Topband: VK9GMW/AA7JV...our Topband hero!

[Bill Tippett]

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                   VK9GMW - Heavy Storm on Mellish
                      By AA7JV, George Wallner
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Apr 9, 0000 UTC, Mellish Reef. We did recover the computer that went
overboard. It is working and we are fully back in business. Still
don't know about RTTY, however. We endured an intense storm last night
with winds gusting over 80 km/h. Rain was occasionally very heavy. We
had to stop operating several times to strengthen the tent. There
seems to big demand for 20 m SSB, which we will do some of today.

Low Band Report: 160 meters was poor last night, and the weather
worse. Occasionally we could hear that a lot of NA stations were
calling, but it was impossible to pick out individual calls because of
the rapid QSB. Again, many stations were sending their calls only once
or twice, making them impossible to piece together. We QSY-d to 80 at
0930 where conditions were fluctuating; at times the band sounded like
160, other times it was reasonable. We returned to 160 around 2000,
where conditions gotten even worse. Additionally, the storm was
shaking the tent and causing the tarps to flap very loudly. It was
impossible to hear the few weak signals that managed to get above the
noise. We went back to 80 but were interrupted several times by the
storm threatening to blow down the tent. We had to add some tie-downs,
etc. Altogether, not a great night!

We believe there is a need to clarify the focus of this operation. As
stated from the outset, our focus is low bands: 160, 80 and 40, in
that order. We work the other bands during the day because the low
bands are closed (and Tomi loves it!). There have been a lot of
complaints about our low band (and CW) focus, including comments that
"this is no way to run a DXpedition". The way we see it is that many
large DXpeditions do a great job of working the high bands, SSB and
digital modes. There is a very good chance that one will be on Mellish
Reef soon. These operations, however, with a few exceptions, do not
generate a lot of 160 m QSO-s. We specialize in low band operations.
We bring 160 meter antennas, RX antennas, pre-amplifiers, etc. We come
with a lot of patience and the willingness to endure pain. We put up
with low QSO rates and seem to have a desire to spend hour listening
to entropy. Stuff that most DXpeditions, and their operators, prefer
not to do. We aim at giving out as many 160 m (and 80m) QSO-s as we
can. Everything else is cream!