TopBand: Excerpts-HEARD ISLAND MESSAGES # 29 & 30
Bill Tippett
btippett@CTC.Net
Mon, 6 Jan 1997 12:07:24 GMT
>THE TO0R STORY
>--------------
>We just received from W0GJ and K4UEE the following overview
>of the activities on Reunion island:
>
>TO0R went QRT at 0210Z 5 Jan 97. Total topband Q's 411 with
>50 countries in the log.
>
>29 Dec: K0IR & W0GJ arrived on Reunion 2 pm local time.
>On the balcony of the hotel room, the Gladiator 160M vertical
>was erected and only two Q's made first night: ZS & 9H
>(wonder who that 9H was?? - ON4UN -)
>
>30 Dec: Were able to secure permission to operate from the
>beach. TheGladiator was planted in salt water...extremely
>high noise levelsresulted in a dozen EU & AF QSO's. The
>beach site was 500 feet from the hotel. We borrowed the
>biggest generator we could find from the FR hams (3 KW) and
>could only get 500 watts max output from the Alpha 89 before
>severe voltage drop would cause a hard fault. We had to
>quit early that night because of a number of "raucous"
>inebriated people on the beach. Unfortunately, we had to
>forgo the opening to stateside.
>
>31 Dec: Wild parties on the beach! By this date 90% of
>the team had arrived and the FR hams threw a fantastic
>New Year's Eve party. No operation.
>
>1 Jan: Another field day operation on the beach with the
>Gladiator vertical....much better night with still lots
>of noise. We were working stateside ONE HOUR after our
>sunrise.
>
>2 Jan: Moving day onto Marion DuFresne.
>
>3 Jan: Operated from dock (field day style) with
>full-size dipole suspended between two dock cranes about
>100 feet high! Excellent EU and NA propagation: 205 Q's
>The best two hours for lowest noise are the hour either
>side of sunrise.
>
>4 Jan: Same setup, much more noise and poorer propagation
>this night. Only 90 some Q's. Again, best two hours
>either side of sunrise.
>
>Propagation notes: The evening is unuseable with extremely
>high noise levels that lessen throughout the night.
>We made effort at sunset to listen for West coast NA and
>JA's, but only one JA in the log.
>
>For EACH session of operating topband, a minimum of 2-3
>operators were listening, using splitters.
>
>Most interesting we have all noted: There is very little
>signal strength difference between EU and NA!!! We all
>expected much stronger EU signals. We are surprised that
>often when working NA, that no EU is heard. The band does
>go back and forth favoring EU and NA. Most noticable
>is the grayline effect crossing NA!!!
>
>We are almost antipodal from NA and we are amazed at the
>signal strengths! this is the antipodal focussing effect
> -ON4UN-)
>
>The *PROBLEM* seems to be rapid QSB! Will get 2-3 letters
>of a call very easily, then there is nothing! It would
>help immensely to spread out, as tuning the edges of the
>pileup are obviously easiest. The most frustrating thing
>is that once we get a call, after the exchange, the
>station is "gone!" We can hear the incredible din of the
>pileup....picking out the strongest signals is not too
>hard, but again, the rapid QSB is the biggest problem.
>
>This last night had higher noise levels, probably from the
>approaching cyclone, expected to hit Reunion in the next
>couple of days. We are sailing early to avoid it.
>
>Note: I'm sure you've heard, but the ship workers have
>been on strike... fortunately for only two days......if we
>had kept the original course, we might have been delayed
>longer from Heard, as the most variable time factor this
>ship has on its monthly tour is the time at Crozet.
>The seas can't be too rough to do their fuel unloading
>there...and often the ship will take 3-4 days or more.
>With our late departure, it has been decided to sail
>directly to Heard. The ship will then go to Crozet
>after dropping us off. So instead of shortening our
>operating time on Heard by up to 20% or more, we will
>have more time on Heard! The price was a stop at Crozet,
>and it sounds like permission to stay there at night
>might have been in question anyway.
