Topband: Some Operating Observations from JT5DX de K1ZM/VY2ZM (very long!)

[Dennis]

Great job, Jeff!

Dennis W1UE

On 6/4/2017 6:02 AM, k1zm--- via Topband wrote:
> Hi All
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> While it is still fresh in my mind and while I have a few moments this morning, I thought I might pass along a few OPERATING OBSERVATIONS that I made while over at JT5DX this past week.  I will organize these into GENERAL OBSERVATIONS, TOPBAND THOUGHTS  and HF THOUGHTS.
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> GENERAL OBSERVATIONS - & What it was like getting there.......
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> First let me note that this was NOT a Topband Dx'pedition.  From a timing perspective, with no overlapping darkness to NA on either coast, the timing could not have been worse for NA.  What it WAS was an invitation to join a talented International team of old friends to operate the CQ WPX CW contest and to visit Hong Kong, China and Mongolia and JT1CO.  Despite the downside of SPRING conditions, there was still enough of an attraction there to say  - "HELL YES - I want to go!!!!!"  Plus it was a chance to visit CHAK and see his station up close and personal. And, even more important, it was a chance to help build some updated capability into the JT1CO lowband station for the upcoming Winter months.  While I was out at the farm, my wife and daughter accompanied K1LZ's wife on a wonderful tour of the Southern GOBI desert so they were totally cool with my going off on my own thing with the boys.... In some respects their experiences and what they got to see and do was as equally
>    exciting to THEM as was my experience out on the farming steppes to the NW of Ulan Bator.
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> Getting there...
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> The farm is around 220 miles to the NW of the capital city.  That is about the the distance from New York to Boston - but there are few paved roads in JT land.  And what exists could HARDLY equate to the I-95 corridor along the East coast of the US.  There are two PRINCIPAL roads in Mongolia - one North South and one East west.
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> Our route was on one of them for the first part of the trip - perhaps the first 4 hours of what was about a 6.5 hour drive in total.  At about the 4 hour point, Chak headed LEFT out into the mountainous steppes along a dirt road and, from that point onwards, it was total dead-reckoning using "this hill" and "that hill over there" - plus many rock outcroppings which served as guideposts along the way.  THERE ARE NO ROAD SIGNS!!!!!!!!!  There were MANY dirt roads and Chak knew exactly which one was the road that would lead the last 45 miles or so out to the farm.  (Honestly - if you did not know where this place was located, you nor I would NEVER find it.  There was no GPS system I was told - I did not understand that - but I did understand that only Chak's expertise got us there!!!)
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> There are also few treed regions in JT.  We did pass through a few clusters of BIRCH - some evergreens now and then along the hillsides - but mainly sheep, goats, cows and the occasional hairy YAK.
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> I kept looking out for the station and finally, we dropped down out of the hills into a valley below and there in the distance I could see 6 tall towers way off in the distance.  There were wheat fields everywhere - many of which Chak owns as that is what he does for a living.  There are 3 million people in JT and Chak likes to say "I feed 300,000 of them every year!"
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> The farm is enormous with quite a few LARGE buildings about the size of aircraft hangers.  He employs a large number of staff - most of whom work the farm.  He works his tail off on the farm, and remember - he does NOT live there - and, with no home station back in UB any more, operating timeframes are hardly a top priority for him - he gets on when he has time.  He is hardly retired.....
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> Some years ago, he bought the land and then built a compound on it - the MAIN structure has 4 main connected components:
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> The family residence
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> The business side of the operation where his accountants and office are located
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> The station component which has 4 rooms (one which is a HUGE workshop), two operating rooms, a full bathroom and a lounge at the rear.
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> The last connected component is what he calls the HOTEL - which has 4 upstairs guest bedrooms, a kitchen and a dining room where we took our meals.  Three ladies looked after us - and if you came into the dining room, within 30 seconds you were handed a cup of coffee or tea and two minutes later a plate of food.  So we were well taken care of - that's for sure.
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> A fridge was stocked with BEER, COKE, COLD WATER and the coffee mess was ALWAYS there with a full pot of coffee.  I do not care if you came in at 0200AM local - someone had made a full pot of coffee - which I personally took full advantage of as I was up each night from about 0300 local until grayline sunrise.
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> So much for the PROLOGUE....
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> TOPBAND HIGHLIGHTS
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> All of us dedicated topband afficiandos know what 160M is like - usually there is a well-defined peak in signals as SR approaches - sometimes it is not there - but it USUALLY works that way.
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> I would get on at about 0300 local - which was 1900z - and start listening on 160M.  It was an interesting time to be on the air as JA SR was occurring at about the same time as SS was moving from RW2F westward towards Central EU and towards the UK.
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> Of course UA9/UA0 and the JA's were pretty loud.  Then came the UA4 and UA6 boys.  You had to work the 8 circle array all the time because after each CQ,  JA's might be calling and/or EU stations and depending on where your RX antenna was aimed, you would not hear both.  The JA's would ultimately disappear and then it would be all EU as one reached 2000z. and beyond
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> Here's what it was like:
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> Scandinavia was pee-weak.  I did work a few OH and SM stations.  OH1RX was one.  I do not remember working an LA.
