TopBand: XZ1N report

[Milt Jensen, N5IA]

Fellow Top Banders,
        Greetings.  It is 9:00 PM on Thursday evening and my wife and I
have been home for 16 hours.  We left from Yangon International Airport at
10:30 AM (0400 Z) Wednesday the 2nd, and had an uneventful trip to our home
here in Virden, New Mexico.
        I would like to offer an updated (36 hour old) report on the
activities at XZ1N and in particular the Top Band efforts. 
        The setup group consisting of 5 men and to XYLs arrived in Yangon
mid morning of November 20th.  After clearing customs and Immigration we
went directly to the hotel, changed clothes and started assembling
antennas, connecting transceivers, amplifiers and computers, and arranging
for the hotel electrician to install additional 220 Volt circuits.
        One station was on the air by supper time with 40 Meter vertical
making the go with N5TJ at 1254 to be # 1 in the log for this XZ1N
operation.  The C3 went up, the 5 element-6 Meter directional and 2 element
40 Meter directional were assembled.  A small amount of operating was done
the 1st night.
        2nd day was more of the same with the 160 meter sloper being
finished and tuned after dark.  This antenna is oriented due north and is
attached to the lightning spike and ground grid at the top of the
elevator/water tower which is the highest point on the hotel.  The
feedpoint is about 1/4 wavelength above ground and measured 50 Ohms R and 0
X with the MFJ-259B.
        The receive antennas for 160/80/40 were also started the second
day.  To summarize, I installed 3 Beverages of just over 1 wavelength each.
 They have their feedpoints in a jungle environment about 800' south of the
hotel and extend onto the maintained hotel grounds.  The orientation is 0,
30 & 330 degrees.  Three EWEs were also installed, constructed and provided
courtesy of W8LRL.  Two are in the jungle area, oriented at 330 & 30
degrees.  The 3rd EWE was installed on one end of the top of the hotel,
using the lightning grid as the ground.  This was just one of many attempts
to find something that was not affected by the constant noise.
        One Beverage was totally moved to another location during the
process.  Another Beverage was changed from a grounded unit to a floating
unit using 1/4 wave wire terminations at both ends.  One EWE was moved
twice, finally ending up in the edge of the swamp where the feedpoint
ground wire was wrapped around a brick and pushed into the muck for a
ground and anchor point.
        I also constructed a full size dipole (250' long) and installed it
in the jungle at an average height of 7' above ground.  More on this
antenna later. In the end we installed nearly 4,000' of RG6 cable for the
feedlines to these antennas.  The temperature was consistently in the 80's
F with the humidity at 80-90 percent.  I found one 8' long snake skin and
got sucked by two leaches.
        My schedule was operate all night, mostly 80 & 40 Meters while
Robin did the 160.  Eat breakfast and go to work on the antennas until
noon.  Shower, sleep about 5 hours, and then be ready to operate at
sundown.  Robin operated on somewhat less sleep time than I did.  Neither
one of us left the hotel area until the day before I left.  My wife finally
dragged both of us down town to the market area for about 3 hours.  
        The results:  669 Qs, not counting dupes, in 23 Zones and 67
countries. The CQ WW CW contest gave us 328 Qs in 21 Zones and 56 countries
for a score of 62,986 to add to the 4 band multi-multi effort (10 & 15
Meters did single band). Surprisingly, when we combined the contest log
with the expedition log less than 100 dupes showed up.  The contest netted
us more than 200 new Qs.
        For the contest, Robin started the 1st night and worked through the
US west coast with N7JW, K6ZZ, N2KK and K7RAT being the total from
stateside.  I ran most the rest of the night with Robin taking the sunrise
responsibility.  Conditions to Eu and Asia were fair with a total 1st night
count of 188.
        I did all the 2nd night while Robin did 80 Meters.  The band
started slow but opened to the US a full hour earlier than the previous
night.  I logged AA0RS, K0CM, W0AH, N7UA, W7IUV, W7DT, W6RR, W7TJ, W7XR,
N2KK, AB7CF, K6SE, AB6CF, KH6AT, KL7Y, KL7XX, and NL7Z at 1819. 
        All the lower 48 contacts were audible only on the low dipole in
the jungle.  The Alaskans and the Hawaiian were using the 30 degree
Beverage.  The Beverages were always best for the JAs, the Russians and the
Eu stations.  The band really opened to EU later the 2nd night.  Multitudes
of signals overwhelmed me as they ran 20 to 30 over S9 for about 1 hour.
Then it went away.
        I worked W2UE in Arizona for the only W contact my last night
there.  Robin had it at sunrise and worked Jack, VE1ZZ, for the 1st time
this trip and the first east coast Q.
        We had YB0ARA, Phil David fly in from Jakarta for the contest and a
couple more days.  Phil has extensive experience on Top Band in southeast
Asia. The 3 of us could not come up with any way of totally ridding our
reception of the low level buzz noise.  At the same time, we are all of the
opinion that the received signals are lower than normal with no explanation
for it.
        Robin will dedicate each sunset and sunrise to 160 to maximize the
possibility of NA Qs.  He will probably work some 80 Meters during the
middle of the night when 160 dies.  He and Don, K6RKE, are there for
another 12 days from now, so there is still ample opportunity for the band
to treat us well.  The main body of the expedition with leave with
everything except two stations and the wire antennas next Wednesday the
9th, Yangon time.
        So, in a nutshell, that is it so far.  There are many small items
that I have not touched on, but this should give you a fair idea of the
effort.  I personally believe that we have done all possible under the
conditions that we have to operate under.  I have a vested interest as I
now get to try and work XZ1N from N5IA.  The best of conditions for everyone.

                                                        Milt, N5IA

--
FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/topband.html
Submissions:              topband@contesting.com
Administrative requests:  topband-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems:                 owner-topband@contesting.com