"The reason for the trouble with SAQ on Christmas Eve was most probably a damaged fuse in the excitation circuit for the 500 V DC generator. The fuse was not completely blown but measured a very high resistance (150 ohm). When we lost the excitation current to the DC generator, we also lost the control current to the choke coils in the conductors to the main motor, and thereby the speed control of the alternator was lost. It was confusing that the problem occurred exactly when we connected the running alternator to the antenna. We were actually on air a few seconds with decreasing frequency until the antenna was disconnected by the protection circuit in the speed control."

Because of the missing Christmas Eve transmission there will be a SAQ test transmission on Tuesday 10th, 2012 at 13:30 UTC. There will only be a transmission with "VVV VVV VVV DE SAQ SAQ SAQ" running for about 30 minutes and no message. There will be no QSL-card exchange for this test.