[SECC] PJ4A on Bonaire for CQ WPX CW

[John Laney]

Hello all:

I have reserved the fabulous contest station on the new DXCC entity of 
Bonaire in the Caribbean for the CQ WPX CW Contest in May.  This will be 
the Labor Day weekend and I have planned to go down on Tuesday May 24 
and back on Tuesday May 31.  I came in #2 in the world SO AB HP last 
year (SO1R only on my part).  First place was a Russian operating from 
the Canary Islands (EA8).  Not sure if he was SO2R or not.  I set a new 
South American record beating that of P40W that had stood since 1994.

This is a place where winning scores can be made.  I have not made any 
reservations yet because I have, so far, no one to go with me.  Jeff, 
KU8E, would like to go, but he has to conserve his resources including 
vacation days so he can go with me for CQ WW CW in November of this year.

I went alone to Barbados for a week or so from 1987 to 1992, 1995 to 
1998, and 2000 to 2002 when I had access to the station there once known 
as 8P9HR, 8P9HT, 8P9X, and lastly 8P9Z.  And last year, I went alone for 
a week to Bonaire as I mentioned.  But I am getting a bit old to travel 
that far alone and it really gets lonely.

I'd like to have someone or several persons make the trip with me or, at 
least, meet me there.  We could do M/S or M/2 in the contest and operate 
as much as we'd like outside the contest.  I'd need one or several top 
notch non-smoking CW contest operators (remember that you have to copy 
not only the calls, but a serial number from each contact).  The house 
there has three bedrooms and can accommodate a fourth person on a futon 
in the main room.  We could possibly get Hans, PJ4LS, who lives on the 
island to operate with us if we needed one more for a category.  This is 
a 48 hour contest and we'd need to be on the air for the full time to be 
competitive.

There is another possibility.  If someone wants to go down and just be 
DX and operate outside the contest mainly, I could do a single operator 
effort.  P40W has been announced for SOABHP by W2GD.  I assume John is 
trying to get his continental record back.  I understand from Jeff that 
Valery, RD3A, who just operated from the station in Bonaire as PJ4A in 
ARRL DX CW will be SOABHP from EF8M, so he has a good likelihood to win 
the world from there as someone else from there did last year.  I'd like 
to try single op high power again to try for a good score for 
qualification for WRTC 2014 in New England. Don't think I have a good 
chance to qualify for that one, but wouldn't it be a great thing to take 
a team to WRTC at the age (then) of 72?  Single ops are limited to 36 
hours so anyone who went with me could operate in the contest when I am 
not operating.  Of course, that would make the PJ4 multiplier less rare, 
so maybe they'd operate on phone or on the WARC bands during the 
contest.  I do not plan to try to operate SO2R as that is something I 
have never done from a DX location and the logistics are a bit 
intimidating for me.  We will have access to three Yaesu transceivers, 
three AL1200 amps, and three tribanders, a two element 40M yagi at 100' 
and wires for 80 and 160M.  (Not much activity on 160M in May as I 
observed last year.)

I'd expect expense sharing for anyone who went down to operate the 
contest with me, but would be willing to pay a much higher portion of 
the common expenses if someone goes down to operate outside the contest 
only.

We need to make a decision fairly soon to try to get good air fares. 
The basic fare on American to Curacao via Miami from Atlanta was being 
shown as about $405.00 round trip last week.  The fire in the Miami 
Airport last week will make refueling of planes in Miami take more time 
and some flights are being canceled or delayed and that may continue for 
months.  It is possible to fly US Air via Charlotte and Aruba.  It may 
take two days to go down now due to scheduled construction at the 
Bonaire airport that will restrict or cancel night time flights to 
Bonaire.

So, please make inquiry to me soon if you are interested and could 
possibly arrange to make the trip in May.

73, John, K4BAI.