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> Clearly, the LOUDEST EU signals were from SOUTHERN EU - mostly IK7JTF, I2TAO and the well-known SV stations which had the front door into JT for sure.
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> Eastern EU was copiable - usually 559/569 or so but with alot of QSB.  I did work some SP's, OM/OK stations, some S5 and 9A and one loud EA6.
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> I recall, working a handful of DL - but probably less than 10 total.
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> I did not work a single FRENCH station.  I worked ONE G station on sked - G3XHZ I think who called me on ON4KST chat and had I not sent him to 1829 outside the pile, I never would have worked him - he was in the noise but we did manage a difficult QSO.
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> It is clear to me that the UK on 160M suffers greatly into JT land - & unless it gets better in DEC/JAN/FEB - (maybe it does) - hard for me to tell in late May - these guys seem to struggle on this path.  Signals were really weak and more than a few were trying.
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> Via CHAT I learned that ZL3IX was hearing me both nights and VK4MA asked for a try - and I made it with Paul who had a 579 signal - I worked nothing else down into the Pacific.
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> At 0500 (one hour before local SR) the band peaked into Eu and then it dropped like a rock for the last hour as SR occurred.  There was no traditional SR bump.  The I and SV stations did hang in there to the end but the rest of EU was totally just not there - I did manage a qso with 4X4DK five minutes into daylight - the last night I was on before the contest.
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> HF THOUGHTS and OBSERVATIONS
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> One of the things I wanted to check was what NA signals sounded like over in JT and 20M was really the only place that I knew would likely be open.  I also knew 1130-1230z might be a good time for over the pole prop into W1.
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> On Wed evening before the contest I had made a sked with VY2GF, George Dewar, who has a modest station and low power on PEI and we had planned to work at 1230z.
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> But around 1115z I found W1MK CQ'ing with a LOUD signal around 14015 and worked Rob.  He was pretty surprised when I told who I was.  A few minutes later I found Nate N4YDU who was just playing around with the remote EASTPORT, ME RHR stacks - using his laptop in his kitchen.  He was so loud I could not believe it - and I do not remember anyone louder either - but I did not have too much time to check either.  I also worked K1RM a few mins later with a good signal.  KP2M with KT3Y operating was a good signal as well a few mins earlier.  I did work VY2GF on sked which was a new one for George - so I am sure he was delighted.
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> On 20M I tried to see who had the front door - K3LR was in there the longest - but not that much louder than the best E Coast stations.  VY2TT held up for quite a long time as well - he has some SUPERB 20M stacks and it showed.  These guys, again, were not what I would call DOMINANT - they just held up longer as the prop waned into the East Coast during the contest.
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> THE CONTEST and JT5DX's configuration
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> As primarily a 160M specialist and a SINGLE OP/ALL BAND guy  most of my life - the state of Multi Single that exists today is truly mind-boggling.
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> K3JO and 9A5K had configured the station for either a M2 or a M/S entry.  We all decided that WHATEVEVER P33W did ***not do** would determine what WE WOULD DO.  Easy choice....really - a no brainer.  P33W had overlapping prop in NA on all bands and we had only 20M to shoot for towards NA - also they were at EUROPE's back door - & we were a whole hemisphere away to the East.
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> They wernt M2 - so we went M/S.  Again - this was an EASY DECISION and the right one - they made 40Meg or so - we managed 15MEG  or so - being in Asia on our side is clearly not the place to make a TOP WORLD SCORE with P33W in the game!!
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> Again, the scope of the state of the art in M/S today is mind-boggling to an old fart 160m op like me.  After reading this you will better understand the INCREDIBLE results of P33W, CN2AA, EF8R and ED8X (and others).
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> Chris 9A5K and Velimir K3JO (who works for K1LZ in MASS) - designed a switching/interlock system that can accommodate up to 12 stations and 36 antennas - with the whole system is totally interlocked and running like a fine SWISS timepiece.
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> In the most competitive M/S stations like P33W, and now JT5DX, here is how one approaches a M/S operation:
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> 1) Two stations handle the RUN on the RUN BAND - with a power divider splitting the power into stacked yagis aimed in different directions at the same time.  Each CQ goes out in two directions at the same time and each operator listens in his direction for callers.  In our case we had 7/7 OWA  long boom 20M yagis at something like 150/75 feet aimed at EU.  The second RUN operator at his station had another pair of 20M stacks aimed at JA.  Good operators like K1LZ and 9A5K work together to maintain huge RUN rates - as they know how to do this.  Whichever operator grabs the INTELOCK first answers what he hears - then the SECOND station can call what he has heard calling from the other direction.
