[RRDXA] ZL8X - 2010 NEWS vom 24.11.2010 DXPedition pazifischen Kermadec Insel Raoul Island

[Mirko Holte]

Hall zusammen,

Dieter, DL8OH, Team Memeber vn ZL8X hat geschrieben. Es gibt Neuigkeiten
und einen frischen Newsletter vom ZL8X Team. Ebenso wurde das Online Logbuch
upgedated. Auch von mir an Felix, DL5XL einen Geburtstagsgruss. So weit weg 
von
Zuhaus seinen 40zigsten bei einer Pazifik - DXPedition zu feiern ist ja mal 
was
ganz anderes..hihi

Gruß Mirko - DJ1AA


..und Jungs, macht weiter so und nicht vergessen, die 4-Squares
ab und zu mal nach DL schalten. Es Wahnsinn was das für einen Unterschied 
macht.

Weiteres auf der Homepage:   http://www.kermadec.de



News 24.11.2010
Written by DL8OH, November 24th 2010, 01:30

ZL8X is on the air!
Today is Wednesday and it is the 4th day of operation. All stations are 
manned and pouring out signals around the clock. Radios, amplifiers, 
computers and antennas are working fine and smoothly.

The "Braveheart" took us from Tauranga in New Zealand to Raoul Island, which 
is the main island of the Kermadec group. Matt Jolly and his crew made it a 
nice and easy voyage. The Southern Pacific turned out to be more or less 
calm and friendly and allowed some homecall/mm -operation for those of us 
who fought successfully seasickness.

Arriving at Raoul Island early in the morning enabled us to bring all radio 
and camp equipment to the island in one day. We received a warm welcome from 
Jessica and her DoC staff on Raoul Island. They helped us a lot in landing 
all equipment safely and carrying it to the operation site, which is 2 km 
west of the landing point. The next two days were full of work and efforts 
and everyone was heavily engaged to set up the camp, stations and antennas.

The first evening we enjoyed a perfect BBQ of the DoC and spend a couple of 
hours with interesting talks with the DOC-people and the Braveheart crew.

Erecting 8 stations and 20 antennas was not an easy job. At the end of the 
day there were:

.160m: V160E 27m high vertical
.80m: 4square and inv. V
.40m and 30m: two 4squares each
.10m to 20m: five Spiderbeams (monobanders) and five VDAs (Vertical Dipole 
Arrays)
.6m: 5 el Yagi
The first QSO was made on November 19th on 0702z with JA8ECS, another 2799 
followed. On the next day, we still had to do a lot of work, so it was 
November 21st as the first day of full operation: Tremendous pileups and 
almost 16.000 QSOs on this day! Nights and hours around sunrise and sunset 
are the busiest ones. Pileups during daytime are somewhat less heavy but 
most stations are manned anyway.

Part of the "Braveheart" crew with Broughton, Karl and Richard erected the 
two camps with tents, generators and kitchen and is keeping us well 
motivated now with fine meals 3 times a day, showers and all support we 
need. DoC people are very supportive too. They show up from time to time for 
a chat and offer their help.

Raoul Island is a beautiful spot in the South Pacific with a moderate 
climate, a flamboyant vegetation with exotic, plants and flowers. Especially 
the Pohutekawa-tree (the NZ christmas tree!!) is in its bright red flowers 
now. There is also a special kind of small green parrot, which can only be 
found on this Island. The coastline shows steep cliffs and vivid white 
surfs, which grow in heavy winds. Raoul Island is considered an active 
volcano, although it is suppose to sleep right now. Some 8 rangers from DoC 
(Department of Conservation) are working hard to bring the island back to 
its pristine state with eliminating all kinds of animals and plants that 
came to the island by man and do not belong to it originally ( i.e. rats, 
mice, cats, goats etc). They have already achieved a lot and are still 
working very hard on this programme.

We are in our operating routine now, i.e. we are either on the radio or in 
the camp for sleeping. Shifts of 8 to 16 hours a day do not leave much room 
for personal pleasure. Fun and motivation comes from fighting the pileups 
and those rare contacts over long path or uncommon times. And it comes from 
y o u r positive feedback in QSOs, mails and packet talks. Please keep doing 
so all the time !!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Yesterday we had the pleasure to congratulate one of our team members. It 
was his 40th birthday. Prost Felix!

Pictures
We uploaded some of pictures into the gallery to show you some impressions 
of our trip so far. Just enjoy!

QSLing
Of course some questions about our QSL routes came up during the last days. 
We are very proud that Mario DJ2MX is again our QSL manager. And he surely 
also handles direct post which will be sent. But mainly we want to bring you 
to our OQRS (Online QSL Request System) which will save you time and money 
and us a lot of extra work. After the DXpedition the OQRS will be opened on 
our website. So please QRX...