Chris has been taken off the air by the gale force winds again.
Marion Island has gale force winds for around 110 days per annum.
Not your average holiday destination.
He's worked around 110 stations outside the continent, and is having
fun on 160. To get a feeling for what he's faced with, keep in mind
that the closest major concentration of hams is in Italy, about 5500
miles to the north. Also, we are now in the thunderstorm season.
He's investigating several options for getting back on the low bands,
including fixing the BCS (again) and finding a way of matching the
Rhombics. I would think that the BCS would be a better option, but
it remains to be seen if he can find the bits to fix it. The ideal
solution is probably to get both antennas running, so that there is
some kind of backup in the (likely) event of another failure.
It may take a day or two, as Chris today has the honour of being the
chef. It doesn't look like he's going to be spending much time on
antenna work until tomorrow. However, he's keen to get back on.
Excellent technical support is being provided by the BCS crew (W0CD,
W8UVZ and K8GG). However, the antenna was obviously not designed for
sustained winds of over 50 knots. The version they have built for
Heard Island includes much beefier construction features. The
antenna that Chris is using was designed to be as portable as
possible. Portability was an important requirement, as he had to
carry a radio, an amplifier and all the necessary antenna hardware in
his personal luggage allowance on the ship!
Incidentally, the particular BCS is a veteran of the 3Y5X, 8Q7AJ,
ZS0Z, V51Z, ZS9Z, 7P8EN, 3DA0Z, 3DA/G3SXW, 3DA/G3TXF, 3DA/G4FAM and
other expeditions. Most of the readers on this Reflector probably
owe at least one new one to this particular antenna. It came my way
in 1990, and has been living in southern Africa ever since. It was
donated to the NCDXF, but the BCS guys have continued to support it
faithfully.
One more thing: I have mailed something like 1000 ZS8IR QSL cards. I
am working furiously to complete all the pending requests by the end
of the month, as I'd like to resume my life as soon as possible.
With the exception of a few apparent "not in log" cards that require
further scrutiny, everything received in May, June and July has been
taken care of. I'll announce again when all requests have been
processed. Please don't submit duplicate requests until then.
Chris R. Burger
ZS6EZ
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