Don Field G3XTT (this article first appeared in the January 2003 issue of the CDXC Digest)

There cannot be many active amateurs who are missing HC8A or HC8N from their log. Over the past ten years or so, the HC8N call alone has accounted for something like 320,000 QSOs on all bands and modes, let alone those made by HC8A (N6KT), HC8L (W6NL) and others. What’s the story? As it happens, I have known Trey N5KO (ex-WN4KKN), one of the key players, since January 1991 when we first met at a Northern California Contest Club meeting. I have been able to follow the development of what has become one of the world’s "super stations" in the following years and, recently, was able to achieve an ambition to participate in one of the operations, specifically their CQWW CW at the end of November.

Over the years HC8 has been a magnet for amateur radio operations, both expeditions and contest operations. It has many advantages. Propagation is excellent, with its equatorial location, and favourable take-off especially to the USA (it lies directly south of W5). In major contests it is a rare multiplier, often a double multiplier (CP, HC and OA are also in zone 10, but with relatively little activity). And it is easy to reach and, by developing-world standards, benefits from a good infrastructure. Last but by no means least, is that there is on-site assistance from Guido HC8GR, who you will now be familiar with from G4IUF’s article elsewhere in this Digest (p.xxx).

In the 1980’s Rick Dorsch NE8Z lived and worked in Ecuador and made several forays to HC8. Rick obviously made contact with Guido HC8GR, and this led to a number of Rick’s US-based friends heading to HC8, particularly for contest operations. Especially relevant to our story are Rich Smith N6KT, one of the world’s finest SSB contesters, who soon had his own HC8 callsign, HC8A. On the CW side Trey, N5KO, got himself the call HC8N and started to settle on HC8 as a tried and trusted contest location having, for several years, led a peripatetic contest existence, acting as guest-op from TI, ZP, PY and other locations.

Some early HC8 operations took place from a farm owned by Guido’s family on the highlands of San Cristobal. It was apparent that the take-off from that location was excellent, and there were several successful efforts from there including one by N6ZZ, W6NV and others in the late 80s. By the time the farm was sold, there were 3 permanent towers, which then formed the basis of subsequent contest operations from Guido’s house.

Back then, in the early 90s, the town was somewhat less developed than now, and a good deal of land adjacent to Guido’s QTH was undeveloped. Visiting contesters were able to spread into this land for antennas, to the point where the QTH eventually sported four towers ranging from 40 to 70ft in height (using some of the towers removed from the farm), with a variety of monoband Yagis.

This state of affairs lasted for several years, with some fine contest scores being posted from HC8. However, to cut a long story short, problems with power-line noise and gradual encroachment by building development, meant that, while Guido’s home continued to be a fine base for the more casual holiday-style operations such as that made by G4IUF, it was increasingly unsuitable for major contest efforts.

Thus it was that when an parcel of land close to the old farm site became available, Rich N6KT, Trey N5KO, and Dave W6NL (ex-W6QHS and technical guru including being author of a popular book on the Physical Design of Yagi antennas), decided to take the plunge and build a permanent contest QTH on what is probably the best radio location on the island (which I’ll refer to from hereon as El Junco, named after the island’s extinct volcano, whose crater is just a half-mile or so away).

The first operations from El Junco took place in the autumn of 1998, still almost field-day style. The QTH had been bought as a virgin plot of land, and it had been necessary to bring in a spur from the island’s electricity supply and to break ground on a house which would serve as operating location and accommodation for visiting operators. At the same time, the four towers which had been used previously at Guido’s QTH, were relocated to El Junco, and set up with enough antennas to be able to mount a reasonable scale of operation. Nevertheless, when the initial activities took place the house was only partially completed and open, at least to some extent, to the elements. As a result, CQWW RTTY (September 1998) and CQWW Phone (October 1998) were operated from a tent, while CQWW CW (November 1998) was from the partially-completed house. It’s perhaps worth mentioning "the elements" at this point. The climate at sea level in the Galapagos is extremely pleasant, with high temperatures and plenty of sunshine, but moderated by sea breezes. However, on the mountainous islands (and several of the HC8 islands fall into this category), the mountain peaks tend to be covered in cloud for around eight months of the year. El Junco is at 600m. Temperatures are typically 20 degrees Fahrenheit lower than at sea level, and the air is damp (and that’s when it’s not actually raining). Visibility is also limited; for much of the time I was there in November we were unable to see all four of the towers from the house. At times we couldn’t see any of them. But it soon became clear that, from a radio point of view, the site is excellent. The ground falls away rapidly towards the sea in the main directions of Europe (across Eastern USA) and Japan (across Western USA), and signals to and from those locations are invariably excellent on all bands.

