[ADXA] Heard and the Herd

Mon Mar 28 13:43:24 EDT 2016

Way to go Dennis... Something simple that will radiate is better than nothing. HI   
    I just have a 1/4 wave sloper for 40m, better than my Zero 5 vertical in most cases on 40m. It's at the 33 foot mark on  my tower, and I have it sloping the only way I can, to about 100 degrees. Only took me 1.5 hours to work them on 40m, but if I had just waited for the peak, could have spent just 20-30 minutes, listening hard thru the DQRMers! The op nicely went up about 330 cycles slowly and wandered around a bit to get away from the DQRM lids. What childish things they do but it's been going on now for 5 plus years and increasing each year. The good thing about HF is local prop in USA filters out some of the idiots.

  Listened this morning, constantly listening about 20 seconds on each SSB freq and the lone 21mc CW for a solid 2 hours, starting at 1230Z. Heard NOTHING, surprising since my beam on 21 usually hears well and still NIL on CW.  Looking at the short window on 24 and 18, about 30 minutes and still NIL. So guess prop worse today than yesterday. But you do not know til you try. Fortunately not much to listen for at night now since no way can I get them on 160/80 with my trap dipole at 34 feet. They were on 20 SSB last night about 10PM or so, but NIL here.  I need them on 24 and 18mc for ATNO on those bands, so will focus there. Am not a band/mode chaser usually, so only ONE QSO per band satisfies me. But wud be nice to have the old 160m sloper at 110 feet that I rotated by hand or just a nice 80 inverted V with apex at 66 feet. Hard to do with a 38 foot tower. HI HI

Hope you get them again, Dennis. Keep plugging as you always do. And, listen to Joel’s advice ....good stuff.
San K5YY

-----Original Message----- 
From: Dennis Schaefer 
Sent: Sunday, March 27, 2016 6:13 PM 
To: w5zn at w5zn.org 
Cc: adxa 
Subject: Re: [ADXA] Heard and the Herd 

I don't have a 30 meter antenna, but after Pat, W5VY, reported success working them with an end-fed half wave on 30, I put up a sloping dipole on the South side of my tower.  Two nights ago, I didn't hear them very well until 0400Z, when they got a lot stronger.   Pat suspected they turned their 4-square from Europe to the US at that time.   Once their signal came up, it was relatively easy to work them at 0405.

73,
Dennis, W5RZ

> On Mar 27, 2016, at 3:06 PM, Joel Harrison <w5zn at w5zn.org> wrote:
> 
> Heard Island came on the air a few days ago and the wild herd of DX'ers
> seeking to work them fired up!
> 
> Propagation to the island from W5 land has not been good. The first couple
> of nights they had set up 40 and 30 meters. The 30 meter sig was decent
> but 40 was not good. After a couple more days of antenna work they fired
> on more bands but we are still experiencing poor conditions here in W5
> land. Our common daylight/darkness with Heard doesn't help. In the
> evenings we only have about one hour of common darkness at the most so low
> band possibilities are extremely difficult. By the same token the common
> daylight is also only about an hour so that doesn't give much time for the
> sun to do its magic on the higher bands, plus the SFI and A index haven't
> helped either.
> 
> Right now we have some weak prop on 17, 15 and 12 around 8:00 AM and that
> is it. In the evenings from around 7:30 - 9:00 PM listen on 30 meters and
> lower.
> 
> I do not need Heard Island for an all time new one as I have it on 20
> meters and 30 meters, SSB, CW and RTTY from previous operations but I am
> deeply involved in the DXCC Challenge and working individual band
> countries and on a pursuit to reach the 3000 mark. I am currently at 2940
> so every little one counts and Heard is one I need everywhere except 20
> and 30. I was very lucky to work them not only on 40 meters and 80 meters
> as well Friday evening......an accomplishment I call 99% luck and 1%
> skill! This morning I was able to nab them on 12 meters. They had a really
> nice SSB sign from about 1300z to 1330z and then the bad died here.
> 
> Deciding which band to listen to when they are spotted several places is a
> hard decision. When I was a boy I loved to quail hunt with my dad. It took
> me a few times to learn when a covey erupted from their cover and birds
> were everywhere to focus on one rather than just shoot among the entire
> covey feverishly flying away. Working a DXpedition like Heard is similar.
> This morning I was trying to listen for them on 17, 15 and 12. Their CW
> sig was weak on 15 but was the only band I could hear them on and given
> the sig was weak I simply assumed there was no propagation on a higher
> freq, so I focused on 17 and 15. After a bit I just happened to notice a
> signal on their freq on 12 meters on another radio I had on and it was
> VK0EK, a very good 59 sig!!! I almost missed the brief opening because I
> had given up on 12 meters based on their 17 and 15 meter sigs.
> 
> So, the lesson from this is focus on one band at a time but stay cognizant
> of the other bands as well. After you shoot the one bird you need to know
> where to move quickly to next! Understand propagation and when you should
> expect to hear the DX station. Our W5 land band openings to VK0 are short.
> 
> VK0EK is scheduled to be on for another 13 days so you have some time to
> get them in the log. As time goes by the pileups will calm down a bit and
> hopefully the sunspot #'s will improve. Just remember, this is one you
> really need to focus on and work because it will not be back on the air
> for a very, very long time if ever again. The last operation I recall was
> VK0IR in 1997.
> 
> I still need them on 160, 17, 15 and 10 so if you're in the pile on those
> bands I will be as well.....assuming we can hear them!!!
> 
> Oh yea....and one other VERY IMPORTANT POINT - remember they are working
> SPLIT so make sure you're not calling on their xmit freq. Also they are
> listening DOWN so don't go up and call unless you hear the op specifically
> say so.
> 
> 73 Joel W5ZN
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ______________________________________________________________
> ADXA mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/adxa
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:ADXA at mailman.qth.net
> 
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
______________________________________________________________
ADXA mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/adxa
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:ADXA at mailman.qth.net

This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/adxa/attachments/20160328/ffe04298/attachment-0001.html>