Archive for January, 2008

2008 Ducie Island Expedition: VP6DX (for immediate release)

Highlights:… The M/V Braveheart continues across the Pacific, on schedule ….

 Good European signals heard on 160m during the crossing ……

Operators preparing to leave home

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  Robin WA6CDR reports from the M/V Braveheart that, as a result of the typhoon that passed through the area, seas were somewhat rough immediately after departure from New Zealand. The ship slowed down to 5-7 knots, but in the last few days sea conditions have improved dramatically. The weather has become mild, traveling over calm seas with a small long swell.

Robin has been working on cables and other pre-assembly tasks that can be completed on board ship before the expedition reaches Ducie Island. For relaxing, an Elecraft K3 radio, amplifier and tuner has been attached to a wire antenna strung over the ship from bow to stern. With 500 W power output, Robin has been enjoying good low band propagation. During the WW 160 CW contest last weekend many top band signal from Europe went into the log. Robin also reports the Braveheart crew is “superb”, and the operators will have to be very disciplined to avoid putting on weight from all the good food!

As of early Jan 30 Wed (GMT) the M/V Braveheart was at 28° S 145° E, about 1000 km SSE of Tahiti. This ship is on schedule, planning to arrive at Mangareva Atoll this coming Saturday/Sunday.

The remaining 12 operators will be leaving their home countries during the next three days, converging on the Sofitel Hotel in Papeete, Tahiti, capital city of French Polynesia on Feb 3 Sun-Feb 4 Mon. On Feb5 Tue 1500z the operators depart Tahiti for Mangareva.

Once at Mangareva, the operators will immediately board the ship, clear immigration/customs, and depart. During the passage to Ducie Island, the M/V Braveheart will make a midnight call at Pitcairn Island to drop off medical supplies. Longboats from Pitcairn will come along side in the dark to take the delivery to shore, and the ship will depart immediately thereafter. This stop will not delay the schedule for Ducie Island: we will still arrive at Ducie in the pre-dawn darkness of Feb 9 Sat (weather permitting).

Background information: Geographical balance  –  One big challenge for any expedition is to give DXers in all parts of the world a reasonably equal chance of working the expedition. There are three roughly-equal geographical concentrations of DXers: eastern Asia, Europe, and North America. As a goal, the number of QSOs on a particular band-mode (e.g., 80m CW) should be roughly equal for these three regions. For Ducie Island, Europe (and especially eastern Europe) is the most difficult area to reach. The “short” path is over 8000 km, and short path signals to eastern Europe (zones 15, 16 and 20) travel through the auroral ring. Propagation openings on most bands will be much shorter than openings to east Asia or North America. At the bottom of the sunspot cycle, on the bands above 10 MHz, Europe opening times and durations will change significantly from day to day. Signals from Europe will be weaker. We plan to use a number of techniques to help achieve geographical balance: 1. Station assignments: With seven stations, we can’t be on every band-mode 24 hours/day. Stations will be assigned to band-modes at times that will help achieve geographical balance. As an example, if 17m SSB contacts to date are 50% North America, 25% east Asia, and 20% Europe, station assignments will emphasize times when the band-mode is open to Europe or Asia. 2. The “10 minute check technique”: On the higher frequency bands, openings to distant areas may be weak, with spotty propagation. For example, the Europe 15m CW opening may be a few minutes of weak signals, then some time with no signals, then some signals from a different part of Europe, then no signals, etc. It doesn’t make sense to just call “CQ Europe” during this kind of opening, since there will be no Europe signals for some of the time. Instead, Ducie Island operators will use the “10 minute check technique”: working the pileup of louder signals (e.g., North America)… but stopping every 10 minutes to ask for Europe or other parts of the world with weak openings that are under-represented in the log on that band-mode.The “10 minute check technique” benefits from the cooperation of DXers with better propagation/signals. When the Ducie Island operator says “Stand by…Europe only please…”, it will only take a minute towork the very few audible Europe signals IF other stations stand by. 3. The “check back later technique”: On the lower frequency bands, openings to the most difficult regions of the world are more predictable. For example, on 160m we expect Europe to be heard fromDucie Island sunset (about 0300z) until the end of European sunrise. That opening is only 1 hour for zone 17, about 2.5 hours for zone 16/20, about 3.5 hours for zone 15, about 4.5 hours for zone 14, and finishesat 0800z for Ireland and Scotland. Stations in zones 16, 17 and 20 will be much weaker that stations in zones 15 or 14.But, when the sun sets on Ducie Island, 160m is also open to all of North America, where operators are just relaxing in front of the radio in the evening. Of course, North America signals on 160m will be MUCH louder than zone 16 or 17 signals. The logical approach is to ask the North American stations to “check back later”, near the end of the European opening. At 0730z, very few European signals will be left on this band… but we still have over 6hours of propagation to North America… overlapping with 5 hours to east Asia. DXers can expect to hear the low band operators asking for Europe until about 0700-0800z, and announcing every 10 minutes thatVP6DX will be ready to start working North America at, for example, 0730z. North American DXers should “check back later” at the announced time. 

