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[Warren Hill]

8Q7AA - Final Comments/Stats
January 31, 1998

Fellow DX'ers...

The 8Q7AA group of the Central Arizona DX Association is now back home, 
working to overcome 12 hours of jet lag and doing our best to sort 
through the details of an amazing operating experience. We would like to 
thank everyone for an overwhelmingly high level of interest. Some 
stations, such as W1NG, worked us on 10 band/modes! As stated before our 
departure, the goal of this operation was to have a meaningful presence 
on the low bands (6,755 contacts on 160, 80 and 40-meters) and to 
concentrate on North America. 

Our only disaster was that one FT-1000MP suffered a cracked PC board 
during transit. For five of our nine days on Alimatha Island we were 
limited to only three functional stations. Unbelievably, KP4RF was able 
to meticulously jumper all the broken PC board traces using a 
microsurgical technique that would make any neurosurgeon proud and 
restore an otherwise DOA radio to perfect working order! In spite of this 
unexpected setback, we still managed to log more than 17,000 contacts.

Our 160-meter specialist, Bruce Sawyer, N6NT, was able to put 85 North 
America Top Banders in the log. Because of sunrise/sunset timing issues, 
most of these stations were from the Eastern 2/3 of the NA continent, and 
just after their sunset. At sunrise for the West coast of NA, it was just 
too early in the evening from our location off the southwest tip of India 
to be effective. Conditions would vary from outstanding (contacts ranging 
from KH6, JA8, OH2 and YL2 in less than 60 minutes) to so bad that I had 
to check to see if our 160-meter vertical had been washed away! 
Unfortunately, for the weekend of the 160-meter CW DX contest, conditions 
were some of the worst of the entire DXpedition. For those who are 
interested, N6NT has posted a detailed summary of our 160-meter 
experience to the Top Band Reflector.

On 75-meter SSB, Rich Chatelain, K7ZV, gave the same outstanding 
performance as he did from XZ1N during the 1996 Myanmar operation. During 
one simply amazing 14-hour opening, he worked hundreds of stations on 
both the East and West coasts of NA, along with a few hundred Europeans 
thrown in for good measure. Many now have zone 22 on this band/mode 
because of his dedicated efforts night after night.

Our hard working HF SSB crew of Oscar Resto, KP4RF, Sally Martinez, 
KM5EP, Dan Brown, NA7DB, and Paul Playford, W8AEF handed out thousands of 
contacts, day and night. As NM7M predicted, each day the 20-meter West 
coast sunset long path opening from zone 22 was absolutely terrific! 
KP4RF even spent several evenings on 40-meters working Spanish language 
South America stations, an area often overlooked. Not a surprise, Europe 
on 17-meter SSB was unbelievable! This is the first year that the SSB ops 
of our team beat the CW ops in total number of contacts.

The energetic CW boys, Bruce Sawyer, N6NT, Darryl Hazelgren, AF7O, 
myself, K7WX, and Steve Thompson, N7TX, made a special effort to work 
into W5 and W0, knowing that these areas would have the most difficulty 
both hearing and being heard. I am grateful to the many East coast 
stations who so very patiently stood by as we tried to make ourselves 
available to the Midwest. Without exception, European stations also 
graciously allowed us to meet our stated objective, even during times 
when we were still loud into zones 14 and 15.

N7TX has begun an analysis of the logs. Below is a "first pass" through 
the .bin files from the four operating positions:

              CW      SSB    RTTY    TOTALS

    160      664       40       0       704
  80/75      537    1,704       0     2,241
     40    2,149    1,661       0     3,810
     30    1,178        0       0     1,178 
     20    1,519    2,625     200     4,344
     17    1,734      909       0     2,643       
     15      434    1,654       0     2,088   
     12      348      423       0       771  
     10       65       59       0       124   
          _______  _______  _______  _______ 

 TOTALS    8,628    9,075     200    17,903


We will begin mailing QSLs in several weeks. Direct requests can be made 
to:

  Steve Thompson, N7TX
  119 E. Jasmine St.
  Mesa, AZ  85201-1811  USA

We are also much indebted to our West coast pilot Dick Wolf, N6FF, who 
during our time in Indian Ocean made daily summaries of hundreds of your 
e-mail comments. These very helpful 
observations/criticisms/encouragements made all the difference for us!

Further details, and some pictures, will soon be available on our web 
site located at:

  http://cadxa.org/8q7aa

Additional comments about this operation are always welcome. Thanks again 
for the QSOs!

73 de Warren, K7WX





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