Topband: A Bit of Zone 2 History Was Made Last Week

[GEORGE WALLNER]

Jeff,
Please ignore the negative comments.
FT8 is perfectly good. CW would have been harder but "better"! (i.e. more 
valued by the old-timers.)
But with FT8 you've made more people happy!
73,
George,
AA7JV

On Fri, 8 Nov 2019 10:11:29 -0600
  "Doug Renwick" <ve5ra at sasktel.net> wrote:
> I congratulate you on your effort. However there are many of us who do not
> consider FT8 as a 'legitimate' QSO.
> Doug
>
> "The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits."
> Albert Einstein 
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> 08 Nov 2019
>
>
> Hi Gang
> Jeff and I just got back from a one week "mini dx'pedition" to ZONE 2. 
> Three ferries and about a 2400km roundtrip drive to 50.112 North from PEI
> was made with the express purpose of giving ZONE 2 to our JA 160m friends.
> Prior to our trip, only one single JA station had ever managed a qso with
> ZONE 2 on Topband and that was JA7HMZ about 35 years ago - so this zone was
> much needed by most 160m JA dx'ers.  Quite of few of our 160m JA friends
> have been stuck at 39 zones on 160m for many years - so this was our chance
> to help them get ZONE 2 for #40.
> So without too much bandwidth - here is our report:
> QRV 31 October to 04 November 2019
> Roughly 350 stations worked on Topband - in 42 DXCC countries (we could have
> worked more but we took lots of time off in order to sleep and then get up
> for the JA window from about 0715z - 1110z.)
> We tried some CW but signals were very very weak and FT8 proved the only
> possible way to complete contacts to JA.
> It was pretty exciting to work these (6) JA friends:
> JF8QNF
> JA8EAT
> JA7NI
> JA1BK
> JA8WKE
> JA3FYC
> We decoded no other JA signals on our side- but we know we were decoded by
> these other JA stations:
> JH7PFD (two decodes)
> JE6KYA (one decode)
> JA1EOD (several decodes).
> Epilogue:
> We think that each JA qso that was made completed WAZ 40 on Topband for
> these JA friends. (meaning ZONE 2 was most likely their last one needed).
> Steve VK6IR called us on ON4KST chat saying he had been chasing ZONE 2 on
> 80m for 5BWAZ for 45 years and asked if we could work him on 80m.  We did
> not know about 80m since the antenna had not been tested  for that band but,
> after checking it with my analyst, I found it resonated at about 3778kHz. 
> Steve said he could not do SSB there - so I asked him if he could do
> digital.  YES! was his reply and we managed a qso on FT8 a few minutes
> later.
> After we uploaded our LOG FILE to LOTW (completed on 06 November) - within
> minutes there were 37 DXCC entities instantly confirmed via LOTW - including
> VK6IR and all (6) lucky JA friends we had worked.
> So we are happy we helped some of our JA friends with WAZ 40 - and, at the
> same time, we are a bit  disappointed that we could not do more.  The A/K
> were lousy on nights one and two - things got better on night 3 when we
> worked the first 4 JA's - nights 5 and 6 produced one JA qso each - meaning
> JA8WKE and JA3FYC.
> One amusing final fact - it was roughly a 2400km trip to there and back - so
> this works out to about 400km per JA qso.
> KOWABUNGA!  but we had a great time trying this - and are pleased we had
> some limited success in doing so.
> We wish to mention our special thanks to Don Toman (K2KQ) and to Frank
> Donovan (W3LPL) for their kind assistance with our antenna planning.  Their
> input and suggestions were invaluable in making this happen!
> 73/88 de  Miriam (VY2NA) and Jeff VY2ZM
> Email:   K1ZM at aol.com
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