Topband: VQ9LA Update

[Bill Tippett]

         K1QX (got it right this time Craig!) asked about
VQ9LA.  Just this morning Larry said he would be on
tonight before his sunrise.  His usual frequency is
1814.0 listening up 2, and he typically is on for the
JA opening (~21z) until his sunrise at 0106.  He will
sometimes take brief breaks or move to 80 if he gets
no responses, but leave your receiver on 1814 and
you may be rewarded.

         IMHO, Larry is doing a fabulous job activating
VQ9, even compared to previous excellent operations
by Dale VQ9QM (W4QM) and Pres VQ9SS (N6SS).
Larry has been working on the RX situation which is
compounded by a nearby broadcast station on 1485.
He has mostly been using his TX antenna on RX due to
problems with his Pennant which is probably too close
to his TX antenna.  He has now temporarily relocated
the Pennant to a site 3-400' away from the shack and
says the Pennant is working well.  The BC station is
directly to its rear when looking short path to NA.  He
is encouraged by the good initial results, so he may
soon try a Beverage using a transformer and termination
I sent him.  He also has to be careful how he strings
the Beverage since it is often accidentally torn down by
workers.

         Running the coax remotely is a major task
since the ground is coral which is quite hard.  He
temporarily laid out the coax to determine if the remote
siting would help and now plans to bury it since it seems
to be working well.  He can mount either his Pennant or
Beverage at the far end.  Imagine the dedication to roll
out 3-400' of coax each night before and after you want
to operate!  That is true dedication...Topband style!

         Larry recently sent me a recording of my signal
and included one of QSOs with K9NS and W5IZ.  It
was interesting to listen to since I very clearly heard
AA0RS in Colorado in the pileup at least 3 different
times!  Larry is getting out well and hopefully his new
RX setup will allow him to work even farther west into NA.

         Congratulations to Larry on an outstanding job!
If you are lucky to catch him, he has a beautiful QSL
and responds to direct requests very promptly.  More
info here:

http://www.qsl.net/vq9la/index.html

                                 73 & GL!

                                 Bill  W4ZV