Looks like I caught the last American flight out of Abaco until maybe Friday. Bahamas Air had already cancelled all of their flights out. The plane ended up being full since they waited to let as many people on as possible and therefore took off about 30 minutes late. The flight from Abaco to Miami was surprisingly smooth but I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the ocean below as there were whitecaps everywhere. The report I read this morning said the seas were 15-20 feet high in the passage to Florida (yikes!).
Due to the slow hell that is MIA I missed my connecting flight back to Orlando but I was able to get on the next one a couple of hours later.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Goodbye Abaco
Sunny and not a cloud in the sky this morning. However, the forecast above now has the eye of Noel passsing directly over Abaco late Wednesday/early Thursday. Also it may strengthen into a hurricane. What was an inconvenience issue may become a safety issue so I'm getting out today. Airline reservation changed, bags packed and the cab will pick me up at 11 A.M. I should be back in Orlando this evening.
Monday, October 29, 2007
OK Noel, you win
The latest forecast track puts Noel even closer to Abaco. Notice on the map that it will be tracking right between where I have to fly (Abaco to Miami, then connecting back home to Orlando) beginning Tuesday night and passing very near Abaco on Thursday. That means the one Abaco to Miami flight on AA is likely to be cancelled Wednesday and Thursday. I have to be back in the office on Friday so it appears that my only shot to get back home is to take the flight back tomorrow. So unless the forecast changes dramatically overnight, that's exactly what I'm going to do.
I took down the 20M loop this evening and pretty much everything is packed and ready to go.
I sure wish I would have had the chance to explore this place and do some snorkelling and fishing but I guess that will have to wait until I can return.
Today
Today's been a productive day. I disassembled the 20M inverted vee near the beach and rolled up the 3 100' rolls of RG8X coax. I also got everything packed back in the golf case. The only thing I left standing of mine is the 20M delta loop on top of the Spiderbeam mast lashed to the coconut tree with a 100' RG8X section back to the rig. I left that up mainly to listen to the Hurricane net on 14.300.
I figure if Noel requires, I can disassemble the loop and mast, roll up the coax and have everything else packed and ready to leave within an hour.
I am now officially in vacation mode. I expect to do very little radio operating from this point forward.
For lunch today I decided to go to the beach bar shown in the guidebook for the villa. It was supposed to have great hamburgers and was a 10 minute walk to the west on the beach. After 15 minutes of walking west on the beach I found nothing. I suppose it was closed for the season (this place is dead by the way-I have the beach all to myself but the sea is pretty rough today) so I headed back to the villa. I stopped by the Marina and talked to a guy who can take me snorkelling or fishing tomorrow if the sea isn't too bad and I don't have to leave due to Noel. He told me about a beach bar right across the street that served lunch, about a 2 minute walk from the villa to the EAST. I proceeded to walk over there and enjoyed a great $8 cheeseburger and fries along with a Bahamas Mash that was composed heavily of Rum. All of this overlooking a beautiful beach with sand and water that I've never seen more beautiful.
All in all a great day so far.
I figure if Noel requires, I can disassemble the loop and mast, roll up the coax and have everything else packed and ready to leave within an hour.
I am now officially in vacation mode. I expect to do very little radio operating from this point forward.
For lunch today I decided to go to the beach bar shown in the guidebook for the villa. It was supposed to have great hamburgers and was a 10 minute walk to the west on the beach. After 15 minutes of walking west on the beach I found nothing. I suppose it was closed for the season (this place is dead by the way-I have the beach all to myself but the sea is pretty rough today) so I headed back to the villa. I stopped by the Marina and talked to a guy who can take me snorkelling or fishing tomorrow if the sea isn't too bad and I don't have to leave due to Noel. He told me about a beach bar right across the street that served lunch, about a 2 minute walk from the villa to the EAST. I proceeded to walk over there and enjoyed a great $8 cheeseburger and fries along with a Bahamas Mash that was composed heavily of Rum. All of this overlooking a beautiful beach with sand and water that I've never seen more beautiful.
All in all a great day so far.
Who is this guy Noel and why is he trying to ruin my vacation?
This doesn't look good. Today's a beautiful day on the island but if this forecast holds it's about to get ugly. I'm supposed to leave Thursday afternoon but may have to get the heck out of Dodge tomorrow or Wednesday. I'll probably have to make a decision on that in the next 12 hours.