I am astonished at what the three protagonists have achieved since that 1998 start, assisted of course by a huge amount of local effort from Guido and regular assistance from visiting operators. Little has appeared in print, but it is worth digging out the QST article (April 2002) which, although dealing with El Junco mainly from a 6-metre perspective, gives a flavour of the place, along with some excellent photographs.

The current El Junco station sports four 135 ft towers, each focused on an HF band and, between them, supporting antennas for LF. There is also an inverted-vee, at about 100ft, for 30m and, recently-installed, a pair of duo-band 12/17 metre Yagis (Force 12) fixed on JA and EU. Behind the house is a smaller tower carrying a C3 tribander and a 7-element 6-metre Yagi. The antenna complement is shown in the table. The antennas are roughly 50/50 Force-12 and W6NL homebrew. Of particular interest is the 3-element 40, which was designed and built by W6NL, and brought to HC8 in a ski-bag!

Inside the station, a huge amount of equipment has been accumulated over the years, although for most operations it is necessary to bring in the main radios. All feeders are terminated at WX0B switching boxes. However, there is no permanent station set-up, as the requirements of each contest tend to be different, and the station has been used for single-op, multi-single, multi-two and multi-multi at various times. This means that the stations and the logging network usually have to be set up from scratch. And, of course, visiting operators are encouraged to activate HC8 outside the contest, often on the WARC bands or specialist modes, which requires further reconfiguration of antennas, bandpass filters, etc. To give you a flavour, for this year’s CQWW CW, which was the focus of my trip, the main station configuration was as per the table below. The top three bands also had a second rig available for multiplier-spotting. A PacketCluster link was established via the WARC bands (30 at night, 12 by day) with K5TR.

Which tales us nicely to this year’s contest. The plan was to operate multi-multi, with ten operators who, for the first time, would include visitors from Europe as well as the USA. The team consisted of:

Obviously these were primary responsibilities, but with flexibility according to who was available and which bands were open at any given time.

Members of the team flew in by various routes, and at different times. I was the last to arrive, having been constrained by arriving back just days before from a holiday with my xyl. My own route was via Miami to Quito, overnight in Quito and then on to San Cristobal. All Galapagos flights originate in Quito with a stop in Guayaquil, and vice versa on the return trip (Mike’s article also mentions this. The reason for not leaving Quito with a full fuel load is to reduce weight as Quito is almost 10,000 ft asl, surrounded by the Andes, making take-off quite exciting!). On arrival in HC8 I was met by Guido HC8GR and Tine S50A. Tine and his wife (S56MM) were staying at Guido’s; the rest of the team were at El Junco. After a brief stop at Guido’s QTH it was off across the island to El Junco, arriving in time to join the rest of the team for lunch. It turned out that I had missed the majority of the antenna work that had been needed, though I did get to stand in the rain that afternoon, helping Trey to adjust the 80m wire Yagi. I could hardly complain. While we were doing this Ken K5KA was off up one of the towers to attach the new topband sloper, with Doug K1DG walking the bottom end down the hill amongst some pretty unpleasant foliage and terrain (Ken and Doug were barely able to spot one another through the low cloud while undertaking this task!). By arriving last I had missed the opportunity for a one-day boat trip to see some of the local wildlife. Most of the team had done this, and had stories of sea lions and turtles, but there were also some unpleasant cases of sunburn from reflections off the sea.

The routine settled into completing station set-up and running the occasional pile-up to get a feel for propagation and ensure that everything was working OK. I was more then satisfied with results on 80m, although it did look as though the 80m wire Yagi was little different to the European dipole when working EU or East Coast US. Having K1EA as a team member added an element of amusement. I well remember, years ago, the panic before each CQWW to ensure that we had the very latest release of CT (at least once, received by FedEx from the US just hours before taking the ferry to GU). But in HC8 we went one better, by having three new releases generated on location, as Ken took the opportunity to add new radio interfaces (IC-756 ProII, and TS-930 PiEXX board) and test them in situ. Domestically, we were well taken care of by the family which lives at El Junco as caretakers. This couple (and their energetic 4 year-old daughter), have done a tremendous amount to domesticate the site, and the meals that they provide are just what hungry contesters need. Guido and his family are also regular visitors, keeping an eye on the management of the place. Incidentally, this might be the right time to mention, in case any of you were wondering, that 97% of the land area of HC8 is a designated National Park, while the remaining 3% is for habitation and cultivation. Obviously the El Junco site falls within that 3%. It is a little irritating that all visitors to HC8 have to pay a one-off National Parks tax of $100, even if, like us, you never set foot outside the 3% which falls outside the National Parks area. Anyway, at least in doing so we were making some small contribution to the maintenance of these islands as the unique ecosystem that they are. Most of us also got the opportunity to visit the Darwin Interpretation Centre, sponsored by Spain, which gives a fascinating overview of the history and ecosystem of the islands.