A special note for low band DXers: the VP6DX operator team has MANY excellent, experienced low band operators. Eight of the 13 operators prefer to work the low bands: Dietmar DL3DXX, Carsten DL6LAU, Andre DL8LAS, Tonno ES5TV, Eric K3NA, Milt N5IA, Robert SP5XVY (75m), AndyUA3AB and Robin WA6CDR. When you hear VP6DX on 160m, 80m CW or 75m SSB, one of these operators will be listening for you. We plan to have a signal on each of these three band-modes during the entire time the band is open. And we will be checking for long and skew path signals into zones 15, 16, 17 and 21 during 02-04z and 13-15z. (We expect some nice long path openings on 40m and 30m bands as well…)

Reminder: Individuals donating US$100 or more before Feb 5 Tue 2359z will be listed on the VP6DX QSL card.Every individual donation, regardless of size, is listed on the VP6DX website at www.vp6dx.com/sponsors/individual/index.php. All donors automatically receive VP6DX news via email immediately on release and will receive priority processing of QSL requests and LOTW confirmations.You can make a donation on-line (and find instructions for donations by mail) at the www.vp6dx.com website. Just click the link “How To Help” or go straight to ducie2008.dl1mgb.com/howtohelp/index.php. Thank you so much for helping the VP6DX project!

We would be delighted if DX editors would publish this information bulletin as widely as possible and DXers bring it to the attention of their clubs and fellow DXers.

G3TXF is planning on a brief return visit to St Barts. The last operation as FJ/G3TXF was nearly ten years ago (Oct 98). With St Barts having recently become a new DXCC entity, it’s probably a good idea to revisit FJ.
This CW-only 40m-10m operation as FJ/G3TXF will be from early Thursday 31 January (or just possibly late Wednesday evening 30 January) through to early Tuesday morning 5 February 2008.

[Sorry, but there will be no online logs during this one-man-band operation, nor will there be any E-mail access -- tnx!]

QSL via G3TXF

Thanks for the alert by Dov 4Z4Dx and Eyran 4X4-2238:

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DXpedition by SP hams: SP3IPB, SQ3WN, SP6IXF, SP7VC

FS/homecall: Feb 14 -16, 2008
FJ/homecall: Feb 17 – 26, 2008

The plan is to operate from 7 to 28Mhz including WARC bands CW/SSB/RTTY.
There will be no online logs during expedition. Logs will be available on
the web after the expedition.

On 24 June I will be departing for Iceland, where I will be catching a ride on a 60ft sailing boat with the adventure company, EcoExpeditions, to Jan Mayen. I will be on Jan Mayen for approximately 6.5 days before returning to Iceland on 6 July. Also on the trip will be Wojtek SQ4MP

Jan Mayen is #79 on the DXCC most wanted list (2007)

News #8 – 2008, January 23^rd 

With thanks to Carsten DL6LAU for allowing permission to post:

Jan 20

Below is a message from Robin, WA6CDR (member of the VP6DX team) who is in Tauranga now and who will sail with Braveheart to Mangareva to meet the rest of the operators there. We hope you find the insight given useful. Enjoy!

