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Topband: Low band operations from DX-pedition Double Trouble

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Subject: Topband: Low band operations from DX-pedition Double Trouble
From: Mats.Persson@wfp.org (Mats Persson)
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 17:51:58 +0300


Hi Nightowls,

Thanks for all the comments on the lowband reflector on our T31 and ZK3 effort.
It gives a good feedback on how well or not we did. I will keep the comments for
 next time.

I would like to answer a few of the remarks I have seen there to shed some light
on the sometimes as it seemed irratic behaviour on the low bands.

The T31 and ZK3 operation was basically made with 5 operators + 1 YL (she had
never made a QSO before!)

The operation setup as as follows

1 x SSB station covering basically 40 ,20, (17),15,(12), 10 M             2
operators SM6CAS and SM7PKK
1 x CW station covering basically 40,30,20,(17)15,(12),10 M             2
operators G4EDG and LA7MFA
1 x Lowband/RTTY/WARC station
                                                           1 operator SM0AGD


As we had set out from the beginning as a non-negotiable target was to give as
many Europeans as ever possible a new country and
second to that , but much lower priority to give the rest of the world a chance
at working a new band/mode. The reasoning with this was ofcourse
that T31 was only high on the most wanted and needed list in EU.. and ZK3 could
not even be seen on any most wanted lists except for in EU.
I for one have always found it very strange that either of the two places was
not higher in the rest of the world as there has no been any serious
multi-operator DX-peditions there in ages/if at all... (what we in the end saw
was what I had suspected .... That both places where indeed very much WANTED
from EVERYWHERE)

So what we did was basically to search out EU wherever possible to make sure we
could get them in the log and when we could not then
 we started working other areas and band/modes.

The lowband station was fitted out with a Battle Creek Special for 160 and 80,
40. This station was basically supposed to operate both CW and SSB.
In reality Erik mainly operated CW. Since he had 3 bands to cover for lowbands
he started working a pattern where he could work 80 first and then
 move down to 160 so that it would be easy to follow him. The problems for us
was obviously that we would never be able to cover a whole night
with operating each day on this station with only one operator meant that the
station would be closed down at certain hours of the night.
These hours where shifted around so everyone would get a chance at working him.
Since the main target was still EU Erik did operate 80 meter towards
Europe but 160 was basically excluded for the Europeans. The reason for this was
 that we figured it would be better to work 100 EU on 80 than to work
maybe 1 or two on 160. Once the propagation was not there for EU Eric was moving
 around between 80 and 160 as said. This seemed to work quite well.
As we had limited resources we could not dedicate any station to only work 160
or only 80 thus we did some tradeoffs.

Since Erik basically did not do any 40 or 80 Meter SSB which had been in the
original plan I was basically taking that task on myself.  Thus I had to do this
 during
those times when EU was basically not workable on the higher bands. Ofcourse we
had quite good propagation throughout to EU which meant less time for me on low
band SSB. Nils, SM6CAS also did some operating on those bands but it was mainly
me in the QRN on those bands working stateside and I loved it. Once the low
 bands opened to EU we moved off and Erik took over on CW again.

So while not being able to cover all openings to all areas on 80 or 160 I think
the result in the end was quite reasonable. We have quite a
lot of 160M QSO's in there from both of the locations and those from all over
the states and also some JA.

As Gary NI6T pointed out in a mail I did not allow him to operate 160 or even 80
 at certain times on our Conway Odysee. That was ofcourse due to that we
had a primary goal very much like the one we had now.. Give as many EU as
possible a new country and with lower priority give others a band/mode country.
 Propagation was ofcourse much better now than when we went to Conway in 1995.
Thus we had to be much more careful then compared to now as we actually turned
away from some EU openings on the higher
bands on SSB to cater for the lower bands towards USA on this trip. We had
several openings on 20 which was basically only workable on CW towards EU as the
 rate on SSB was terrible.

One thing which we would liked to have seen working was ofcourse our pilot
propject. SM0DJZ was compiling a lot of information but we could never really
get it to the island as the pactor link was not working
properly. Well it was all new to us so that was one of the reasons.  Thus 99% of
 the time we got our feedback direcly on to the SSB station on the high bands. I
 have never seen so
many requests being communicated to a DX-pedition as I saw now. It did not
matter which band we where on as people would request us to move to another
band. While this often was annoying it was
in several cases giving us feedback when compiled. I kept records in my memory
of what requests and suggestions we got and then we changed plans depending on
the amount of requests we got.

If 50 stations tel you that you should be on 160 at 10.00Z and not at 11.00 then
 you take action or as in the case with TX frequency not being good....... This
we did. However if one station told us we should
move to 24 Mhz because he had worked a guy there in our area we would not move.
At the end of T31 we got so many requests to move to whatever band that we
basically saw that many people simply had us on "too many bands" thus they
where getting picky and wanted a 5, 6 or 7 band sweep.

I very much think that we proved that a big amount of QSO's  (70.000) can be
made by a limited amount of stations (3) and with limited amount of operators 5
+ a real rookie. (well she picked up quick and made 1279 QSO's with a peak over
150 QSO's an hour!
On top of that we did these QSO's while putting up and taking down the stations
2 times.... This is a very big effort when you see that we had a quite long trip
 to the place and several operators basically was seasick the whole time.

It should also be noted that we saw a very dramatic change in the propagation
between the two places.. T31 being almost dead on the equator just as 5X and ZK3
 being further south.. Even though not much I noted the same difference as we
can note here in Uganda compared to fx Burundi or Rwanda.
Basically the news is that yes you should be in the equatorial zone but being on
 the equator itself is not very good for propagation... Driving just 3 hours
north from where I am now and the bands would improve a LOT!

I have been thinking about making a return operation maybe next year to Conway
Reef. For that operation I have been thinking about setting up the following

1 SSB station for 40,20,15,10
1 CW station for 40,20,15,10
1 WARC Station 30,17,12 M
1 Lowband 160, 80 /  RTTY /  6-meter station

This manned with 8 people should be able to make about 100K QSO's in a timespan
of about 14 - 15 days on the top of a cycle...

A setup like this with well trimmed operators should be fully capable of
ensuring that even  160 and 80 get good coverage even to a far away area.
Ofcourse we could
 bring 20 operators and 10 stations but that in my view is a bit to complex in
several locations in others it should be done that way. (would never be possible
 on Conway :)

Any Comments in regards to this e-mail is very much apreciated.

This DX-pedition, even though it really drained my energy at the time, has given
 me a new kick to start operating from 5X again.... Namely the urge to get to
know
 the low bands properly. This means I am right now in the process of building up
 my antenna farm properly to cater for 80 and 160 this winter... So once I am
just through typing in the T31 log I will be showing up on the lower bands. This
 time with 2 KW and a top loaded vertical instead of the INV -L and 700W I had 2
 years ago.....
It was also a kick for me to operate SSB for a change on a DX-pedition instead
of CW... While I love CW it is very much a boost to hear the comments on how we
perform while on the DX-pedition, that is something you see much more of on SSB
than on CW.


73

 de Mats 5X1Z, SM7PKK




















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