This appeared today in the DAILY DX courtesy of Bernie W3UR.
73 JEFF K1ZM/VY2ZM
Jeff BriggsDXing on the Edge: The Thrill of 160 Meters Available worldwide
through BookBaby, Array Solutions, DX Engineering, Radio Society of Great
Britain, & Amazon
-----Original Message-----
From: Bernie McClenny, W3UR <bernie@dailydx.com>
To: The Daily DX mailing list <dailydx@lists.kkn.net>
Sent: Mon, Feb 25, 2019 7:12 am
Subject: [The Daily DX] V84SAA Final Report
Hi Bernie
I am writing today to pass along some final comments about our recent
activation from V84SAA and our final statistics as taken from ClubLog.
Our team, as you may know, operated from two separate camps. The SSB camp was
from a rented villa on a small hilltop inland a bit and the CW camp was in a
tent right on the beach at Pantai Sera Kanangan in the Tutong district - with
all our CW antennas right on the beach. Most of the operators at the SSB villa
stayed and ate their meals at that location. Our beach site (which was 20
minutes away) had very different and "spartan" facilities - there we usually
lunched on vanilla cookies and water. Some of us stayed at the Empire Hotel
and Country Club about 27 minutes drive to the North. I personally made about
30 trips along the coastal interstate to and from the Empire to do my 160m
shifts at our SR and local SS. In so doing I burned up two tanks of gas in the
process - but fortunately a LITER of gas in Brunei costs about 35 cents US. I
wish it was like that at home - NOT!
For the most part K1LZ operated on 80m next to the 160m position (where I
operated on Topband a short distance away) and thus these two positions were
co-located. On 160m operations were shared at various times with JT1CO, VE7NY
and S55M. Krassy did some operating on 160m as well at various times.
Propagation was tough overall without good openings on 15/12 and 10 meters for
the most part - so the bulk of our contact total came from the lowbands through
20m.
We were a large International team and we were blessed with fantastic local
support from Tamat Lampoh, V85TL and the local Brunei Darussalem Amateur Radio
Association. They were wonderful hosts and set up an opening and a closing
ceremony for us - which was attended by the deputy minister of AITI - which is
the local FCC equivalent in Brunei. At both ceremonies the local club wives
cooked up local delicacies for us and provided refreshments as well.
Some of our members could only provide a few days with us in Brunei but we
welcomed the visits from YT5A/VK3FY/VK3FN and others who had work commitments
and could not stay with us for a longer duration.
Our most challenging times were on 80m and 160m where it was really difficult
to work into NA - either at SS or SR - but we never missed an opening and were
there trying every day! NA signals from east of the Mississippi River were
about RST 219 on 160m but despite this hardship we did work as many as we were
able to piece the callsigns together.
Our final statistics from CLUBLOG are these:
Total qso's 58,120
160m 4081 CW Qso's (with 459 from North America)
80m 5807 CW Qso's (with 1014 from North America)
LZ2HM was in charge of most of our FT8 operations as well as some exciting 6M
EME contacts that were made right up to the final evening at the beach site.
W7GJ and others had asked us to do this mode and Andy was the MAN who made it
happen.
Our support team on site was championed by Adi S55M and Roman RN5M - who
handled most of the setup and takedown. Both of these team members literally
worked night and day travelling back and forth from the CW and SSB sites as
needed to keep us on the air and working at maximum efficiency.
Adrian, KO8SCA handled our website, arranging for some loaned equipment and was
responsible for overseeing our logging functions and uploads to CLUBLOG each
day. Our QSL manager is LZ1JZ - Tony in Bulgaria. Donors to our dx'pedition
will get immediate uploads to LOTW - the overall log will most likely be
uploaded to LOTW in early May.
We owe a huge vote of thanks to our wonderful sponsors - which included DXE and
ICOM. For those contributions, we are extremely grateful.
We also wish to recognize the local 9M6 guys who were with us last year at 9M0W
- specifically 9M6KOM and 9M6ZAE for preceding us to both sites to do a rekkie
and provide photos of our two sites in order that we could plan our antenna
setups in advance.
Finally - I must recognize the hard work and financial backing provided by
Krassy Petkov (K1LZ) - who provided several overseas shipments of antennas and
other gear via Singapore - which made all of this happen efficiently.
Also - thanks to all of the Dx community for looking out for us - we only
regret we could not work all of you who tried - but the pleasure was all ours.
We hope you had fun chasing us for 10 days - and we surely enjoyed trying to
hear and work you!
73 and thanks again!
JEFF K1ZM/VY2ZM on behalf of "The Team Sabah and Friends Royal Dx'pedition"
07 Feb - 17 Feb 2019
Jeff BriggsDXing on the Edge: The Thrill of 160 Meters Available worldwide
through BookBaby, Array Solutions, DX Engineering, Radio Society of Great
Britain, & Amazon
Bernie McClenny, W3UR
Editor of: The Daily DX (1997-2018)
The Weekly DX (2001-2018)
How's DX? (1999-2018)
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