© PA3DMH Final update : February 12, 1998

	The Caribbean Tour 1997
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Welcome to the

The Caribbean Tour 1997

During the 1997 Caribbean Tour the islands of St. Lucia (J6) and Tobago (9Y) were activated on all amateur radio frequencies.
This Website contains all relavant information related to this tour and have been kept up to date on a daily basis to serve the DX community.
During the tour there was constant feedback with the crew on tour in the Caribbean to ensure the latest details and logs were available to the DX community
Please feel free to have a look around this site for more details.

73' Alex PA3DMH
Webmaster 1997 Caribbean Tour

NEWS - NEWS - NEWS - NEWS - NEWS 

The team started to plan the ( Caribbean ) Tour 1998...........

Introduction

August 9th, 1997 the 1997 Caribbean Tour was officially started by underlisted announcement made to all relevant Internet Reflectors and DX-outlets:

Peter PA3BBP, Rob PA3ERC and Ronald PA3EWP are proude to announce the Caribbean Tour 1997. Based on our big success of last year on FG,J7 and FM this year we will visit the following islands:

ST.LUCIA - J6 (IOTA: NA-108)
21 August - 30 August
Calls: J6/PA3BBP, J6/PA3ERC and J6/PA3EWP.
Might become J68BP,J68RC and J68WP.
QTH: Cap Estate

TOBAGO - 9Y4 (IOTA: SA-009)
30 August - 11 September
Calls: 9Y4/PA3BBP, 9Y4/PA3ERC and 9Y4/PA3EWP
QTH: Pigeon Point

We will have 2 stations on the air from 160-10 meters and will be active in the modes CW, SSB and RTTY. We will also try to work some Satellite RS-12. We will focus mainly on the WARC bands and the low bands for Europe during their grayline. Both locations will have an excellent take off to the US and Europe.

A special Internet Web Page will be setup again like last year with the url: http://www.igr.nl/users/pa3dmh/tour1997.html
This page will contain daily uploaded logs and digital images of the expedition. Special wishes can be send to Alex PA3DMH the Webmaster of this page. We like to make as much contacts as possible however WE DO NOT ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO WORK US DOUBLE !

For all above calls Rob PA3ERC will be the QSL manager.
QSL's can be send via the buro or direct to:
Rob Snieder
Van Leeuwenstraat 137
2273 VS Voorburg
The Netherlands

The Caribbean Tour 1997
DIARY

During the tour this page contained the team members diary and other daily updated additional tour related information.