Contest Report
The contest started off promising, I ran 91 stations the first hour and 84 the second hour almost all U.S./VE. When the band died at around 0500Z I had 269 QSO's in the log with 6 countries and 6 zones. All of this was on the delta loop as the inverted vee was a few S units down on most signals from the states.
I woke up around 1030Z Saturday morning and that was just about the right time as the band was just starting to open. I worked my first QSO @ 10:55Z, DR1A from Germany. It was soon after this that I discovered what was to be my achilles heal in this contest-Europe. Most European stations were S-9 or above on the loop but could not hear me. The inverted vee I put up on the porch was no better. I called and called many stations without even a hint of them hearing me. It was incredibly frustrating to the point I rechecked the SWR and resonant frequencies of both antennas with the SWR Analyzer thinking something must be wrong. Unfortunately nothing was wrong-the antennas were just not performing to EU. I did manage to work a lot of mults in the Caribbean and South America with the inverted vee and even a few loud stations in EU after many calls over the nest couple of hours. The frustration mounted to the point that I had to do something. I decided to scout out a new location closer to the beach for the inverted vee. About 300 feet away across the road near the tennis courts was a location that had a clear view to the water about 250 feet or so from the beach. I then proceeded to move the inverted vee with the Buddipole portable mast to this location and strung 3 of my 100' RG8X sections together back to the Villa. I oriented it broadside NE/SW and guyed it off to keep it standing in the face of the constant 20-25MPH sea breeze. Here is a picture of it with the sea in the far background:
This little project cost me about 1 1/2 hours and I was back on @ 1535Z working SP3HRN for a new country mult. The new antenna was a definite improvement but didn't solve the EU problem. I only had to call stations 4 or 5 times now instead of 10-15 to get their attention. It also seemed to work best for Caribbean and South American stations so it became my main antenna during the daylight hours.
Still I had no ability to run EU. I tried many times in the EU subband (14.100-14.150) to get something going but never could. I also couldn't run stateside during the day at any decent rate due to 2 factors:
1. Most of them were pointing at EU
2. 20M was a war zone during the day with no clear frequencies.
My 100W had no chance of holding a frequency for any length of time.
Having run out of options I decided to search and pounce and go for multipliers. This seemed to be fairly successful as my country and zone count improved considerably.
I did manage to run a few U.S. stations Saturday evening after EU died out but still, I ended the day with only 414 Q's in the log-145 more than I ended with the night before. The last QSO in the log Saturday was PS2T at 0108Z.
Sunday was no better for rate, maybe even a little worse as I ended the contest with 543 QSO's. It got so bad I took a 2 hour nap around noon on Sunday. I had to work hard for every multiplier and ended up with 100 of them (79 countries/21 zones). Almost all of these were in NA and EU. I managed to work a couple of African stations (c50C and 6W1RY) and both VK and ZL. Asia was a bust as I didn't work any JA's or anything else for that matter. I did manage to work KL7RA and a couple of KH6's. I even missed CE and zone 13. The one highlight of Sunday was stringing together about a 20 minute run late in the afternoon including having a couple of EU stations call me (the only time during the contest that happened).
Final result: 543 QSO's/1201 points, 79 countries, 21 zones = 120, 100 points.
All in all I turned in a great single band score....if that band were 160M, for 20M not that hot.
For what it's worth, I managed to beat the old C6 20M LP record (set by C6ALZ in 2003) by abut 60K points. The overall C6 record of 327K points, held by VP7NS since 1973 (wow!) is quite safe for at least another year.
I woke up around 1030Z Saturday morning and that was just about the right time as the band was just starting to open. I worked my first QSO @ 10:55Z, DR1A from Germany. It was soon after this that I discovered what was to be my achilles heal in this contest-Europe. Most European stations were S-9 or above on the loop but could not hear me. The inverted vee I put up on the porch was no better. I called and called many stations without even a hint of them hearing me. It was incredibly frustrating to the point I rechecked the SWR and resonant frequencies of both antennas with the SWR Analyzer thinking something must be wrong. Unfortunately nothing was wrong-the antennas were just not performing to EU. I did manage to work a lot of mults in the Caribbean and South America with the inverted vee and even a few loud stations in EU after many calls over the nest couple of hours. The frustration mounted to the point that I had to do something. I decided to scout out a new location closer to the beach for the inverted vee. About 300 feet away across the road near the tennis courts was a location that had a clear view to the water about 250 feet or so from the beach. I then proceeded to move the inverted vee with the Buddipole portable mast to this location and strung 3 of my 100' RG8X sections together back to the Villa. I oriented it broadside NE/SW and guyed it off to keep it standing in the face of the constant 20-25MPH sea breeze. Here is a picture of it with the sea in the far background:
This little project cost me about 1 1/2 hours and I was back on @ 1535Z working SP3HRN for a new country mult. The new antenna was a definite improvement but didn't solve the EU problem. I only had to call stations 4 or 5 times now instead of 10-15 to get their attention. It also seemed to work best for Caribbean and South American stations so it became my main antenna during the daylight hours.
