[South Florida DX Association] [The Daily DX] 7O/G4HCL report

[Bill Marx]

Forwarded with Bernie's permission:


The following report is from G4HCL, Chris, via 9M6DXX, Steve.

Chris Lorek, G4HCL, is back home after his business trip to Yemen. He
sent me a long e-mail just after he got back and, with his permission,
I'm copying it below as I think it makes interesting reading. My
comments are in [square brackets].

Frankly, I doubt whether Chris's authorisation will be sufficient to
count for DXCC. Clearly he was operating with the approval of a
competent authority, and so his activity was perfectly legal, but
because the authorisation was neither from the ministry of
telecommunications nor from a government minister, I doubt it will be
accepted. But there is no harm in trying of course.

Chris's e-mail says:

"Steve, just landed home, poured myself a beer (got to get the
priorities sorted first!), not even thought of unpacking yet.

Many thanks for your help and assistance over the last few days, it
was much appreciated. I did go on 14333 TX/RX yesterday [Wednesday 15
August] at 10.00 and 13.00 GMT and put a few calls out on the hour
until around 5 mins past, before going back to 14215 TX, but no takers
whatsover on 14333. As well as listening to the cacophony on my two
listening frequencies of 14210 and 14220 (adjacent channels on the
radio) I also programmed in 14215 TX and 14333 RX on the next channel.
G4PWA (copying me 33, copied him 58 around 14.40 local 11.40 GMT) and
a little later G0OIL (59 both ways at 15.37 local 12.37 GMT) made it
on the 2nd day [Tuesday 14th] on my 14210/14220 RX, so there was a
path to the UK, but no callers whatsoever audible on 14333.

Now then, another favour! Do you know who it is to contact at ARRL
regarding DXCC accreditation, or should I just give them a ring and
ask to speak to the appropriate person / section? [I've suggested he
calls Bill Moore, NC1L, by phone.] What I have is not a 'Ministry of
Communication' document, but instead an 'authority'. It states that I
have been authorised to use the HF equipment at Sana'a International
Airport on the HF amateur bands between 13th and 15th August 2007 and
that I should use the callsign 7O/G4HCL. It is on the headed paper of
the aircraft authority and signed by Mr Walid Hamed, Communications
Manager, and stamped in red with their official stamp.

So I can only try! Again, if you'd like to publicise the above please
feel free do do so as I'm sure many people will be wondering whether
any permission or authority was indeed present. Maybe public support
could even go some way to persuading the DXCC desk to accept it?

Attached is a camera-phone photo of the antenna I was using, a HF
biconical (plus massive radial ground mat). [He forgot to attach the
picture. Must be the jet-lag (or the beer).] As you may see it's
rather a big thing! Many amateurs probably don't know what one of
these things is, basically a wide band loss-free (i.e. no traps)
professional HF omni. It's fed with LDF450 Heliax from the
air-conditioned rack-mounted equipment site from where the photo was
taken, which housed the rack-mounted Codan 9360 125W transceiver I was
using, fed into a rack-mounted Transworld Radio 1000W linear amplifier
system. I used it locally on the 2nd day, on the 1st day I used it
remotely from the airport's Operation Control Centre a few km away
under landline control. The antenna's not just a bit of wire or a
simple trapped dipole as some amateurs have possibly thought, no
excuses whatsoever in terms of poor antennas or TX power at my end! If
I was weak in some areas that was down to propagation rather than
anything else. Incidentally as part of my visit I fully checked the
biconical antenna both physically and with an AIM4170 Antenna
Analyser.

I must say it was a lot easier the 2nd day as I didn't have all the
other comms in the Control Centre to contend with, all set to max
volume with the operators shouting into the mics. Why they don't use
headsets is something I'll just have to accept; adacent operators just
turn their own RX volume way up so they can hear it over the the
adjacent operator's RX, and believe the louder they shout the better
they can be heard at the distant end! I often had my ear right next to
the remote control speaker - wish I could have had some headphones to
plug in to the front panel socket! [I was not aware that Chris was not
using headphones. Given these circumstances it was amazing he was able
to copy anybody.]

As few on-air problems I contended with, as well as being a totally
'raw' pile-up operator on the receiving end;

1) Many stations, despite repeated announcements by myself on 14215
that I could only listen EXACTLY 5.0 kHz above and below due to
equipment limitations, persisted in calling a little off frequency to
'get in with a chance'. A few were extremely strong but unreadable as
off-frequency, I could sometimes get a few letters etc. and asked them
to call at exactly 210 or 220 as appropriate but they ignored this and
persisted in calling off-frequency, which spoiled everyone else's
chances while they were QRMing.

2) The 'guarantee' operators, i.e. work the station once then work him
again to make sure. One 59+ PA station I had to tell no less than
three times that he was already in my log at 59, he just kept calling.
I'm sure you're well familiar with this, but it's much more of a pity
here though as with my very limited time on air it prevented others
having a contact during that time.

3) The 'constant carriers' for several minutes at a time, i.e. if I
can't or don't want to work him then I'll make sure others have a hard
time.

4) Another minor bone of contention was, even though I'd given the
guy's callsign in phonetics, and "thank you for my 5 by x", then his
report, was "please confirm my callsign" which again wasted time. OK
they were making sure, or maybe they didn't hear me giving their
callsign in phonetics, but I'm sure most were just making sure as they
probably knew or guessed I was a 'raw' operator. Mind you, I usually
had to try several times to get a guy's full callsign due to others
QRMing after I repeatedly requested "only the DK2P? please go ahead"
or whatever, but it was only when I got a full callsign that they got
a report from me. [I've suggested to Chris that if a lot of people
were asking him to confirm their callsign it was almost certainly
because there was deliberate QRM on Chris's Tx frequency and he was
not being heard well.]

5 The persistant 'two letter' callers; most callers realised I only
responded to full callsigns. I suppose it's a matter of personal
choice but in this instance I quickly found that I didn't want to
proceed with 'the EM station go ahead' as very, very few bothered to
comply and the cacophony continued, whilst 'the JE1E station please
confirm your callsign' route tended to result in a bit more of a
quieter RX frequency for a few seconds at least.

Anyway that's a load off my chest but again I'm sure you've heard all
this before! If I was on for, say, a week at 8 or more hours a day I'd
have no problems with the above, it's just a pity that my operation
time was so limited and many other's didn't get a contact because of
the above."

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