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Caribbean Tour 1999
Like the last 4 years we (Ronald PA3EWP, Peter
PA4EA and Rob PA5ET) planned to go to the Caribbean again. This year we wanted
to go with more operators. Dennis PA7FM was the first new operators that join
the group. In the beginning of December we got a telephone call from Martin
PA4WM. He asked for our plans for the Caribbean, because he and Henk PA3GCV had
also plans to go to the Caribbean. After a long conversation I asked him about
the idea to go with 6 operators. We both discuss the idea with the other
operators, and everybody was very positive. 14 days later we had our first
meeting, we had a lot of items to discuss. So at the end of the meeting we had
our plan.
· Going in August to PJ7 (St. Maarten), V4 Nevis and VP2E
Anguilla.
· Try to be active with 2 radio's 24 hours a day.
· Special
attention for the WARC bands and Europe.
· Activated 6 meters.
· Online
web-site with log searches and so on.
So in the coming months we had a lot of
preparations to do. Dennis had 1 big milestone to get: passing the CW exam for
his A-license. Rob had to arrange all the licenses and custom affairs. Martin,
Peter and Ronald had to find a good location on the Islands. Henk had to arrange
all the affairs with the traveling agent. Martin and Henk made the antenna plan
for HF. Dennis took care of the 6 meter station. Ronald took care of the
computers. Alex, PA1AW our web-master started with the web-site.
We took the following
equipment with us:
- 2* Yaesu FT990 2* Cushcraft R7000+ vertical
- 1*
Icom IC706 1* Cushcraft R7000 vertical
- 1* Yaesu FT847 1* 5 el. 6 meter (by
GB-towers)
- 1* PTC decoder 1* 10 meter fiber mast (by GB-towers)
- 1* HAL
DXP38 decoder 4* 10 meter fiber mast (by DK9SQ)
- 3* Switch power supply 250
m coax cable Aircell + RG58
- 4* portable computer copper wire for dipoles
and verticals
- 9* Bandpass filters
After 7 months we were at least
ready to go for our trip.
Sint Maarten and Saint Martin
On 5th August
we meted at Amsterdam Airport "Schiphol". We had to fly to St. Maarten via
Paris. Our total weight of luggage was approx. 230 KG. We were afraid that we
got problems during checking-in. There was no problem at all, our luggage was
directly checked-in for St. Maarten so no problems at Paris at all.
10
hours after departure we arrived at the airport. We went to the villa which was
rented for 5 days. The villa was located at a bay at the East Side of the
Island. The location was not perfect for the USA, there was a mountain just into
that direction. For Europe there was no problem, we had a very clear sight.
As soon we arrived we started assembling the antennas before it was to
dark to finish this job. The R7000+ verticals were spaced about 75 meters to
prevent QRM on the other bands. We put up a separated vertical for 40 meters. A
dipole for 12 meters and a delta-loop for 17 meters were setup on the 10 meter
fiber masts of DK9SQ. Dennis prepared the 5 elements six meter beam (in the
swimming pool?!).
After 2 hours the complete station was finished and we were
ready to go.
The six meter beacon was active every day from approx. 09.00 -
22.00 Local time.
What we expected was true, this location was not good
for North America. The next day we made the 160 meter antenna. There was no
space for a beverages antenna at this location.
Because we were only a
few KM away from the French part of the Island we had made the decision to be
active also from this country. We made 2 teams, 1 team stayed in the villa and
the other team went to FS.
The portable station was a perfect location for
Europe and North America. The portable R7000 antenna was on 1 side only 3 meters
from the Atlantic Ocean and on the other side about 10 meters from a big
salt-water lake. So this location was perfect. The power for the radio came from
the car battery. The radio we used for this portable operation was the Icom
IC706. And for logging we used paper (oeps). For all of us it was a very long
time ago to do paper logging, but we got used to it. Only Peter and Rob were
active on CW from the portable location. Back at the villa we had to log all the
QSO's in the computer, it took a lot of time to accomplish this job (very nice
the bad hand writing). The pile-ups from the portable location were much bigger
than from the villa.
We made only 1 QSO on 6 meters from FS and 1 QSO from
PJ7. We worked our own portable station hi, but maybe it is a first on 6 meters.
After being active for 5 days we were ready to go for V4, Nevis. In
total we made 2.407 QSO's from FS and 7.340 QSO's from PJ7. We hoped that the
location on Nevis was much better than this one.
Our departure was very early
in the morning from St. Maarten, the advance was that we would arrive very early
on Nevis.
Nevis V4
After arriving at the villa we inspected
the environment around the house to place the antennas. We noticed that we had a
clear view to Europe and North America, so we expected a lot more of this
location. The housekeeper has never seen such a strange group of visitors. They
arrived at the villa and within 15 minutes the start working like crazy guys. 2
of them went out for shopping and the other 4 redesigned the villa. They rebuild
the living room, all the furniture was replaced and the put on the table all
kind of computers and other strange equipment. All suitcases and bags were
unpacked in the living room.