Still I had no ability to run EU. I tried many times in the EU subband (14.100-14.150) to get something going but never could. I also couldn't run stateside during the day at any decent rate due to 2 factors:
1. Most of them were pointing at EU
2. 20M was a war zone during the day with no clear frequencies.
My 100W had no chance of holding a frequency for any length of time.
Having run out of options I decided to search and pounce and go for multipliers. This seemed to be fairly successful as my country and zone count improved considerably.
I did manage to run a few U.S. stations Saturday evening after EU died out but still, I ended the day with only 414 Q's in the log-145 more than I ended with the night before. The last QSO in the log Saturday was PS2T at 0108Z.
Sunday was no better for rate, maybe even a little worse as I ended the contest with 543 QSO's. It got so bad I took a 2 hour nap around noon on Sunday. I had to work hard for every multiplier and ended up with 100 of them (79 countries/21 zones). Almost all of these were in NA and EU. I managed to work a couple of African stations (c50C and 6W1RY) and both VK and ZL. Asia was a bust as I didn't work any JA's or anything else for that matter. I did manage to work KL7RA and a couple of KH6's. I even missed CE and zone 13. The one highlight of Sunday was stringing together about a 20 minute run late in the afternoon including having a couple of EU stations call me (the only time during the contest that happened).
Final result: 543 QSO's/1201 points, 79 countries, 21 zones = 120, 100 points.
All in all I turned in a great single band score....if that band were 160M, for 20M not that hot.
For what it's worth, I managed to beat the old C6 20M LP record (set by C6ALZ in 2003) by abut 60K points. The overall C6 record of 327K points, held by VP7NS since 1973 (wow!) is quite safe for at least another year.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Disappointed
Overall a very disappointing result: 543 QSO's, 79 countries, 21 zones = 120,100 points I'll post a complete recap tomorrow.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Photos
Here are some photos I took this afternoon. They show the villa, the antennas and the beach, which is about 100 yards from the villa.
Inverted Vee Up
I managed to build and get an inverted vee up about 20' at the apex broadside NE/SW. I used the Buddipole center insulator and portable mast with wire for the inverted vee legs. All ready to go now; going to grab some dinner across the way and a quick shower before the contest.
Success!
The weather finally cleared and I was able to get the loop up. It's pretty close to an equilateral triangle fed 1/4 wave down from the top on one side as specified in ON4UN's Low Band Dxing for vertical polarization. I fed it with a 1/4 wave matching section of RG-6 75 ohm coax and after some simple pruning it tunes to 1.5:1 SWR or less across the entire 20M phone band. I made a few QSO's with it and it seems to play pretty well (at least to stateside). It's oriented E-W (the only direction I had room to put it. I may now try to put up an inverted Vee on another palm tree pointed NE. 4.5 hours to go and I still need to eat sometime too.
Some Sun, Now Rain Again
We had a 1 hour period of no rain where I was able to measure the loop and get everything assembled...now it's back to rain. Hope it stops soon so I can get the antenna up.
Rain, Rain Go Away....
The rain has only got heavier, it appears to be a repeat of yesterday's monsoon. It stops for a few minutes every 15 minutes or so then starts downpoaring again. So far my attempts to lash the fiberglass pole to the palm trees has been unsuccessful. Not looking good. Worst case I go with the vertical already installed here, but I hope it doesn't come to that.
3 views of QTH
Here are 3 views of the QTH from Google Earth; a view very close showing the actual house, a view of where the QTH is located on Abaco and a view showing the view of the QTH relative to the Bahamas and the states:
Rain Again
After waking up to a nice sunny morning, the skies have opened up again. Still measuring the 20M loops inside the house. One lesson learned: NEVER LEAVE WITHOUT HAVING ANTENNAS MEASURED. This is taking WAY too much time. Hope the rain stops soon so I can get these up.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Arrival on the island-BIG CHANGE
I arrived on the island this afternoon about 1 PM. The airport in Marsh Harbor is about a 1 hour drive from the QTH. We drove in a blinding rainstorm. Looks like the weather will be bad all weekend. 40M is extremely noisy this evening and it doesn't look like it will get any better. As a result, I've decided to switch to SINGLE BAND 20M. 20M is much less noisy and should provide good rates. My goal is to beat the following records on 20M for C6:
Category Call Score QSO's Zones Countries Year record set
14 VP7NS 326,821 1199 28 93 65
L14 C6ALZ 60,819 627 18 39 03
The all time NA record is:
L14 XE1CQ 732,017 2564 34 109 06
I think that one will be tough to beat, but I can dream.
