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| Martin PA4WM :Thanks to everybody. Travelling through the Caribbean, visiting St.Maarten/ St.Martin, Nevis and Anguilla, rigging up the equipment and activate them on our shortwaves was a thrill. The 40.000 qso mark is something I never had guessed, but very exiting to pass. So everybody thanks for the many contacts and the nice pile-ups. It was a pleasure! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Thanks for the feedback on the internet. The team was great, but it's time to divorce and go back to the wife and kids...73, Martin |
Rob PA5ET :This was my fifth Caribbean Tour and also the biggest. It was a big challenge to go with a bigger team and more rigs. We just stayed long enough on each island to keep the pile-ups and long enough so everybody could work us. Passing the 40.000 qso's is great, I will be busy again answering all QSLs. Changing my callsign from PA3ERC into PA5ET ready was an improvement in CW. Having Internet on each location was perfect, the Packet Clusters made overtime. I like to thank Alex PA1AW for maintaining the excellent web-site, over 4000 hits, wow. Our audience behaved correctly and I really enjoyed working everybody. I like to congratulate all team members for their super job, the team spirit was really there. Again all equipment performed outstanding without any problems. Unfortunately my employer wants me back again so I can't stay any longer. See you next year from . . . | |
Henk PA3GCV:I want to thank everybody who made this tour to a success, the conditions were not always our friend but still we made many contacts. Normally I am a SSB operator but I made also a lot of CW contacts, I learned a lot in CW and want to thank everybody for these contacts, it was not always easy but we survived. We also made some contacts on the topband which wasn't an easy job because of the heavy static qrm , only on Anguilla it was possible to put a few in the log. I liked traveling around but I am happy to go back home to my wife and children, its not easy to be three weeks away from them. See you on the band 73 .... |
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Ronald PA3EWP:This tour was a very big success, like the prior Tours. I want to thank everybody for making this Tour a great success, not only the radio amateurs for the pile-ups but also all the others on the back-side and internet visitors. Thank you all for all the positive comments. This was the first time we had so big group and it was a great success, more antennas, equipment and so on. We were mostly active 24 hours a day. Our portable operation on FS, V4 and VP2E gave a special dimension on our Tour. Everybody behaves OK during the pile-ups, specially the Europeans (thank you). After logging more than 40.000 Q's, we can look back to a big success. I hope that everybody had the same fun working us as I had working you. Thanks everybody, see you next year from .... | |
Peter PA4EA:After not participating in last years Tour, it was good to be back. Thanks for all the nice responds via internet and on the bands. Sometimes the pile-ups were huge, while on other moments it was hard to stay awake with only a few takers. It was a challenge to run a pile up in CW on a portable location with a keyer of another operator. Also, to keep the log sheets from blowing away wasn't easy. These 3 weeks have gone bye very quick, so now it's time to go home and have a good rest. Back to the 'wrong' side of the pile-up. |
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Dennis PA7FM:My first Caribbean tour and HF expedition / holiday into the Caribbean. Just great to be on the good side of the pile-up and enjoying the islands possibilities for a good vacation on the other side at the same time. Sri 6m would not really work, just missed some propagation there,but that's the guess in this time off the year.Thanks for all feedback on the bands and hope to see you all some other time from somewhere else on one of the bands. |
In the early hours we passed the 40.000 qso mark. Time to celebrate, but not
for long, we have to move on. This was our last day of full operation. Despite
of the lacking propagation the day was filled with lots of activity and again
many made it into the logs. During the night we only activated the lower bands,
as we broke down a part of the antenna farm before sunset.
Tomorrow the 25th at 14:00z this years Caribbean tour will come to an end, as
we will hit the road to catch the ferry and start our journey back home.
We had to stop the operation for about 2 hours this morning
due to severe thunderstorms. When the air cleared the operation continued.