73ss

from the VP6DX crew

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We did not sail this noon.  There is a Typhoon off the northern tip of NZ whose track is not certain.  If it takes it normal path and bends west toward Australia, we will sail tomorrow.  If not, we will probably wait another day.  It is overcast here from the edge of the storm, and does not look inviting.  Needless to say, we all agree that we would much rather watch a typhoon on TV in port than try to sail through it!

There are several buffer days built into the schedule, another example showing these people know what they are doing.  The schedule calling for us to sail at noon today would have gotten us to Mangareva Friday, and we would have waited at anchor until Tuesday for all of you to arrive.  Obviously, we can arrive on Saturday, or even Sunday and still have enough time to unload and wait for you to arrive.

The day was spent sorting and moving some things around.  I have my hands on the case with the laptops, and some of the cases intended to hold K3 radios, and I am sorting through them a little at a time.  The rest of the cases are in one giant block on the aft deck sandwiched between Diesel bladders and some Petrol barrels.  We will dig into these, weather permitting, while enroute.

The crew sorted through the cables stored in the “Lazarette” and moved the Cat 5 reels out to where I could climb down and get at them while under way, but, until I unearth the tools and connectors, there wont be any point in that step.  Pretty much all of the cables I shipped are in the lazarette, and thats all the feedlines, all the beverage lines, all the beverge feedline and control cable, and all the radial wire.

The ship is loaded completely, there is no space for anything more.  There is no room to sort and stage cases & boxes.  What will happen is that we will burn the diesel fuel that is in the bladder tanks on deck & it will all be burned before we reach Mangareva.  When we arrive, as many as 10 of the bladder tanks will be unloaded and stored on Mangareva.  I hope they all will, and for certain, the ones on the helicopter deck where our cases are stored will be offloaded.  This will make a reasonably clear space to sort things out.  It will NOT be completely clear as there are a couple dozen barrels of petrol, as well as some of the tables and related items still present.

We have discussed, or more accurately,  Nigel and the caption (his son, Matt) discussed and I listened about the landing spot and the landing process.  The anchorage and landing spot MAY turn out to just off of the north east tip of the island rather than a few hundred meters west like we all have been thinking.

In any case, it is intended that we arrive about dawn, and circle the island and look before dropping anchor.  Once the anchor is down, the two boats – one a new one with quite a lot of load capacity -  will be set over the side and unloading will proceed.  Nigel says that with normal weather, that he will have ALL of our equipment, including tents and generators on shore by noon!.  They will then begin setting up the tents..    

The loading and unloading process is a bit different than we have visualized, I think.  On the Braveheart, they will collect 2 or 3 of the largest cases, or a collection of smaller items into a sling bag that is several cubic meters.  That will be lifted over the side by winch and set into the waiting boat.  No manhandling of gear to get it off the ship.  At the shore, the boats will be able to fully ground, and depending on which (one is an outboard, the other a jet boat), will be set prow or stern on shore and we lift cases & boxes out while standing on a stable shoreline and with the boats stable aground.

 Of course, weather can drastically affect this.  If the seas are rough, it will take longer…

 If the seas allow, they will take the small boat inside the lagoon where we can use it to move items – and people- between camps.  The lagoon is not “clear” and the boat will have to follow a circuitous route each time, and will be significantly affected by tides. 

 The outer shoreline is a steep coral bank, and is not suited for walking, and even less suited for moving material.  Braveheart is supplying two wagons for use moving material along the inner shore.  The inner shore is rarely a beach, more commonly is a coral cliff a couple of feet above water.  The route is along the top of that cliff.

 With the crowding on Braveheart enroute from Mangareva to Ducie, we will be limited in what we can pre-stage, but, with their ability to get EVERYTHING to shore in a few hours, this is less critical. 

 We will stop at Pitcairn in the middle of the night just long enough to unload some medical and mechanical supplies they need.  We drop anchor and they come out to us in a longboat & collect a sling full of items, and we then get under way again

 Enough for now 

 see you all at Mangareva

73

Robin, ZL/WA6CDR