The station is all set up on a table in the villa and ready to go.
I am going to bed soon...been up since 4 A.M. this morning and need to get loops set up for 20M tomorrow before the contest.
Category Call Score QSO's Zones Countries Year record set
14 VP7NS 326,821 1199 28 93 65
L14 C6ALZ 60,819 627 18 39 03
The all time NA record is:
L14 XE1CQ 732,017 2564 34 109 06
I think that one will be tough to beat, but I can dream.
The station is all set up on a table in the villa and ready to go.
I am going to bed soon...been up since 4 A.M. this morning and need to get loops set up for 20M tomorrow before the contest.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
1 Out of 2 not bad
I'm writing this from my hotel room in San Juan. I did manage to get the last few items bought today (end supports for loops, adapters, RG-6 jumpers etc.) but I didn't get a chance to practice with the Icom IC-7000 before I had to leave for the airport. So I ended up bringing the rig, power supply, headset and dummy load with me to Puerto Rico as carry-on luggage. Hopefully over the next 2 nights I will get a chance to practice with it and load up the memories with contest messages.
The SKB case is loaded and in the trunk of my car and everything is laid out in the other checked suitcase. It looks like I will be able to fit everything in the checked suitcase including all of my clothes so I will only need to carry on a laptop bag with the computer and Icom 7000.
The SKB case is loaded and in the trunk of my car and everything is laid out in the other checked suitcase. It looks like I will be able to fit everything in the checked suitcase including all of my clothes so I will only need to carry on a laptop bag with the computer and Icom 7000.
C6AQW Packing
I’m writing this on a flight from DFW back to Orlando Saturday evening. It will be a quick turnaround for me-I’m flying to Puerto Rico Sunday evening for business and will not be back until Wednesday night. I fly to C6 on Thursday morning. On the plane with me is a SKB hard case designed for golf clubs, 6 100’ sections of RG-8X with connectors and a Spiderbeam 40’ fiberglass mast. I had to be in Fort Worth this past week on business so had to have it shipped there to be brought back to Orlando. Everything fit in the SKB case which is 48” long by 12” wide. This case will also hold another Spiderbeam 40’ fiberglass mast which I had previously ordered and is sitting at home waiting on me. I was able to pick up quite a lot of supplies at the Melbourne, FL hamfest last Saturday including coax connectors and barrels, wire and a G5RV antenna. The packing list is as follows: 2 Spiderbeam 40’ Fiberglass masts (only about 46” long when not extended) About 500’ wire 6 100’ sections of RG8X Icom IC-R7000 Heil HC-10IC headset Bencher Paddle Coax connectors, barrels, jumpers etc. MFJ-259 with rechargeable batteries Buddipole deluxe kit with extra arms and low-band coil HP Laptop with N1MM and MMTY installed (Little Rascal interface from Buxcomm for RTTY) Samlex SEC-1223 Power Supply Bencher Balun, lots of end insulators Rope for guying masts and antenna supports Wooden supports for antenna ends. G5RV antenna Dummy load 3 position coax switch LDG 7000 Automatic Antenna Tuner Multimeter 500' tape measure I’m sure I’m missing something major on this list. The goal is to have everything packed and ready to go before I leave for P.R. Sunday evening. The masts, coax and anything else I can fit in will go in the SKB case. I have another large suitcase for everything else that won’t. Both of these will be checked. I will carry the IC-R7000 and the laptop in a carry-on laptop case along with another carry-on bag with my clothes and other personal items. The antenna plan is to go with 2 full-wave delta loops with one point of the triangle at the top of the 40’ masts and the other 2 as high off the ground as I can get them. One will be aimed at N.A., the other EU. I will try to get the G5RV up after the contest replacing one of the 40M loops. Hopefully this combination will give me a good signal into the major ham population centers. I’ll make one major admission-I haven’t had a chance to really operate the IC-7000 yet. I assembled it with the power supply, laptop, paddle, RTTY interface, dummy load and headset last weekend and everything checked out. Sunday before I leave I will go through the manual and practice operating the rig to be able to set filters, work split and set and playback CQ and contest exchanges etc. My main rig has been the Kenwood TS-2000 but it’s really too big to lug with me. I sure hope the IC-7000 is intuitive; it’s pretty risky to be heading on a contest expedition with a rig I’ve never used yet. I’ll report back tomorrow evening with the (hopefully happy) results.
