photo shows the HF beam at 9M2RPN. It is a Force 12 C3-S beam. The antennas has six elements on a 12 foot boom with two active elements on each band. The photo shows the antenna beaming to Europe (315 degrees) down the hill over KL. The antenna is only 12 metres high but works well. The HRPT satellite dish can also just be seen in the photo.

For 40m an inverted V dipole is used at the top of a pole on the roof of the station. 40m in S.E Asia is populated by many SSB pirate stations (mainly from YB and 9M2) in the CW and RTTY section of the band. These extremely loud SSB make 40m reception difficult. For 80m a temporary inverted V antenna is put up for contest weekends.

The photo shows the 9M2RPN station - Icom 756 Pro and IC-PW1 amplifier. The station is also equipped for M2 contesting with W3NQN Bandpass Filters. These filters work well and are recommended!

For RTTY contesting I use my Dell laptop in FSK mode with the IC-756. The Icom is a great radio for RTTY with good filters and an excellent Twin Tone RTTY filter.