CHATHAM   ISLANDS   NEWS

"6m and EME News"

THE KERMADEC DX ASSOCIATION DXPEDITION TO CHATHAM ISLAND, ZL7C IN 2002.

ZL7C on 6m

An opening to JA lasting almost 2 hours, on the final day of operations, provided 136 JA operators with ZL7C 6m QSOs.

In the days before this opening occurred there had been only 5 QSOs with ZL operators on meteor scatter, two on CW and three using the FSK441 mode of WSJT.

The opening to JA covered all districts from JA0 to JA9 with strongest signals from the JA1 area.

2m Moonbounce from ZL7C

The QRP moonbounce (EME) operation from ZL7C netted four QSOs with stations W5UN, KB8RQ, KJ9I and N5BLZ. Taking advantage of the superior weak signal detection properties of the JT44 digital mode, QSOs were possible with these well equipped stations.

Equipment used on 2m at ZL7C was a Yaesu FT100 with a Daiwa amplifier running 150W and a 12 element yagi mounted at 4 metres above ground. The amplifier was positioned as close to the antenna as possible to minimise feeder loss.

Bob McQuarrie ZL3TY