[SixClub] K4N EL84

Tue Jul 2 22:42:51 EDT 2013

Hello everyone interested in the super rare grid of EL84.  Here is our
second update and current situation:

We will begin our drive down to Key West on Tuesday, July 9th and plan to
arrive at the Yankee Capts berth at about 12 Noon on Thursday, July 11th.
We will load our gear on the boat as soon as the Captain is ready for us and
believe that we will depart Key West about 3-4PM local time.  Pete, George,
and Dan(see below) will be flying into Key West.  

K4N will be operational from July 11th(late afternoon or early evening local
time) to 10AM local time on July 15th.  I cannot give an exact starting time
because we don't know how long it will take us to set up the stations and
the antennas after we arrive in EL84 and Captain anchors the boat.  10AM
local time on July 15th is 1400Z on July 15th, so there is no ambiguity
there.  After 10AM EDST on July 15th, we will tear down, pack up, have the
Captain bring the boat back to Key West, and begin our journeys home.  

K5YG-Bill(a.k.a. Bill2) has joined up with the group, so we now stand at 7
(brave?) souls.  The current group of "Un-indicted Co-conspiritors" are
K5YG-Bill2, N5YA-Bill1, N5NU-Jason, NR5M-George, K9PW-Pete, N5TM-Dan, and
K5QE-Marshall.  This will constitute "The Magnificent Seven", the "Seven
Samurai", the "Lucky Seven", or some other hopelessly bad movie reference,
for this trip.  It seems to me that seven were aboard the S.S. Minnow.....

Bill1 and I have spent a couple of weeks rounding up all the bits of flotsam
and jetsam that will be needed for this DXpedition to come off well.  Most
all of it is stacked in a pile in Bill1's shack.  We are trying to round it
all up into a small pile so we won't miss anything.  I am in receipt of
Mel's "Emergency Repair Kit" in case I find my self with a PL259 cable in
one hand and a Type N cable in the other hand that have to go together.  

We will be operating 6M with two stations.  Station1 will be a 756Pro2 with
an M2 6M1K2 amp and a 6M5XHP with a rotator.  We plan to have this station
on the air almost continuously.....on Es whenever possible and on MS when no
E-clouds are in evidence.  Station1 will operate on 50.165MHz for Es and on
50.265MHz for FSK441 meteor scatter.  K4N will operate MS on First Sequence
at all times.  

Station2 will be a 756Pro2 with a Lunar-Link LA-62 and a DEMI preamp.  The
antenna will be a 6M7JHV with Armstrong rotation.  That means that a whole
lot of antenna swinging is not going to happen.  My concept is to leave the
6M7JHV pointed at WA(except when doing EME), which will cover almost all the
country towards the west.  IF some big Es opening happens out to the west,
we can always rotate the 6M5XHP on Station1 out that way.  Station2 will
operate 6M EME when the moon is setting and is below 20° of elevation.
Station2 will operate EME on 50.195MHz First Sequence.  During EME
operations, Station1 will either be silent OR they might try JT65b
operations over tropo paths.  This would allow Station1 to take First
Sequence and thus not interfere with Station2 for the approximately 1 hour
of EME operations.  Station2 will be operating on FSK441 on 50.270MHz First
Sequence in the late evening or early morning hours whenever Station1 is
also running MS.  My idea here is to have both stations running FSK441 MS at
night.  Station1 will be covering everything from the Dakotas eastward(more
or less), while Station2 will cover the western US.  

Bill2 is bringing along a 2M station this time.  He will have an ICOM 7000
with a 2M12 antenna and about 350W of power.  He will run Es(if we get so
lucky), any tropo he can find, and FSK441 meteor scatter on 144.145MHz.  He
probably will try some EME on 2M on our moonsets and maybe on the moonrises
as well.  That is his call....

We plan to have Internet via a cell phone lash-up.  Hopefully, this will
allow us to "chat" with those interested in working us.  We will be using
the FB chat pages provided by Dan-N5TM.  I just asked Dan to create a "K4N
EL84 6M" chat page and a "K4N EL84 2M" chat page.  This will allow those
interested in 6M to chat with the 6M ops and those interested in 2M to chat
with Bill2 or whoever is operating that station.  Two separate chat pages
means no confusion between posts for the different bands.  The URL for Dan's
FB chat pages is URL = http://meteorscatter.n5tm.com/chat/HSMS_ChatRoom/  OR
just Google "N5TM Chat pages" and take the first choice.  When you sign into
Dan's chat pages, please make your Nickname to be Call + Name + 6digit grid.
Thanks for that.

We will NOT be posting to PingJockey, the N0UK EME-1 reflector, or the
ON4KST reflector pages.  These are very fine reflectors, but they take a LOT
of data traffic for each post(coming or going).  On a cell phone connection,
this is just a serious problem.  Dan's chat pages are very low traffic and
there will not be posts from others that are not interested in what we are
doing.  Anyone is free to cross post us onto one or more of the other
reflectors.  Thanks for that too.

I personally want to thank the three folks that have helped sponsor this
DXpedition.  I don't want to embarrass them by posting their names, but you
know who you are and I thank you for your help.

We certainly hope to work a bunch of folks this time.  Almost no one has
EL84 for FFMA and we hope to fix that.  Please don't worry about trying to
get your grid across to us.  We don't need to know that for a valid QSO to
be put into the logs.  You already know where we are going to be, so we
probably will say EL84 occasionally, but that is not required for a valid
QSO.  On MS, we will use the standard 26 for a signal report, so please
follow suit there as well.  We don't need to know that you are in EM98 or
some such.  Just send K4N {Your Call} 26 or R26 and we will make more MS
contacts faster.  That gives everyone a chance.  GL to everyone....

73 de

N5YA-Bill1
K5YG-Bill2
NR5M-George
N5NU-Jason
K9PW-Pete
N5TM-Dan
K5QE-Marshall

A.R.S. W5TFW // V44KAI

Richard Joey Fiero II

                                                               www6mt.com ~
www.599dxa.org

                                                             ARRL Official
Observer Ms. Section