Typically, within minutes of the start of the contest, technical problems started to emerge, despite having soak-tested everything over the preceding days. The 15m station developed a switching fault which kept it off the air for the first half-hour or so of the contest, while the topband signal was definitely T6 or worse, a problem traced to a drop in mains voltage which the outboard PSU couldn’t handle (fixed by changing PSU). On the whole, though, things went pretty smoothly, though K5KA and I found ourselves wrestling with a relatively high ambient noise level on the LF bands. What I found interesting, and unexpected, was that I had imagined 160 and 80 would be wall-to-wall with loud US signals throughout the hours of darkness. In fact this was far from being the case. I was able to work through the pile on 80 in the first few hours, to the point where frequent CQs were in order, and the loud Europeans had absolutely no problem in getting through. I guess the North American stations are on the high bands or it bed after about 0500 GMT, so European dawn is relatively free of W and VE QRM.

The new 160m sloper worked extremely well, but the propagation gods simply didn’t co-operate. Just three UK stations made it on 160: GU4YOX G4BUO and GW3TMP. Congratulations especially to Bob GU4YOX who was not only the first UK station to get through, but did so with 50 watts from G4TSH’s old TS930! Oh to live by the sea on GU! The 80m log records 42 UK QSOs: G0OPB G0ORH G3GAF G3GLL G3IGW G3JAG G3KZR G3LZQ G3NAS G3SED G3SNN G3SWH G3TXF G3UFY G3VXJ G3WGV G3WUX G3XGC G3XYC G3ZGC G4BUO G4DJX G4ELZ G4HXX G4IIY G4IRN G4KFT G4PWA G5LP GI3FJX GI5W GJ2A GM0F GM3JKS GM3YOR GM4SID GM4YXI M2A M7M MM0BQI MU5X MW5A. Well done one and all.

The high bands seemed to go well, with several QRP G stations making easy QSOs with HC8N (Paul G0WAT logged us on three bands with 5 watts to a multiband vertical). Those big monobanders at HC8N, along with the excellent take-off and the benefit of equatorial propagation certainly do the trick. In the event though, it seems we came in second to the EA8ZS team, who benefited from a single-hop into Europe, with lots of QSOs and country mults on the low bands that we and the gang at XT2DX simply couldn’t match. But lots of fun was undoubtedly had by all.

A summary of claimed scores by the main multi-multis appears in the table:

Not actually after the contest, in fact, but a few hours before it finished we were visited by none other than Fernando EA8AK, someone I have been working on 160 for almost 30 years but who I had never met. Fernando is an MEP (Member of the European Parliament) for Spain, and was in Ecuador/Galapagos to oversee the national elections on behalf of the EC. Needless to say, the discussion quickly moved from politics to topband!

The following day some of the operators had to make a hasty departure to be back with their families for Thanksgiving. Those of us who remained did a little sightseeing, plus spending more time on the bands. As Mike observes in his article, the WARC bands have probably been under-exploited from HC8, as most activity has been on the main (contest) bands. I fired up one of the linears on 30, 17 and 12 (surprisingly, all WARC band activity to date from El Junco had been barefoot), and had a great time running the pile-ups, with the two new WARC-band antennas. Hopefully it will have given some a you some new slots. Meanwhile Zoli HA1AG was determined to make his mark in a very different way, and borrowed my laptop to make the very first SSTV QSOs from HC8. He soon had what I understood to be the SSTV equivalent of a pile-up, and put some tens of QSOs in the log. While this was happening, Mike WA6O, who had taken the trouble to acquire his own HC8 call, was busily using it to make some noise, mainly on 20m. We also had a "media" visit from the local TV station, who were preparing a feature on our operation. Trey and Guido explained at length (in Spanish, of course) what we were up to. Whether the TV presenters managed to make any sense of these crazy hams and their contest ("concurso") is another matter!

The journey home was uneventful. As Mike says, Ecuador actually seems like a haven of peace and tranquility, and Quito is a beautiful city. The Spanish architecture in the "old town" area is quite magnificent. Zoli HA1AG and I had a day to see the sights, and as well as some visiting around the town we also headed out to La Mitad del Mundo, where we took the standard tourist pictures, standing astride the equator. This is where a famous French scientist fixed the location of the equator, calculated the length of a kilometre (one ten-thousandth of the distance from equator to pole if I recall correctly) and showed that the earth is actually an oblate spheroid, rather than perfectly round. Mind you, finding the equator can’t have been too hard – there’s a bright yellow line painted there!

Last, but by no means least, my thanks to Trey for the invitation to operate from HC8N, to Guido and his family, to Isidro, Lida and Jodi at El Junco, to Janet for allowing me to go off on these jaunts, and to my fellow operators for making the whole experience so enjoyable.

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