August 8	Official notification to the DX community of the 1997 Caribbean Tour
August 13	Final confirmation from Mr. Mason at the St. Lucia telecon office that calls will be J6/PA3ERC, J6/PA3EWP & J6/PA3BBP.
August 21	21/08/97 · 10.30 Amsterdam-Barbados · 13.30 Arrival Barabados · 15.30 Barbados-St.Lucia · 16.15 Arrival St.Lucia couldn't take in the 2 transceivers and antennas. 22/8 the crew Since the Ministry of Communication did not inform customs they will go to Castries to the Ministry to clear this issue. As promised indeed an excellent take of into all directions and plenty of space to put up antenna's.
August 22	Just to give you the feel of where they are........    This vacation villa is high in the hills of Cap Estate,  on the extreme northern end of the island. Five minutes to beaches. The living room is air-conditioned  with views down the Caribbean coast. There is a large, open air dining area under roof. Fully equipped kitchen. Tiled floors throughout. Wonderful Caribbean Sea views down coast and out to Martinique.
August 22	· 05.30 They had their first dive in the private swimming pool · 09.00 Called Ministry of Communications about the equipment issue · 14.00 Collected customs forms as Ministry of Communications · 15.30 Collected equipment at customs · 16.15 Started setting up 2 x R7000+ verticals · 20.00 Had dinner, a nice big t-bone steak · 01.40 ERC opened the Caribbean Tour on 40 meters CW with Peter on 80 meters CW. The 160 meter antenna is prepared to be setup 23/08. Propagations where not very good the first night, a lot of static on 80, 40 was not to bad. See logs for details.
August 23	Early in the morning some JA’s are worked on 17 and 20. The 160 meter antenna has been setup, it’s an inverted L. The QRN is terrible on 80 and 160, it’s very hard to copy Europe on 80. On 160 we only worked one VP2 station, the antenna for 160 is functioning but the receive part needs to be improved. 24/08 the possibilities of a beverage will be investigated, the space is the problem. Just before dinner we had a very good opening on 30 meters to Europe. Most of the QSO’s are made in CW due to the poor signals.
August 24	The morning propagation where very poor.  In the afternoon, Ernest J69AZ and his XYL came to the house to pay them a visit. And in the evening, 5 local hams visited them in the restaurant where they had their dinner. Later that evening the first European station was logged on 160 (G4BWP).
August 25	25/08/97 This morning the band was very poor, no propagation at all. They worked about 50 stations in approx. 5 hours. In the afternoon the propagation improved. Rob J6/PA3ERC worked a lot of Europeans on 12 meters, a very nice pile-up. Later Ronald J6/PA3EWP worked on 15 meters also a lot of Europeans. It doesn’t matter which mode, cw and ssb on the same qrg is no problem for them. The first RTTY qso’s are made. Only 20 stations made it in the rtty-log. It was very difficult, many stations don’t know what UP2 means. They were calling all the time on our qrg instead of up.
August 26	Today was a sunny and hot day. Again in the morning poor propagation. They had some time to optimise the antenna situation. For twelve meters they made a dipole, to be able to work on 10 and 12 meters at the same time. Last night during the European greyline, they heard a lot of stations calling, but could not get the calls, because of the static. therefore they made a short beverage of 100m, more or less pointing north. This hopefully will improve their reception on the low bands.
August 27	The receiving antenna improved the receiving part but the qrn is still to hard to have a decent copy of the weak European stations. In the morning bad propagations again. Early in the afternoon some USA activity was heard on 10 meters, only one station was worked. Later in the afternoon they did some RTTY on 20 meters and worked some Europeans. It looks like that working RTTY, when it’s busy, is harder then working cw or ssb pile-ups! Later in the afternoon 12 and 10 meters opened to Europe. Hopefully the sun-flux stays this high. Early in the evening we had a nice run to JA on 17 meters CW. For several hours during the night they tried to work USA on 40 SSB but only 10 stations are worked. The Europeans on 40 SSB did better, about 100 are logged. 80 SSB is almost impossible due of the heavy QRN but they keep on trying. Tomorrow we will try to do 10 meters cw.
August 28	The team suffered their first day of very bad propagation to Europe. High QRM and QRN levels on all bands. RTTY worked out well, so did 40 SSB to USA
August 28	More than 100 rtty qso’s were made on 20 meters by Peter. Propagation on the higher bands was very poor. Only a few Europeans were worked on 10 and 12 meters, mostly Southern-Europe.
August 29	During the day they have made an Island tour with J69AZ and XYL. There were a lot of nice places on the Island. Around 22.00Z they were active again for a few hours. They all went to bed early, they were tired.
August 30	In the morning a few qso’s were made. At 13.12Z Peter J6/PA3BBP made the last qso from St.Lucia on 12 meters. They finished their dx-pedition with 7.105 in the log. 09.00 taking down the dipoles and wire-antenna’s 10.00 taking down the verticals 12.00 Taking the last swim in their swimming-pool and have their last cocktail at J6. 13.30 J66AZ take them to the airport 14.00 Meeting at the airport with Perry Mason (Telecommunication officer) 14.45 Leaving St. Lucia 15.30 Arriving at Barbados 17.45 Leaving Barbados after 1 hour delay 19.00 Stop at Greneda 19.45 Arriving at Tobago 20.30 Arriving at the house Despite of several warnings of radio amateurs who have been on Trinidad and Tobago before they haven’t any problems bringing in equipment because all licenses were arranged in advance. After arriving at the house they had a dinner and the first vertical was assembled. Because it was already dark they decided to continue setting up the station early next morning. Tired of the journey to went early to bed.
August 31	At 6.30 Peter woke up and checked out the area surrounding the house. One hour later Ronald and Rob joined him. Within 3 hours they had the 2 x R7000’s ready to go. At 16.55Z The first QSO was made on 20 meters by Rob 9Y4/PA3ERC, what a long call hi. In the first 4 hours 1100 QSO’s were logged! Listening to the pile-ups we have the feeling that many amateurs need 9Y4.