C6AQW Licensing/Publicity
Licensing for the Bahamas was relatively painless. The only concern I had was that the websites on licensing said it was a very slow process (up to 3 months). Since I made my decision to go there only about a month prior to my trip I was a bit concerned. I have always found that speaking to licensing officials in person is the best policy so I found the phone number and name of Chizelle Whyms, the person most knowledgeable about Amateur Licensing in the Bahamas Public Utilities Commission. A quick purchase of a phone card online made calling and faxing there pretty inexpensive. Ms.Whyms told me there were no formal licensing applications I would have to write a formal request for a license and fax or email it to her. There was, however, a form I could fill out and fax to her with my credit card number to expedite payment of the $25 licensing fee. I emailed and faxed her both of these along with a copy of my U.S. license and passport photo page. Since I was going to be participating in the contest I was eligible for a C6Axx callsign instead of the usual C6A/WQ5W reciprocal licensing. I sent her a list of preferred C6A callsigns, with C6AQW being the only one available. That was OK, C6AQW is pretty close to my U.S. callsign and it sounds good phonetically and on CW. Ms. Whymms was very friendly and easy to work with and she emailed me a .pdf copy of my C6AQW license Friday (10/19) so I’m ready to go. I plan to send this license shortly to the ARRL so I can obtain a LOTW certificate for this call so I can upload my logs during and immediately following the trip.
I prepared a press release announcing my expedition and emailed it to all of the major DX publications and contest websites. I then contacted the major QSL database managers with my QSL information and posted the call on both QRZ.com and Buckmaster. The expedition was announced in several of these publications last week. I have found that preparing a professional looking press release is very effective and necessary even with small expeditions such as these. It makes it easy for the DX editors to cut and paste into their publications. Publicity is a good thing! Hopefully many contesters will put me on their list of multipliers to look for during the contest as a result.
I prepared a press release announcing my expedition and emailed it to all of the major DX publications and contest websites. I then contacted the major QSL database managers with my QSL information and posted the call on both QRZ.com and Buckmaster. The expedition was announced in several of these publications last week. I have found that preparing a professional looking press release is very effective and necessary even with small expeditions such as these. It makes it easy for the DX editors to cut and paste into their publications. Publicity is a good thing! Hopefully many contesters will put me on their list of multipliers to look for during the contest as a result.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Background
I relocated in March to Orlando Florida when I accepted a promotion within my company. Prior to that I had spent all of my life in the Dallas Fort Worth area. During the last several years I had realized my dream of having my own station with multiple towers. You can see a description of my station with pictures on my website www.qsl.net/wq5w. I sold the house/station in August and saw all of the towers come down (a sad sight to any ham). Florida has been great but I am in an apartment until at least May of next year so I have only been able to operate portable the last few months. I really miss the big station, especially contesting and DXing!
As my new position takes me to Puerto Rico and the USVI frequently on business I got the idea to possibly combine one of my trips with a contest operation this fall. I first started looking at places to operate in KP4, KP2 or VP2V but found nothing that combined a good location with a reasonable price. Also, all of the big stations had already been reserved or were no longer available for rental (Windwood, USVI for example). I then looked at other Caribbean rental locations and found the Sand Dollar Villa in Abaco, Bahamas, Sea Cliff Cottages in Dominica and the V26B superstation in Antigua were the best available.
I have operated from the Caribbean/Central America 3 times; VP2MW and VP2M/WQ5W from Montserrat in 1988 (when I was 19), ZF2TG in 1992 from Little Cayman Island and as V31RR from Belize in 2004. All of these were “rent-a-stations” with all of the antennas and rigs already in place. Of the 3 places I chose for this fall only V26B has all of the antennas and rigs already in place. Sand Dollar Villa in the Bahamas has a couple of verticals in place and a power supply/tool-kit, Sea Cliff Cottages in Dominica will require me to bring everything.
