Well the BAD news is that my plans to activate ZD9 on 6m EME next September/October fell apart last month when they had to give away my berth on the ship from Capetown, South Africa to a government contractor who had been put on hold because of the Covid pandemic. I have been working on ZD9 for the last year and was quite excited about it because nobody from USA has ever worked ZD9 on 6m. BUT, I am still on the waiting list for passage in fall of 2014, so we will see what happens!

On the GOOD news side, I purchased airline tickets and booked a QTH in Rodrigues (3B9) last week. It ALSO is a DXCC that nobody from the USA has ever worked on 6m, and I know it is rare from many other countries, too! I am looking forward to activating it on EME as well as terrestrial modes. I am currently working on the website and making up the EME operating schedule, but I wanted to get the word out now to ask you to mark the dates on your calendars well in advance ;-) I will be on Rodrigues from August 27 to September 8. Yep, that includes Labor Day weekend, so if you happen to be here in the USA, there are at least a few days when work should not prevent your getting on the air to work an ATNO!

There are several important changes with this 6m DXpedition. One of them is that for all my EME work, I am going to use Q65-60A in the NA CONTEST MODE to quickly just exchange grids. This is going to be especially helpful working NA stations as the moon quickly rises through ground gain lobes across the continent. It also will make it easier for me to use the AVERAGE to decode your calls. If you are not used to using WSJT-X, you have plenty of time to get it downloaded and installed and familiarize yourself with both Q65-60A and the NA CONTEST MODE. I very well may also be using NA CONTEST MODE when I run FT8 on terrestrial because it is faster. I will not be answering any callers who call me with signal reports - in NA Contest Mode, only the grids are exchanged! So if you want to get in the log, make sure to spread the word to get on WSJT-X and operate in NA VHF CONTEST mode! And this will NOT work well with compound callsigns!! So I am requesting a real 3B9 callsign and I suggest that you just send me your callsign and grid, even if you are operating portable. Do NOT call me with a /P or /R or /0 after your callsign - your grid will show where you are!

Unlike the FH operation, I anticipate common moon with East Coast NA moonrise every day, so you have 6m months to get that 6m yagi up on the tower and in the clear and come up with some power - no elevation needed (or desired, if you want to make ground gain) ;-) Stations west of the Rocky Mountains will be limited to moonsets near the end of the trip, but I will help out with ground gain directly out over the Indian Ocean on my end. Lots more information will be on my Rodrigues 6m EME DXpedition web page, and I will send out an announcement when it is live ;-) I hope to work many horizon-only stations all over the world as well as a record number of EME stations!

GL and DX! VY 73, Lance

-- 
Lance Collister, W7GJ(ex WA3GPL, WA1JXN, WA1JXN/C6A, ZF2OC/ZF8, E51SIX, 3D2LR, 5W0GJ, E6M, TX5K, KH8/W7GJ, V6M, T8GJ, VK9CGJ, VK9XGJ, C21GJ, CP1GJ, S79GJ, TX7MB, TO7GJ)
P.O. Box 73
Frenchtown, MT   59834-0073
USA
TEL: (406) 626-5728
QTH: DN27ub
URL: http://www.bigskyspaces.com/w7gj
Skype: lanceW7GJ
2m DXCC #11 - 6m DXCC #815 - FFMA #7

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