Sept 01	Propagation this morning was not so good. Rob and Peter made some RTTY qso’s on 20 meter. At the end of the morning they made a little tour to the Northern part of the Island. In the afternoon Ronald worked his first rtty pile-up on 15 meters during the good opening to Europe. The 160 meter vertical has finished, it goes approx. 10 meters up in a tree and the 30 meters horizontal part is going to a coconut tree also 10 meters high. We will see what happens during the gray-line.
Sept 02	The first 160 meter QSO’s are logged. Receiving is again the problem. Only OH3ES was worked from Europe. In the afternoon 10 and 12 meters opened to Europe. Lots of people must be happy again. In the afternoon they have setup a 100 meter long beverage antenna into the direction of USA/Europe. Hopefully that will improve the reception on 160 meters. The 9Y crew asks everybody to spot them on your local PacketCluster, that really gives the pile-ups a boost. The crew enjoys reading the daily guestbook, keep on coming with comments of stories, they have plenty of time reading them in the morning while they are listening to noise.
Sept 03	Around 07.00Z was a nice opening to Europe on 20 meters, about 40 stations were put in the log. The beverage performed outstanding on 80 meters, without the beverages they could not work half of them due of the heavy qrn. They were today very active on RTTY, at this moment more than 300 qso’s are logged. In the beginning of the evening they worked some USA stations with strong signals on 10 and 12 meters, but there was not much response.
Sept 04	17 Europeans are logged on 160 meters this night, the beverage is doing a great job. Also about 80 QSO’s on 80 meters were added. On 30 meters they were trying to work some Oceania after the European gray-line but this was made impossible because of the constant qrm of European stations who kept on calling. After the grayline it was possible to work EU and OC on 20 meter phone. At 07.00Z the switch was turned off and only a few OC were left on the band. In the morning they had a slow start again as usual. In the afternoon mostly 17 and 20 were activated. They also had a visit of Peter 9Z4CR a local ham from the area. They don’t operate HF because they think the bands are not open and therefore only operate 2 meters! They don’t know what they are missing on the HF bands. Only one local Tobago 9Y ham operates cw and only works new countries, he doesn’t like pile ups, so that explains the big pile ups the Dutch guys are having. Nearly 6000 QSO’s are now logged from 9Y.
Sept 05	In the morning the propagation was very poor as usaly. 12 and 10 meters was open to EU. Peter worked several stations in CW and SSB. On 17 meter serveral JA’s were logged in phone by Ronald.
Sept 06	They fixed the beverage, somebody has stolen the radials. There were a lot of RTTY qso’s made, Peter worked many stations on 15 meter also. Rob put the first 10 meter RTTY qso in the log. The higher bands were very good open, Rob worked a lot of stations on 10 and 12 meters. The propagation on 160 and 80 meter was not so good as usually, they logged less than 10 stations on 160 meter. There were not much qso’s logged on 40 and 80 meters ssb because there was a fieldday contest which made the bands noisy.
Sept 07	They did again a lot of RTTY on 20 and 15 meters. Also on 15 meters SSB a lot of USA stations were logged. In the evening Ronald did some 40m SSB, about 25 USA stations made it to the log. The team reached the 9000 QSO’s today.
Sept 08	The band was very noisy on 80 and 160 meter, a few Europeans were logged on 160 meter. On 20 meter at approx. 05.30Z the VK/ZL stations were very strong as usual but none of them seems to need 9Y on 20m. They are all involved in local conversations. In the afternoon the higher bands seems to be opened. They worked a lot of Europeans on 10 and 12 meters (the high solar-flux >100 has a lot of influence on the propagation on the higher bands, they may be very lucky with the good propagation).
Sept 09	They were active in RTTY on 40 and 80 meters for the USA, but no RTTY signals were heard, maybe this evening?! Rob worked 30 Europeans on 160 meters! This must have been the opening people are waiting for, they had no static but there was a lot of qsb. On 80 meters Ronald could not use the beverage in combination with 160 meter, so it was very difficult to copy any station on the vertical. The first RS-12 qso is in the log with WB2EZI (maybe also the last one). RS-12 could only be worked during the night, after the gray-line to Europe or during day-time when the higher bands are open. They preferred the higher bands instead of working RS-12 (sorry guys). During day-time they made a tour on the Northern part of the Island and were not active at all.
Sept 10	Today the team made a tour around the island. The island is not very big, but in the north/west there is a bad piece of road which took a long time. In the evening most time was spend on 40 and 80 meters, and the 10000 qso barrier is passed.
Sept 11	The band opened rather late today, at 2200Z the 11000 QSO barrier is passed. The antennas for 160 meter and the 40 meter vertical are removed so only the 2 Cushcraft verticals and the beverage are left for the last night. For the first time during their stay on Tobago the European SSB signals on 80 meters were above noise level and about 25 stations made the log, it’s a pity not more stations were listening, then more station could have been worked. The end is coming, they tried to do some funny things like RTTY on 40 and 80 meters but nobody was listening. The pile-ups are decreasing which is the indication that most of the stations are worked and that gave the team a good feeling. It’s time to go home. They are all very tired of the intensive job they had to do, but they did it with devotion and pleasure. The Caribbean Tour 1997 was closed by 9Y4/PA3ERC at 1100Z. At 1500Z the team left Tobago to Barbados to catch the flight to Amsterdam.
Sept 12	After a trip of 20 hours the crew arrived savely and well at their homes. They have been in the last 20 hours in: 9Y, J3, 8P, 9V and PA. There were all-ready more than 100 cards received at Rob’s place (see picture) . At Peters and Ronalds place there in total approx. 50 cards received (mostly qsl-cards of 9Y).
Febr. 13	The final edition of the Website created

