Martha's Vineyard DX-Pedition 2009


Thursday April 30th, 2009: We're on our way to Martha's Vineyard!

3:00 PM and we're on the Martha's Vineyard ferry boat as I upload
the first batch of images.


Here is the HAMCOW waiting for the Ferry boat.


KB1FUP & KE1LI are also in line.


Martha's Vineyard is the destination and Martha's Vineyard is
the name of our ship.


After a few attempts to get everybody to fit on the ship, and having to
back down the ramp twice, we "barely" fit inside the ship!
We're on our way!!
 


Click to See a Time Lapse HAMCOW Setup




This was our morning view on Friday.  The heavy fog rolled in and
even the lighthouse was hard to see.


Here is the view looking back at the HAMCOW.  Much of our setup
was completely swallowed by the fog!


Of course we flew our banners on the side of the HAMCOW.


Our traditional Friday night "Big Beef" dinner was a large pile of
smoked Brisket.  The Brisket was dry rubbed and slow cooked with
Hickory chips for 10 hours by KB1JBC.  Yummy!


And as a nice side dish we had the choice of regular chili and extra spicy,
with several loafs of corn bread.



Watching the Gay Head Lighthouse in the fog at night is spectacular.


Here is KB1JBC & KE1LI refilling water bottles for the bicycle riders
during the MS Ride the Vineyard 100 km race.



 TEAM HAMCOW 2009
L-R: W1UJ, KB1DFB, KB1FUP, KB1G, KE1LI, Melanie (N1JOY's XYL), N1JOY, W2DAN,
KB1TIM, N1PMB, KB1SBC, N1YMC, KB1JBC, N6BQD, & N1OCY


Here is the site setup for 2009.  W2DAN's tower is in the foreground, the HAMCOW in the distance,
and the carrier rope running between them is carrying the 40 Meter phased dipole array, and
KB1FUP slung a B&W folded dipole for working his MARS nets.


This is our full sized 40 Meter Vertical with elevated radials.
We worked some long DX on this antenna.


The "Team" is banging out QSO's like crazy!  3 hours into the contest and
we have over 300 QSO's in the log!  I hope this is an indication of the
rest of the contest.
L-R: W2DAN on 15 Meters SSB, W1UJ on 20 CW, N1YMC on 40 SSB,
and N6BQD on 80 SSB.


Another shot of the guys operating. L-R N1PMB, WA1ESO, N1YMC,
W2DAN, and N1OCY watching from the dinner table.


Of course all that operating makes us hungry.  On Saturday night KE1LI turned the
smoker into a big oven, and cooked up 24 pounds of roast beef for dinner.


And when the sun shines, the cliffs are spectacular!

How Was Our Score?
The short story is we tripled last year's score!

Band/Mode Number of QSO's
80M CW 110
80M LSB 65
40M CW 230
40M LSB 130
20M CW 273
20M USB 422
15M CW 43
15M USB 70
10M USB 71
Total QSO's 1514
Total Claimed Score 210,490


The equipment ran great and propagation was good.  We also did more
operating and less goofing off this year, which shows in the score.
Having some crack CW ops on hand makes a big difference.

 


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