[OKDXA] PJ7/K5WE Update

Fri Nov 7 17:55:12 EST 2014

Jeff,

Thanks for the PJ7 story/update and the 12m QSO. I could have used you on 
10m as I still need PJ7 confirmed there, but only saw you spotted there once 
or twice and couldn't hear you then.

73 John AF5CC

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Martin" <jeffmartin at valornet.com>
To: <OKDXA at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, November 07, 2014 2:27 PM
Subject: [OKDXA] PJ7/K5WE Update

> PJ7/K5WE - Sint Maarten - 25Oct14 to 2Nov14
>
>
>
>  I'm not sure if you folks are interested in an update on my trip to Sint
> Maarten, but it doesn't cost much so here goes...
>
>  We left Tulsa early Friday 24Oct14, flew all day, finally arriving at our
> destination on Sint Maarten about 9PM local time. I unpacked some of the
> gear, but decided to wait until the next day to work on antennas. The next
> morning I scouted out a location for the hexbeam and decided upon a spot
> above the carport. I got the hexbeam (2 elements 20-6 meters) and a 40 
> meter
> inverted V installed on Saturday. It took longer than anticipated. It's 
> hard
> work for an old man in 88 degrees under the Caribbean sun... hi...
>
>  I fired up and began working the pileups. I normally operate almost
> entirely CW, with a little RTTY thrown in... but decided this time since I
> was arriving during CQWWSSB contest weekend that I would try some SSB. I
> tried, worked a few hours on 15 meters, then it dried up. I went to CW and
> began working the pileups. On Sunday I called CQ Contest on several bands
> with very little luck. Hardly no one called. I guess no one could hear me
> with all the big guns blasting away. So, I finally just gave up on the SSB
> contest and went to working the CW pileups...
>
>  On Sunday I assembled and put up my 2 element Vertical Dipole Array for 
> 30
> meters. I had mixed results with it. I had hoped it would perform better. 
> I
> had it aimed at JA/Stateside, but I had a mountain in that direction
> blocking the path. I think it would work better on a north facing beach.
>
>  We stayed at a villa on a hillside overlooking Oyster Pond on the Eastern
> coast of the island. The location had spectacular views and was very 
> pretty,
> but turned out to be not so ideal from a radio perspective. The villa 
> faced
> SE with a mountain directly behind us in the direction of the US and JA. 
> The
> path to Europe was clear, straight out over the water. My percentage of
> QSO's from the Caribbean is always highest to Europe, but this time it was
> the highest yet, at nearly 72%. Again regarding the location, the house 
> was
> perched on the side of a mountain, with hardly any yard and very little
> space for antennas. I had to put the 30 meter verticals within a few feet 
> of
> the house and there was no room for the 80 meter antenna, so it did not go
> up at all. We had no internet access the entire time we were there, so no
> email and no log uploads. They got the TV working after 5 days. They 
> blamed
> the outages on a hurricane that hit the island a couple weeks before our
> arrival.
>
>
>
> Here are some stats:
>
> Band     QSO's
>
> 40       554
>
> 30       430
>
> 20       2076
>
> 17       1742
>
> 15       1149
>
> 12       1458
>
> 10       1341
>
> Total    9253
>
>
>
>  I had 190 QSO's on SSB, 313 on RTTY, all the rest on CW.
>
>  I operated for 9 days. A significant part of the first 2 days were spent
> putting up antennas, and half the last day was spent tearing down.  Also, 
> my
> wife went with me on this trip so we spent 2-3 hours each day doing 
> tourist
> stuff and took off one whole day to take the ferry over to the island of
> Saint Barthelemy for sight-seeing and shopping. So, all-in-all, I am happy
> with 9,253 QSO's. The operation ended at 1600Z on 2Nov14. We flew back to
> Oklahoma the next day.
>
>  Thanks to AF5CC, W5LE, K3LR, W5NUT, K5PX, AF5Q, WQ5R, K5UV for working me
> as PJ7/K5WE. Also thanks to my wife Becky for putting up with me and my
> crazy hobby for all these years.
>
>  Hope to CU AGN from the next one...
>
>
>
> 73,
>
>
>
> Jeff - K5WE
>
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