>
>The following is a breakdown of the 160M U.S. log by N6EK:
>
>W1 W2 W3 W4 W5 W6 W7 W8 W9 W0 Total
>30 22 30 24 8 0 2 27 11 21 175
>
>We have just done the above preliminary breakdown, and
>hope to have further continent info later.
>
>5 Jan: TO0R now QRT...sailing to Heard Island.
>
>Please look for us as FO0R/mm during the next week as we
>head 3500 km straight south.
>
>73, Glenn W0GJ & Bob K4UEE
>via ON4UN
>
>
>THE TO0R LOGS
>-------------
>The logs for TO0R have been sent to ON1AIG, who is
>responsible for the PACSAT communication, but as of Jan
>6th, 12:00 z they have not yet been received at ON4UN.
>As soon as the logs arrives, we will process them and
>send them to Lyndon and Don to make them available on
>the log servers.
>
>We will keep them available on the log servers until
>the first logs for VK0IR are posted. At that time they
>will be removed.
>
>I expect to receive the logs later today, and you should
>see them on the log-servers tomorrow or late tonight
>(Jan 6th).
>
>The log will only contain call, band and mode. It will not
contain any duplicate QSO's. You will not be able to
"browse" through the log. You will only be able to ask for
your QSO's.
The log data will be available on:
1/ on the World Wide Web (internet):
http://www.aurumtel.com/hnews.html
or
http://www.aurumtel.com/heard-log.html
or (European back-up):
http://heard.eunet.be/
2/ on E-mail (internet E-mail log server):
heard-log@ve7tcp.ampr.org
3/ a packet radio server in Europe:
address: PA3BXR @PI8VAD.#ZH2.NLD.EU
How do you proceed?
1. On the WWW pages (internet):
- connect to http://www.aurumtel.com/hnews.html
From here you can go to the log server.
or
connect directly to the US log server page at:
http://www.aurumtel.com/heard-log.html
or
connect directly to the European log server at:
http://heard.eunet.be
- Enter the callsign you are interested in, and press
the "search" button.
2. On E-mail (internet E-mail log-server)
Send an e-mail message to
heard-log@ve7tcp.ampr.org
with the call sign of the station in the body (one per
line). The log server will immediately return a message
to you with the requested data.
3. On the European Packet Radio Log server (PA3BXR)
The PA3BXR Log server can be reached on HF or VHF packet
radio, via the European PBBS packet network. The
European packet PBBS system is connected via HF and
internet gateways to the world-wide packet PBBS system.
This means that from practically any point on earth you
can send a query message to PA3BXR.
The following syntax has to be closely followed:
to: PA3BXR @PI8VAD.#ZH2.NLD.EU
subj: HEARD-LOG
msg: HEARD-LOG N6EK
HEARD-LOG HA0DU
HEARD-LOG JY1
HEARD-LOG ZS8IR
You can ask for log info for your friends as well. Put
one call per line, preceded by " HEARD-LOG ". A maximum
of FIVE callsigns are accepted. The callsign MAY NOT
contain a slash (/).
The log server will return a message to you with the
required data. This may take some time though (from a
few hours to a day or more if a lot of HF forwarding
is involved!)
>73
>
>Your pilots: ON4UN, N1DG, W0EK, K0EU, W4WW, W2IJ, JH1ROJ
>
>* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>* H E A R D I S L A N D D X - P E D I T I O N *
>* PILOT PROGRAM MESSAGE # 30 *
>* Jan 6, 1997 - The Heard Island Pilots *
>* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>* H.I. INTERNET ADDRESSES *
>*Heard Island reflector: heard@ve7tcp.ampr.org *
>*Heard Island WWW site: http://www.ccnet.com/~cordell/HI/ *
>* http://www.aurumtel.com/hnews.html*
>* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>
>
>
>
--
FAQ on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/topband.html
Submissions: topband@contesting.com
Administrative requests: topband-REQUEST@contesting.com
Sponsored by Akorn Access, Inc & KM9P