Topband: The V84SAA Expedition - Part I Prologue

[k1zm at aol.com]

Gm Gang
I am going to post a series of notes about our recently completed V84SAA Dx'pedition as some have asked me to do so.  IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ THESE STORIES PLS HIT THE DELETE KEY!!  Thanks!
How it all began?
You may recall that our team activated 9M0W last March and soon thereafter K1LZ and I were talking about - "Okay...What do we want to do next?"
We thought about V85 (Brunei) because our 9M0W team mates from Sabah told us it was only a 5 our drive from Kota Kinabalu down to the V8 border and these guys could assist with some logistics to include a site visit and bringing down some things we would need.
In addition I had received some emails from K9UWA and DU7ET asking about activating V8 and we knew it was super rare on 160m from most of mainland USA.
A Dialogue Begins
Krassy K1LZ and I initially envisioned a smallish team of JT1CO/K1LZ/K1ZM/9M6KOM/S55M and perhaps one or two more - but as we all now know this became a rather large team of 26 operators - spread out over two camps - one for SSB and one for CW - separated by some 20km or so
The Search for a CW Site Begins
Initially I became the point-man and my task was to locate a site with a salt water takeoff to Eu and Na - where we might have low noise, room for antennas, commercial power and a place from which to operate.
I spent about a month looking at google maps of Brunei and suggestions were made about Serasa Beach, Muara and Istana Pantai.
Serasa beach was okay for NA but it beamed through the capital city to acquire Eu - so that was quickly eliminated.  Muara had some issues also and Istana Pantai was recently taken over as a British garrison - so the search continued.
I did a lot of reading about prior dx'peditions and two caught my attention - one by a SCOT and two other EU guys looked interesting and I wrote to them and learned eventually that the rental villa they had used was now under renovation and was not available to us.
I also read about the two Italian dx'peditions - by the same Italian team I think - in 2007 and 2012 I think.  I wrote to the team leader who was very helpful in telling me much about Sera Kenangan Beach - which is where they operated from.  Also Adrian was on a dxpedition in Novermber/December with the Italian team and had learned much about Kenangan beach while in Africa as a part of the Italian team  All of these points of contact led us to learn more about V8 and what it would be like down in TUTONG ad Kenangan beach.
I also looked at the Italian website from 2012 and their photos and how they had arrayed their antennas - and it looked quite promising to me.
At the same time - my assignment was to look into acquiring a V8 license and this is where I had the good fortune to meet Tamat Lampoh V85T/V85TL who is the 2nd oldest licensed amateur in V8 - having secured his license just after independence from the UK.
In August of 2018 Tamat and I started a dialogue via email.  With his help and guidance I managed to apply for and secure an individual license for myself as V85/K1ZM and one for Miriam as V85/KK1ZM - who is my XYL.
This was useful but these callsigns never went on the air.  The next task was to apply to the AITI authority in Brunei for a GROUP DX'pedition callsign.  Here I learned that this required a local SPONSOR - and Tamat who is a principal in the Brunei Darussalem Amateur Radio Assn agreed to help me with the sponsorship required.  He explained that it would likely be a V84 callsign and it would likely be a three letter suffix.  It would need to be a special event callsign and BDARA would need to sponsor it for us to AITI which is the local FCC equivalent.
I later applied to the ARRL LOTW manager and secured out P12 key for what will be our eventual updates to LOTW which are planned - not sure when.
(I need to stop here and comment  now on what is really important here.  It is possible that I became the most visible face on 160m during our stay out there - but this would never have happened were it not for V85TL and BDARA.  It would also never have happened without Adi S55M and Roman RN5M who were the master builders in charge of our antennas at each of our two operating sites.  (If RN5M is not a familiar callsign to you, two HUGE stations which you **will surely recognize** are the  Russian contest stations RU1A and RL3A which he has largely been the antenna installation guy for.  He also installed most of the antennas at JT5CO two years ago in Mongolia in May when Krassy and I were out there for CQWPX CW.  Roman and Adi were ***everywhere*** working on things, trying things on Rx at our request - basically they were the "go to" guys on installation and takedown - and their contributions were ENORMOUS. We all owe them a ***huge*** vote of thanks!)  It would have never have happened also without Adrian Ciupa KO8SCA who handled our website, many of the logistics and were it not for Krassy K1LZ who coordinated several large shipments of gear and antennas to Brunei from EU and from the USA via Singapore to Tamat V85TL - who was a one man army working for us for 6 months - despite his day job at the airport - Tamat was a hero in all of this and we owe him a huge debt of gratitude for being our LOCAL guy on the scene who took care of EVERYTHING local!)