Outside the villa the other guys were working on
the antennas and put them all around the house. They put a cable on the antennas
and the other end of the cable came into the villa on all kind places (under the
front door, back door and through the windows). She never say so big mesh within
a very short time.
A few hours later the complete station was ready, the
2 R7000+, dipole for 12 and 17 meters and the 6-meter beam were ready. So within
12 hours from our departure on PJ7 we were active from V4. After 15 hours more
than 2.000 QSO's were logged including a few on 6 meters.
We split up the
group into two parts, one group stayed at home and the other group went
sightseeing and were active from a portable location. We find a nice resort for
our portable operation, we could also use the fixed power supply. Luckily for
Rob he could work CW again with the portable computer.
The first Japanese
stations came into the log. At the villa we put up a inverted-L for 160 meters.
We changed every day shift, so one-day it was possible to operate from the main
house and the second day from the portable station.
Every day during the
European greyline we were active. On 160-meters, we heard nothing at all, it was
terrible. 17 meters seems to be the magic band.
In the evening we were
surprised again by the visit of 3 local hams. Earl V44NEF, Elbert V44NE and
McCoy V44kmc came by and brought along some island made drinks. When the sun was
setting we enjoyed the good live.
The next day Rob, Dennis and Ronald
went to a new portable location on the island. They went to a little mountain at
approx. 500 meter high. The temperature was very high >40C and no wind at
all. The worked 15 meters SSB and CW. The signals from this location were much
stronger than from the main station.
At the end of the afternoon we went back
to the house and took down the 6-meter antenna because the next day we will
departure to Anguilla.
The last greyline from Nevis was very bad. Early in
the morning we took down all the antennas and prepared us for departure. We made
17.323 QSO's from Nevis, mostly on the WARC bands and in SSB.
The plane will leave at 16Z
from Nevis to St. Maarten were we will take the boat to Anguilla.
Anguilla, VP2E
At 1600 Local time we arrived at the villa. The
Communications Department was already closed so we didn't have our licenses for
the first day. In the mean time the antennas were setup and everything was
prepared. The next day we finished the station and departure very early to the
Telecommunication Officer of Anguilla to get our licenses. Originally we would
get VP2/homecall but we convinced him that this was to long… so we agreed in
VP2E + last 2 letters of home call. So we got permission for VP2EEA, VP2EET,
VP2EFM, VP2EWM, VP2EWP and VP2ECV.
The Telecom Officer also showed us the
Emergency Operating Center. They have a R7000 on the roof of the police station
and an old Icon receiver. He asked us to test the station because he was not
sure about the equipment. We tested the station with the call VP2Emergency
Operating Center, and all seems to work fine. We made some recommendation to
improve the setup.
Back at the villa the first QSO's were made on 6
meter with VP2MDD and KP4BZ. After 6 hours of operating we logged about 2.400
QSO's. 17 meter was again the best band to be on.
The next day we were again
active from our mobile station. During that weekend we participated a few hours
in the SARTG RTTY contest. That weekend we were also active on 160 meter and the
first NA and EU QSO's were logged. The next days we ware on daytime on the
higher bands and in the evening during the European greyline on the lower bands.
We made a lot of QSO's on 80 meters, 160 meter was to noisy to hear anything.
The day before departure the portable station got problems with the
R7000 antenna, the SWR was very bad, so Rob, Martin and Henk quit that operation
and went to the beach.
In the morning of the last day we passed the 40.000
QSO's mark of this Tour. At the end of the afternoon we started to break down a
few antennas before sunset. The next morning we had to departure.
Around
11.00H our boat was leaving for St. Martin, from there we took a taxi to the
airport. 3 hours later we were on the flight to Paris. Most of the time we were
at sleep during our way back home.
We were very please with the result
of our 21 days during DX-pedition. We tried to be active 24 hours a day and on
all bands.
Epilog
We can look back to a big success, we never
expected that it was possible to make such amount of QSO's in such a short time.
The low bands were very difficult this time. We tried to be active for 24 hours
but in practice it was around 20 hours a day. Most of the QSO's (67%) were made
with Europe. This year we made less CW QSO's, the reason was that 4 operators
preferred SSB instead of CW. It was also difficult to work CW from the portable
station. In total we made 3% (1.296) RTTY QSO's, 40% (16.688) CW QSO's and 57%
(……) SSB QSO's. Most QSO's were made on 17 meters (11.330 QSO's).
Enno,
PA5EA was logged 91 times,
Every day our web-site was updated. You could
find our diary, pictures and our logs. All of these information is still
available:
http://www.qsl.nwt/lldxt
If you visit our web-site, don't
forget to sign our guest-book.
We hope to meet you again during our next
DX-pedition from.
Ronald Stuy PA3EWP
Email: Webmasters Veron Zuid Oost Drenthe
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