The Caribbean Tour 1997
Pictures

During the tour the digital camera was actively used by the team members. Over a 100 pictures came available on this site during the tour. A selection of pictures is available below.

Make you choice here.........

The Area

The Caribbean Tour 1997 Crew

	Call	PA3BBP J6/PA3BBP - 9Y4/PA3BBP
	Name	Peter
	Experience	HB0/PA3ERC, VP5/PA3EWP, VP5C, FG/PA3BBP, TO5C, J77C, J79BP, FM/PA3BBP  Extensive contest experience at PI4COM, PA6WPX, PA6HQ
	Mode	CW, some RTTY, SSB
	Profession	Airplane Mechanical Engineer at KLM, Dutch Royal Airlines
	Email	[email protected]

	Call	PA3ERC J6/PA3ERC - 9Y4/PA3ERC
	Name	Rob
	Experience	HB0/PA3ERC, VP5/PA3ERC, VP5C, FG/PA3ERC, TO5C, J77C, J79RC, FM/PA3ERC  Extensive contest experience at PI4COM, PA6WPX, PA6HQ
	Mode	CW, some RTTY, SSB
	Profession	Network Specialist
	Email	[email protected]

	Call	PA3EWP J6/PA3EWP - 9Y4/PA3EWP
	Name	Ronald
	Experience	HB0/PA3ERC, VP5/PA3EWP, VP5C, FG/PA3EWP, TO5C, J77C, J79WP, FM/PA3EWP  Extensive contest experience at PI4COM, PA6WPX, PA6HQ
	Mode	SSB, some CW & RTTY, Satellite
	Profession	Networking & System Specialist
	Email	[email protected]

The Caribbean Tour 1997
statistics in graphs

As each graph is about 60K to load you have to select the graph you like to see from the list

Make you choice here.........

 9Y4/PA.. split in modes/bands 9Y4 - Tobago vs. J6 - St. Lucia J6/PA.. split in modes/bands Split by band Split by continents/modes Number of QSO's vs. stations, countries etc.  

The Caribbean Tour 1997 QSL

The QSL Manager for this tour is : PA3ERC

BURO or direct to the underlisted address:

Rob Snieder PA3ERC
Van Leeuwenstraat 137
2273 VS Voorburg
The Netherlands>

The Guest book

During the active period of the Website it was possible to sign the 1997 Caribbean Tour Guest book. All comments, questions and suggestions about the tour and this Web site were warmly welcomed and forwarded to the 1997 Caribbean Tour team on a daily basis.

This is a summary of input received :

This site had visitors from Holland, USA, Japan, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Russian Federation, Brasil, Australia, Poland, Portugal, Czech Republic, Hungary, Ukraine Spain, Italy, Phillipines, South Korea, Slovenia, Singapore, Estonia, Israel, Austria, Norway, Denmark, Kuwait, Trinidad, Jordan and the United Kingdom. Unfortunately many of these visitors did not sign the guest book........

© PA3DMH Final update : February 12, 998

Author: Alex van Hengel PA3DMH
Copyright © 1997 Contestgroup Oude Maas [PI4COM]. All rights reserved.
Revised: februari 05, 2000.