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> 2) In a M/S operation like this - there are usually two OTHER stations on the same band - using DIFFERENT antennas and DIFFERENT amps etc.  These are called IN BAND stations.  I was on one of these - K3JO, S52M often were on the other in-band station.
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> This means that 4 stations are all on the RUN band - with each station SIMULTANEOUSLY putting points up on the scoreboard.
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> At each position Chris 9A5K's DX Logger logging program has 2 windows on the computer - one window has choices of XMIT antennas and the other WINDOW has choices of RX antennas.
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> On every band we usually had as many as 5 to 6 antennas to choose from.  The RUN guys had the BEST antennas - but what we had left to choose from were not TOO SHABBY either - just lesser stacks and/or two 125 foot high STEPPIR 40-10m yagis, for example.
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> Available antennas not in use were GREEN shaded - antennas in USE were RED shaded - and could not be selected.  One merely needed to POINT and CLICK on the screen to switch antennas.  Also there was a 3rd window which indicated RED or GREEN which indicated the status of the interlock.  If it was GREEN (and with the RUN guys going at 200 per hour) that meant that you as an IN BAND op needed to be really CLEVER AND FAST to be able to grab the interlock to call what you were after.  It was usually RED so you had to wait for your chance.  If you dallied too long calling a mult - you might occasionally hear a STOP STOP shouted out at you from the RUN guys - especially if you were taking down their rate - HI.  So this required TEAMWORK and the guys at P33W and CN2AA are probably the best teams in the world who attempt this.  We are still learning at ED8X - so were are "TEAM AVIS" - but we are getting better - HI.
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> It took some patience to learn how to optimize this - but for each hour,  the IN BAND guys on these two other stations would usually manage to add from 60-80 additional qso's to the RUN guys total - elevating an hourly total to well over 200 per hour during optimal hours. We would go after prefix mults FIRST and then LATER anything regardless of where it was for QSO points.  The second day as things wound down there was NOT much left to work.  Certain stations were really hard to work too - especially Z37M and CN8KD whom I called for hours on end over both days!
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> Some other notes:
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> As an East Coast op, I am not used to hearing BY and YB stations all over the band - for example, on 10M and 15M that is about all we could hear - plus a smattering of JA stations.  I did work a ZL/KH6 and 5W1SA on 15 as I recall -  & the RUN guys did manage some decent RUN openings into EU.
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> The first night we did almost no operating on 80M and 160m - as the rates were far higher on 20M and 40M all night long.
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> We had planned to hit 80 HARD the second night and an hour or so on 160M - but the FLARE - wiped 160M completely and hurt our chances even on 80m - but we did have a few decent hours after midnight into EU on 80M.  I spent some time operating with JT1CO on the RUN and boy - Chak is a great CW operator.  He can hear a pin crop, busted almost ZERO callsigns that I heard and handled the pile at 38-40 WPM CW rate for hours.  Every now and then he would stretch and say - "I am getting old...."  I really enjoyed listening to him as he ran the lowband pileup.  HE KNOWS HIS TOMATOES - as one might say!!!!
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> One other comment to add  is how CHAK ran out his feedlines.  He had constructed elevated channels on 14" high posts - think of them as aqueducts - into which were placed up to as many as 12 runs of 2" diameter hardline.  These ran all over the farm out to the towers.  At the base of each tower was a LOCKED panel - and from there LMR400 smaller coax would run up the tower to the yagis.
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> Some towers were as LARGE as cell towers - and on these towers 10m and 15m yagis just could not be placed  - unless they were mounted vertically into stacks on masts spaced way out away from the tower face -  the tower diameter was just too fat for these small yagis - which is something K3ZO once told me about down at his station.  The vertical polarization did not seem to matter though - EVERYTHING worked.  We only suffered one failure - one of the STEPPIR's had some kind of problem - but everything else worked without fail.
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> As the contest ended, we on the IN BAND stations really struggled to find something to work - we did not miss much we thought.
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> One other point - Chris and Velimir finished the station wiring at MIDNIGHT on Friday night.  Lucky for us the contest started and ended at 0800 local time (0000z) - thus we all managed about 6 hours of much needed sleep - then a shower and breakfast  SATURDAY morning- and we were all hunched over our radios promptly at 0800 local as the contest started.
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> For me - this was a thrilling experience - I am grateful to K1LZ and JT1CO for allowing me to be a part of it all.  I personally am starting to enjoy 12 hour runs on the HF bands at 200 per hour LESS and LESS in favor of more relaxed rates on 80m and 160M - so the BETTER OPS did most of the HEAVY LIFTING on the HF bands - and asked me to do some nighttime running on 40M and 80M - which suited me just fine - HI HI.
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> Pity that 160M was a total washout the second night - I only managed to work HG8R in the noise and absorption from the flare made and runs there a total impossibility.
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> Guess that is all to say here - hope it was fun reading - and thanks for all the Qso's from the JT5DX team.
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> Cu down the road in the next one I hope.
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> 73 JEFF   K1ZM/VY2ZM
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> _________________
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