[TowerTalk] K7C Kure Antennas

[Kimo Chun]

Green Island runs a bit east-west of north
and south. The pier is roughly halfway up the
western beach facing the lagoon. In 1997, we(K7K)
used a C3 (horizontally) at the end of the pier.
A WARC 7 was (horizontal) at the vegetation line
next to the pier along with verticals on either
side of the pier.

Inland, we used a Titanex V160 and a vertical
made of a salvaged yagi element as it was
damaged during transport to shore. Plus,
one more multiband vertical.

Assuming most people have seen the pictures
that were posted on the DXA site, it appears
to me that either the naturalist decided not
to allow them to go to the north beach with
at least one of the stations or there were
issues with maintaining the 802.11 link. I
am virtually sure it was the former.

There are nesting birds all over the place.
One species burrows into the sand which
limits places you can go. Others nest along
and on the runway. This may prevent the team
from being allowed to traverse it to the
east beach. Also, the endangered Hawaiian
Monk Seal may haul out on any beach at any
time. If there were some on the east or
north beach at the time of setup, the
naturalist would not have allowed them to
set up anywhere near them.

This is basically a wildlife sanctuary with
absolutely "No Landing Allowed". If you
even want a CHANCE of going there you must
do everything the naturalist says and you
ought to make the "intrusion" worth their
while. Thus, the willing assistance with
island projects. A number of hours each day
by some members was volunteered on that
account.

The vertically oriented 2 element SteppIR yagi
signals will cross water if they are pointed
north. Not so if pointed stateside. They would
be crossing a few hundred yards of flat (well
up to 8 or 10 feet, maybe) sand island. I'm
not an antenna expert but I assume that the
takeoff angles would have suffered in these
inland directions according to frequency.

It is not practical to keep raising and lowering
antennas to change orientation in the hope
that they will then perform better for those
directions. On Kingman Reef, K5K, we raised
a horizontal yagi to perhaps 30 feet to compare
with our (very optimal) vertical dipole / yagis
and found it to perform much worse so we took
it down. The only yagi that remained horizontal
was the 6m yagi.

On Kure, I am curious how the Battle Creek Special,
2 Titanex V160e and 2 BiggIR verticals performed
on the lower bands. It sounds like some of those
signals were the loudest stateside. They did
have one Alpha 99 amplifier which was primarily
for the lower bands which I assume did other
duties during the day. It was likely in the
(mostly?) CW tent. The rest of the stations had
the new ACOM "medium" power amps.

I assume a lot of my questions will be answered
when the team arrives next weekend. It really
does appear that propagation played the biggest
role with less than optimal station placement
due to landowner restrictions a close second.

Do no damage that will hurt those that follow you.
If you don't want to sour the chances of future
DXpeditions getting landing permission you must
place keeping the host happy first after safety
considerations. Everything else comes after that.
It's only common sense.

The K7C DXA site has (I didn't re-check) preliminary
QSO statistics already. I congratulate them on
their hard work under less than ideal conditions.
I thank them for taking over after my failed attempts
to go earlier and doing a good job. Perhaps I
ought to put another team there near the next sun
cycle peak. That would be nice....

But my attention is on building up ham facilities
on Palmyra KH5 right now as part of the many research
programs that will take place there in the future.
Look for us next month... I hope.

73, Aloha
Kimo Chun  KH7U
Pacific DX Group






Date: Sat, 8 Oct 2005 16:13:33 -0700
From: "Michael Tope" <W4EF at dellroy.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] K7C  "facing West"
To: "Bill Coleman" <aa4lr at arrl.net>, <RLVZ at aol.com>
Cc: towertalk at contesting.com
Message-ID: <063c01c5cc5d$eb5eca90$1cf09580 at 1800xp>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
	reply-type=original


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bill Coleman" <aa4lr at arrl.net>


> On Oct 3, 2005, at 1:01 PM, RLVZ at aol.com wrote:
>
>> Perhaps most of their donor support  comes from
>> Japan... so they're facing & beaming Japan!
>
> It's probably more because they are 3-5 times closer to Japan than
> they are to the US...
>

Or could it be that they didn't have much choice where they set up their
gear? Part of the deal to get permission to operate on Kure required that 
the
team help the resident naturalist with maintenance chores.

>From the K7C website:

"In addition to the radio activities, we will be
supporting the wildlife sanctuary by contributing
to the maintenance and upgrading of the facilities
used by natualists and managers and by contributing
to managing the invasive species such
as the weeds and the ants."

and

"It is policy of this project to observe and operate
within all permits, regulations, and recommendations
of the various agencies with interest in Kure Atoll, with
particular attention to minimizing impact on the
ecosystem. Safety and minimal impact to the Kure Atoll
environment have priority in this operation."

What do you want to bet that they were told by the power that be on Kure
which beach they could use?

Elsewhere on the website they specifically state that their goal was to 
focus
on working Europe since unlike the relatively easy shots to the U.S. and JA
it is a polar path to Europe from Kure. Had they had their choice of 
beaches,
I am sure that they would have setup on a north facing beach to favor 
Europe.

73 de Mike, W4EF..................................................