[ADXA] VP6D had great ops

Sat Nov 3 09:38:08 EDT 2018

I always appreciate the good operators at the other end of a DXpedition,
especially when I know my signal is going to be weak. In this case, I've
just moved to a new QTH (Bella Vista) and don't have a 'real' antenna up
but I'd put up an end-fed half wave for 40 which will also do 20 in a pinch.

When the pileup was down enough for me to be heard, the operator on Ducie
had to say "BDU?" several times in a row after I'd sent my complete call.
Finally he got it all and I had my QSO. I appreciate the willingness to
pull my call out even though it took three or four attempts.

That wasn't a new one for me, but I did get another one that was new:
Burkina Faso. Went through the same deal with him saying "WA5?" several
times before getting the complete call.

But I missed another one I needed - Christmas Island. Oh, well.

Good on your haywire antenna, Jay!

Look for my puny signal in CW SS today & tomorrow. Too bad no 80 meters for
me.

73-

Nick, WA5BDU

On Sat, Nov 3, 2018 at 8:04 AM J. Setcer <j.setcer at gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree with JAY.
> My hat is off to the VP6D Ops. They were top Notch.
>  They were polite, and accommodating as long as we were following their
> instructions. They were polite bur FIRM when they had to handle jackasses.
> Their English was good, Their rhythm (pattern) was predictable = easy to
> follow.
>
> N5QJ
>
>
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> On Fri, Nov 2, 2018 at 9:20 PM Jay Bromley <jayw5jay at cox.net> wrote:
>
>> Now for a lighter note.
>>
>>
>>
>> Two nights before Ducie went off the air, my wife Kathy comes into the
>> shack asking what I was up to?  My reply was---- something I shouldn’t be
>> doing.  I had worked VP6D on all the upper bands I had an antenna for, but
>> I didn’t have any low band antennas up in the air after getting the beam
>> up.  I had VP6DX on 160m CW years ago, but I didn’t have them on 30-80
>> meters.  So I got to looking at my tuner in an evil mad scientist sort of
>> way and proceeded to load it into the shield of my coax going up to the
>> beam.  That right the shield of my coax plus all the losses from the
>> tuner.  So with my mighty 100 watts I proceeded on 30m CW calling and
>> calling.  Even with preamp 2 turned on the 7600, they were not moving my S
>> meter, but I could hear them plain as day with my headset.  I am sure they
>> were running power, but I wasn’t about to try loading my amp into that
>> setup.  So I call and called.  A few times they called CQ and you could
>> tell they were hearing some noise being modulated by CW, hi.  I could
>> imagine seeing the operator, pushing against the headset closer to him with
>> his head down, saying to himself who is that weak signal that doesn’t give
>> up.  My thoughts were ---God let me be loud enough for them to get my
>> call.  BTW, I never turned the VFO, left on the spotted frequency.  It took
>> over an hour and I like to feel over when they called me.  I got the TU and
>> I was off to 40m on cloud nine!
>>
>>
>>
>> I heard the 40m CW pileup and went to FT8 on 40m instead of trying CW.  I
>> got them on FT8 on 40m with just a few calls.  So then I went on 80m trying
>> them on FT8.  That was just asking too much of the shield antenna I guess,
>> but I quit feeling great heading for bed.  Not so much about my FT8 contact
>> on 40m as I seen prints on that mode into a dummy load before, but CW on
>> 30m with that setup was super cool I still can’t get over it.  Something I
>> will always remember.  The next night in the dark I put up a wire I had
>> laying around and told Kathy it only has to stay up a night or two.  I sort
>> of fashion it as a 160m inverted L with one elevated radial.  It looked and
>> still looks horrible.  However I worked them again on 30m FT8 and RTTY.
>> Then 40m CW and then moved up to 160m, as they were not on 80m yet.  So
>> even though I didn’t need them on 160m I thought what the heck.  While
>> checking 80m on CW and FT8 frequencies I screwed up when I went back to
>> 160m.  I left the split off, I bet no one has done that one before!  Some
>> knuckle head came back to me W5JAY 5NN, like I couldn’t tell the real thing
>> from a pirate down under his signal.  Anyway I noticed my screwup and
>> corrected it.  Every time I called they would fade out, so I just quit and
>> listened for a while.  At 0405 UTC I got them on 80m CW and 14 minutes
>> later I went back to 160m to get them there just for fun.  I left the rig
>> on 80m FT8 thinking they would be on around later.  I missed them by a few
>> hours, but I was checking every few hours I got up from bed.
>>
>>
>>
>> VP8D wasn’t ATNO, but sure was fun chasing DX with friends, helping some
>> along the way with computer and logging issues.  The VP6 ops were super ops
>> IMHO.
>>
>>
>>
>> 73 de w5jay/jay..
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