In late December we were assigned V84SAA and we became known as" The Team Sabah and Friends Royal Dx'pedition!"  Our license was a group license and each team member was covered under it as long as we brought a copy of our current home licenses to Brunei to show to AITI on demand if asked (we never were asked!)
Tamat also worked via email to learn all the serial numbers of our transceivers and amplifiers - in order to ease the process at the airport for the importation of our equipment.  When I got there to the airport - they all knew about V84SAA - their list of equipment and serial numbers had been previously provided to them by Tamat - and it only took about 5 minutes for me to clear my own equipment - no one had any issues with this importation process as I recall.
In conversations with Krassy, I told him I was already committed to JW5E in late January - to about Feb 1st of 2019 - so I could not personally depart from Boston to Brunei until 05 February 2019.  We were issued our license from 0001 local time on 07 Feb to 2359 local time on 18 February 2019 - so I actually did not arrive in V8 until the afternoon of 07 Feb and by that time the 05 Feb team meeting had been already held and setup was largely completed by the time I arrived at the CW site around 4PM on 07 Feb.  I literally got off the plane, checked in to the EMPIRE HOTEL in Jerudong and then drove my rental car 27 minutes down to Sera Kanangan beach in time for the SUNSET opening to NA on 07 Feb.
When I got there to the CW site S55M told me he had just installed our 1000 ft beverage for the SP to North america and that the 160m xmit antenna had been partially installed using a DRONE by one of the local 9M6 guys - wow - I wish I had been able to see that happen!  We had a DHDL antenna on the beach to EU - and at 1500z each night we had to go out to the beach with a flashlight to switch the feedline coax line that was connected to these two RX antennas from the Beverage to NA over to the DHDL aimed at EU.  At SR we would move the feedline back to the NA beverage so as to be ready for the NA SUNSET opening again.  (I will comment more on our RX antennas - as this became a hot topic for us later in the week - we started out hearing NA at our local SR on the longpath very well for the first 3-4 days -  but we did not hear well to NA at  our SR the last 5-6 days and I will try to explain what MAY have been our issue on LP Rx - we were clearly outxmitting our ability to RX NA on the long path late in the dx'pedition.)
I sat down on 07 Feb and started to listen for NA at sunset.  From my operating table I could look out a tent window and actually see the sun going down to the horizon and when it hit the ocean out the window - NA would start coming through almost immediately!
So we had started and were on our way on 160m - which I became the primary operator for.  K1LZ sat next to me and was largely the face of 80m CW.
Please note also that I was ably assisted on 160m for many hours from 15z-2000z each night by VE7NY,  by JT1CO once he arrived later in the week, and sometimes by K1LZ who also did some 160m operating.   I usually focused on the 160m SS and SR grayline periods - and sometimes operated all night into EU where the pileups were HUGE!   PY5EG did some 160m FT8 for one morning at SR looking for PY and SA stations - which it was tough to manage.  I did work Jorge CX6VM one morning on CW at my SR but I think that was all we managed to do into SA on 160m.  It was far easier on 80m and a number of PY's were worked easily AFTER our SR with very loud 579 signals - much louder than NA was BTW!  PY came in 10 mins after our local SR - after Na had faded out to the East coast - it was a surprise to us to see this occur!)

End of Prologue - When I have time I will try to relate what the first few days were like on 160m - because it was exciting to experience!
73 for now
JEFF   K1ZM/Vy2ZM



Jeff BriggsDXing on the Edge: The Thrill of 160 Meters Available worldwide through BookBaby, Array Solutions, DX Engineering, Radio Society of Great Britain, & Amazon