The high bands were in good shape and many qso's are logged during the
day on 10,12 and 17 meters. Due to the bad weather the mobile station was
not used today, who wants to swim in the rain ... Coming night we will
focus again on the low bands. Talking about the weather, hurricane Cindy
is on it's way from East Africa to the Caribbean. It goes very slow so we
will already be at home before it reaches this area. In the evening many
Europeans were logged on 80 meters, and during the night mainly 30,40 and
20 were activated.
The portable group enjoyed the island in the morning hours,
and went to the beach around 2pm and operated only 15m. We felt that 15m
was not as good as 12 and 10m. During the evening and into the night
Rob, Henk and Martin were at the villa again. Besides the "normal" bands
we focussed on the low bands as well, and finally the first contacts were
logged on topband. A couple of stations out of the US and Europe made it into
the 160m log.
We compared our FT990 with their Icom transceiver
and experienced that the FT990 has a better reception of weak signals.
In the afternoon the Tour continued, Ronald, Dennis and Peter manned the
mobile station on 15 meters while Rob, Martin and Henk made most contacts
on 17 and 20 meters. In the evening Ronald and Rob participated a couple of
hours in the SARTG RTTY contest and will continue doing this in the other
2 x 8 hours sections. Also 40 was in good shape, Europe was worked far
after their grayline. Lots of Europeans made the log on 30 meters.
So we got permission for:
VP2EET, VP2EEA, VP2EWP, VP2EWM, VP2EFM and VP2ECV. The Telecom Officer also
showed us the Emergency Operating Centre. They have a R7000 on the roof of
the Police station and an old Icon transceiver. Tomorrow between 12Z-16Z we
are asked to operate this station using VP2EOC to test the station and do
recommendations how to improve the station. These QSO's won't be part of the
Caribbean Tour so no cards will be sent. We invite stations to call us to
test the station VP2"E"mergency"O"perating"C"entre. The first QSO's are made
on 6 meter with VP2MDD and KP4BZ at 15.30Z. After 6 hours of operation about
2400 QSO's are logged. 17 was again the best band during the day and in the
evening 20,30 and 40 were ok. The flux is still low and the A and K index
are still high, hopefully this will improve.

We arrived at 1600 local time at the villa. The Communications
Department was already closed so we didn't had our licenses yet. In the mean
time the antenna's are setup and everything is prepared.
While the sun was setting we enjoyed the good live...
At european greyline 40 and 80m showed to be open and many european station made
it into the logs. Tuesday evening at 21Z we take down the six meter beam and
Wednesday morning at sunset we take down the rest of the station. We hope to
be in the air again Wednesday evening from Anguilla.
160m is really a problem. We haven't heard single signal
since the ant. was raised. And static with a s9 level is not uncommon. 40
and 30m is good, but 80m is suffering also. Receiving the signals is the real
problem here.
In the morning hours they went on a sightseeing
tour and found a nice spot with a clear view towards Europe and North America over
the Atlantic. The rest of the team, consisting of Rob, Ronald and Dennis stayed
at the house to operate from there. Conditions were good on the higher bands
with strong QSB. We were happy to work a lot into Japan for the first time.
The PJ7 & FS operations was stopped at 22Z. The balance
so far is 9700 QSO's in 5 days. Tomorrow the team will move to Nevis, the
flight will leave at 08.25 local time and they hope to be QRV again from
V4 land at 18Z.
Because of the late arrival they wanted to stay
longer then the previous days, this meant that the last hours would be in
complete darkness using a torch to see the logsheets. About 500 stations from
mainly Europe are logged despite the propagation were very poor. Comparison
of the two operating sites (FS/PJ7) showed that the location in FS land appeared
to have a better antenna situation for North America. The signals into Europe
are the approx the same from both locations. Our 6 meter beacon is still
running 50 watts into a 5 element yagi pointing to Europe. Today we heard for
the second time weak Spanish TV but no stations has been heard. The rest of
the team remained at the PJ7 camp spending their time pressing F1 without
a lot of response. Tomorrow Dennis, Peter and Ronald will go to FS land for
the last time. Sunday has been the best day so far. Tomorrow evening at
23Z the PJ7/FS stations will be taken down because of the early departure
to Nevis on Wednesday.