I chose to go to the Bahamas for the first contest of the season as the location will be a good “practice” operation for the next trip to Dominica for CQWW CW. The Bahamas operation will require less setup and less things to take than Dominica but hopefully will give me good experience. I also chose the Bahamas first because although I seem to do very well in phone contests, phone is not my favorite mode. If I screw things up in the Bahamas it’s OK because it’s only phone (my apologies to any serious phone ops). The CW trip is serious so I want to make my mistakes in the Bahamas if I make them. The Antigua trip is a purely contesting trip in conjunction with a business trip to Puerto Rico. I will fly in on Thursday evening from San Juan and return to San Juan immediately following the contest Sunday.
That said, I still have goals for the C6 trip. I chose to operate 40M single band because it will require less operating time on my part (this is a vacation after all), it is one of my favorite bands and 40M is probably the best place to be during the bottom of the sunspot cycle without having to erect huge antennas. Also, I hold the NA record for CQWW CW as ZF2TG in 1992 so having that and the NA record low power record for CQWW SSB simultaneously would be a great feat. Yes, I know 40M SSB is not nearly as nice as 40M CW to operate but it will be a good learning experience if nothing else.
During the Dominica trip I hope to beat my own NA record for 40M CW. Again, that’s going to be a huge challenge as I will be operating low power and I set the record running about 800W high power from the Caymans and had a 2 element beam. I would at least like to set the low power record. We shall see.
Antigua should be fun as I think the location and station gives me a realistic chance to win. I haven’t decided if I want to go low or high power. I will make that decision as we get closer to contest and I see how the competitive landscape shapes up.
As my new position takes me to Puerto Rico and the USVI frequently on business I got the idea to possibly combine one of my trips with a contest operation this fall. I first started looking at places to operate in KP4, KP2 or VP2V but found nothing that combined a good location with a reasonable price. Also, all of the big stations had already been reserved or were no longer available for rental (Windwood, USVI for example). I then looked at other Caribbean rental locations and found the Sand Dollar Villa in Abaco, Bahamas, Sea Cliff Cottages in Dominica and the V26B superstation in Antigua were the best available.
I have operated from the Caribbean/Central America 3 times; VP2MW and VP2M/WQ5W from Montserrat in 1988 (when I was 19), ZF2TG in 1992 from Little Cayman Island and as V31RR from Belize in 2004. All of these were “rent-a-stations” with all of the antennas and rigs already in place. Of the 3 places I chose for this fall only V26B has all of the antennas and rigs already in place. Sand Dollar Villa in the Bahamas has a couple of verticals in place and a power supply/tool-kit, Sea Cliff Cottages in Dominica will require me to bring everything.
I chose to go to the Bahamas for the first contest of the season as the location will be a good “practice” operation for the next trip to Dominica for CQWW CW. The Bahamas operation will require less setup and less things to take than Dominica but hopefully will give me good experience. I also chose the Bahamas first because although I seem to do very well in phone contests, phone is not my favorite mode. If I screw things up in the Bahamas it’s OK because it’s only phone (my apologies to any serious phone ops). The CW trip is serious so I want to make my mistakes in the Bahamas if I make them. The Antigua trip is a purely contesting trip in conjunction with a business trip to Puerto Rico. I will fly in on Thursday evening from San Juan and return to San Juan immediately following the contest Sunday.
That said, I still have goals for the C6 trip. I chose to operate 40M single band because it will require less operating time on my part (this is a vacation after all), it is one of my favorite bands and 40M is probably the best place to be during the bottom of the sunspot cycle without having to erect huge antennas. Also, I hold the NA record for CQWW CW as ZF2TG in 1992 so having that and the NA record low power record for CQWW SSB simultaneously would be a great feat. Yes, I know 40M SSB is not nearly as nice as 40M CW to operate but it will be a good learning experience if nothing else.
During the Dominica trip I hope to beat my own NA record for 40M CW. Again, that’s going to be a huge challenge as I will be operating low power and I set the record running about 800W high power from the Caymans and had a 2 element beam. I would at least like to set the low power record. We shall see.
Antigua should be fun as I think the location and station gives me a realistic chance to win. I haven’t decided if I want to go low or high power. I will make that decision as we get closer to contest and I see how the competitive landscape shapes up.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Welcome
Welcome to the C6AQW/J75W/V25W blog. I'm Alan, WQ5W. I will be operating as C6AQW from Treasure Cay, Abaco Island in the Bahamas from October 25-31, 2007, from Dominica November 21-28 as J75W and from Antigua as V25W November 30-December 2 . The purpose of this blog is to give you news from the trips and insight into the preparations for the trips. I hope it can serve as instructive for those preparing their own DXpeditions.
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