Topband: K5P in Zone 14

[Jim Brown]

On Sat,1/16/2016 9:31 AM, Doug Turnbull wrote:
> The propagation gods are not favouring us at all.   K5P is a hard
> reach on most bands and once you go away from 17 through 40 meters there are
> literally only about five QSOs total on the other bands.

Now you know what life can be like in W6 with expeditions that are in 
the back yard of EU. :)

The island K5P is a protected wild life refuge, and access is quite 
restricted, even to the extent of the size of aircraft they could land 
on the island. That caused them to decide to travel light, including 
antennas. Rigs are K3s with KPA500s, HF antennas are SteppIR verticals. 
The 160 antenna is a Battle Creek special, and I suspect they have run 
some Beverages. BTW -- that aircraft got even smaller a day or so before 
they took off, causing them to trim the team by several men.

Here in NorCal, we're only 3400 miles from them over water. Sigs are 
great on 160M, not great on the HF bands. 160M is a lot louder than 80M. 
I managed to work them yesterday on 10 and 12 CW, but I had to wait 
several hours for them to get from "vapor" to 229 to call them (and be 
able to copy my call), and they never got louder than that 229.

I know about half the team, and I know they are dedicated to putting 
unique calls in the log, and are favoring EU as much as they can when 
they think there's an opening. On one of their first nights on 30M 
calling EU, there were EU spots saying that 10115 had bad QRM, please go 
to 10116. I emailed one of the guys, and the next day they were on a 
different frequency.

73, Jim K9YC