Tomorrow morning the whole team will go to
Philipsburg to buy some t-shirts and see the capital city. In the afternoon
Henk, Martin and Rob will return to FS land. This evening
we will activate 160 meters. Tuesday evening 23Z the stations will
be taken down because of the early departure to Nevis on Wednesday.
As from 13.30 local time they activated FS mainly on 10 and 17 meters. Rob
logged the first 27 CW QSO's with CT then the battery was empty of the
notebook and he had to continue with the ETM keyer and paper log. As from
the moment the FS station started the pile-ups are huge, also big signals
from North America which we didn't hear from the PJ7 station. At the moment
the FS station was working a pile-up on 10 meters the PJ7 station couldn't
hear a thing !!! so it's true to say that the PJ7 location is not that good
as we thought it would be. About 500 contacts are logged in 4 hours time.
The PJ7 team spent most of the time in the swimming pool because of the
low signals, only a couple of Europeans made the log. Tomorrow Peter Dennis
and Ronald will go to FS land and will try to activate 10 and 12 meters.
The FS location is Oriental Beach, a place surrounded by salt water on 3
sides giving an excellent take-off to all directions. We used the rental car
as power-supply and a towel as tent to protect the operator against
overheating. It has been over 30 degrees celsius all day and no shade, only
a bottle of warm water. On the picture page you can see how it looks like.
We had some interference between several bands and decided to build some
monoband antenna's. We setup a 17 meter Delta-loop, a 40 meter vertical and
an inverted L for 160 meter. After completing the antenna's we listened on
the bands and heard only noise and no stations so we went to the beach to
get a color. We started white and returned red. After lunch we split up the
group and Rob PA5ET, Martin PA4WM and Henk PA3GCV went to Philipsburg, the
capital of Dutch Sint Maarten, to arrange an Internet account. After that
they went on to FS land to find a good QTH for operations this weekend.
The plan is to be 2 afternoons active from FS this weekend so all operators
can attend once. FS will only be activated during day time. The other three
Ron PA3EWP, Peter PA4EA and Dennis worked their first pile-ups.
plenty of time in Paris to catch the next flight to PJ7 land.
To get in the mood we drank almost all beers in the plain. 9 hours later we
arrived on a very warm and sunny St.Maarten. We had some delay at immigration
because we didn't knew the address of the villa we were staying. After
several telephone calls the nice lady who collected us from the airport
sorted out the problems and we could continue our journey to the Villa.
We arrived at 16.00 local and had 3 hours before sun-set. We had decided to
setup 3 stations before starting the operation. The villa location was not
that good for take-off to North America as expected because of several
mountains standing in the way. Because of the heat we needed a refreshment,
Martin still wearing his jeans jumped in the swimming pool while the others
found some bottles of cold beer in the fridge. After 3 hours of hard work
we have setup two R7000+ and one R7000 all separated 30 meter of each other.
Also the six meter yagi was prepared to setup.We are still waiting for the switched power supplies which will be donated by one of our sponsors, but till now the sponsor didn't receive the shipping from Japan. This could be our biggest problem. So we are looking now for alternatives, but there is not much time left till the 5th August. Lets hope the shipment will arrive very soon.
We received a few request about PSK31 and RS12/13 QSOs. This weekend Ronald (PA3EWP) will try to experiment with PSK31 on his laptop computer. So there is a big possibility that we will be qrv with PSK31 from 1 laptop (that is the only one with an integrated audio system). RS12/13 is a different story, in the last years we were active a lot of time during a some orbits. But there was not much activity. And when we are working satellite 2 bands (10 and 15 meter) are in use. When someone is working a nice pile-up on 10 or 15 meter we don't stop the pile-up for working satellite. Sri for the satellite operators.
From now on we have only 14 days to sleep before we are qrv from the Caribbean. See you in the pile-up.