Monday 31st
March
We arrived 3 hours later in OY land due to high winds. At Arrival at the
house we quickly started to build the antennas in the rain. Due to heavy
winds we couldn’t erect the 160 meter vertical so we started the night
with only the 2 Quads. We have forgotten to bring the 10 meter fiber mast
for 40 meter. When it got dark we stopped the antenna work and start building
the station in the house. One hour later we had 3 stations setup ready
to go.
Tuesday
1st April
In the early morning the sun was shining but by the time we started working
again on the 160 meter antenna is was raining and storming again. Weather
changes very rapidly over here. We decided to leave the 160 meter vertical
for later and started working on the 80 meter vertical, by the time that
one was set up we continued with the 160 meter vertical. We decided to
wait with the 40 meter antenna since we had enough bands to operate.
We soon learned
the propagation is very bad on the high bands, with an A-index of 26 the
15 meter band is highest band and only workable in the afternoon. We work
mainly Europe but are constantly watching the band opening to other continents.
Uploading the
logs to the web-site wasn't that easy as expected. We finally got access
to our provider using cellular phones. It seems that Internet providers
have different phone numbers from within the same country and abroad.
We didn't knew that, but that problem is solved now, Alex PA1AW will receive
daily logs from us which he will try to publish same night. We also started
a diary which we will upload for publications. The 9K6 line is to slow
and to expensive to upload pictures so you have to wait until we are back
home.
Wednesday
2nd April
Today we have set up the Force 12 beam and made a 40 meter inverted-V
antenna. End off the day we had about 4.5k Q's in the log. We now have
3 stations active during the day and 2 stations during the night.
Thursday
3rd April
During a storm the 160 meter vertical broke, it was to late to repair
it so we had to operate this night without 160 meter. Today we have done
some PSK for the first time. During the first hours of the night we had
no propagation and stopped early, at 3 o’clock we started again and had
a good run to the USA on 30 meter and later a small run to JA. Conditions
are slowly improving.
Friday 4th
April
We got the 160 meter vertical repaired and set it up again in the afternoon
with an extra set of guy wires. Around 11 o'clock we had a little opening
on 12 & 10 meters so at leased we have now worked all bands from 10-160
meters. At 17.00 we logged 10.000 QSO’s. In the evening we have been very
active on the low bands 40/80/160 including a good run on topband SSB.
Saturday 5th April
To give you an idea how our
operating schedule looks like here is the schedule we use:
19-02
local |
02-10
local |
10-13
local |
13-15
local |
15-18
local |
18-19
local |
Team 1 |
Team 2 |
Team 1 |
Team 2 |
Team 1 |
All dinner |
Team 2 |
Team 1 |
Team 2 |
Team 1 |
Team 2 |
All dinner |
Team 1 = PA5ET,
GM4FDM, AK0A
Team 2 = PA3EWP, PA3FQA
During the
night we didn't work any North America or Japan . . . so it became an
European show again. We are constantly on the watch for openings outside
of Europe but just haven't been lucky yet.
At the end
of the morning and beginning of the afternoon we had our first good opening
on 10 & 12 meter and that in the weekend so quit some HAM's made the
log. This weekend we will participate in the EA RTTY Contest as OY7WB
for the full 24 hours, the other 2 stations will be on other bands and
modes.
Sunday 6th April
We didn't had a good night,
hardly no stations outside Europe have been worked and we had lots of
problems to find clear spots due to the SPDX contest. If you can't beat
them join them so in the morning we decided to work the SP contest stations
and hand out serial numbers which was greatly accepted as a new multiplier
for all SP's so we could keep our frequency better than before.
This morning
in the RTTY contest we only had propagation on 20 meters and have worked
all RTTY stations so we stopped earlier.
The pile-ups
are getting more controllable so often we can now work simplex which increases
the QSO rate. In the afternoon we had a good run to the USA on 17 meters
SSB & CW and the first US/VE stations made the log on 12 meters. In
the evening we activated the low bands again, the propagation is getting
better and better. On 40 meter we worked some South America which we didn't
here in the days before.
Monday 7th April
In the early morning the low
bands where finaly good to North America. Lot's off US stations made a
QSO on 30, 40 or 80. We even worked a few on 160. In the morning we worked
quit some JA's on 30, 20 and 17 meters. The afternoon started very slowly,
20 meter was good but 10 and 12 not, end of the afternoon 12 meter openened
for a short time and some US stations have been worked. Tonight we will
concentrate again on the low bands.
Tuesday 8th April
Tuesday started great, this
has been the best night so far, 20 meter didn't close before 03.00 and
we made about 2000 Q's during the night.
Thursday 10th
April
We worked 40 & 80 meters
during the night, the 160 meter vertical had a bad SWR. It was clearly
we have worked almost everyone, we didn't had any pile-ups anymore and
worked simplex most of the time. We dismantelled the low band verticals
at 10.00 and the Quads at 14.00 local time.
We finished
this Dx-pedition with 26.000 QSO's in the log. We are happy with this
result. As soon we come home we will publish the statistics and pictures.
This will be the last update from OY-land.
|