Introduction
Not long before before Easter 2012, I received an e-mail from Salvador, C31CT/EA3QS, with an invitation to join D64K DXpedition to Comoros, organized by the Italian team that was in Benin on 2011 as TY1KS.
The idea of going on a DXpedition is something that had always excited
me and I had never been able to do. There were some pros and cons: my
holiday budget was exhausted after spending two weeks in the USA with my
family, my new freelance work was finishing in August, but finally, my
wife encouraged me to go as my 50th birthday gift. So then, I confirmed
to Salvador and Fabrizio, IW3SQY, that I was available, but with one condition: I would take a good 6 metres station to Comoros.
The
team had already done several DXpeditions with operations on 6 metres.
Their plans were to have three stations on HF and run the backup
states hadn’t been very positive. Anyway, the important item was they
had already 6 meters in the D64K license.
I
asked them to add a fourth station to be used only on 6 metres. It
would be a powerful station capable of working EME and able to generate a
good signal into Europe. The team supported the idea completely from
the beginning, although there were some doubts about if it was
worthwhile and if it was possible to work any contacts at all. I
prepared carefully an analysis of statistical data available (see next
chapter) and I explained them it was possible to work several openings
to Europe. Furthermore, I told we would have two success factors on 6
metres: a powerful station and a dedicated operator.
Really,
I think we all have to give thanks to Fabrizio and Salvador. They
trusted in me. A complete new station was a big expense and nobody could
be sure at that point if any contacts would be done on 6 metres except
on EME.
Preparing the DXpedition
After announcing the DXpedition, I started working on both the financial and technical issues. On the sponsorship side, we kindly received donations from LYNX DX GROUP, UKSMG/InnovAntennas, M2 Antennas, and from many 6 metres EMErs and DXers. Thank you all very much. Your support is part of the success since the team received enough funds to take a powerful station for 6 meters.
On the technical side, I decided to use my K3 with PR6 Preamp. My Acom
1000 was big and heavy but it was the only power amplifier available to
run 1kW. The antenna was more difficult to decide. I analysed several
options, a 10 el yagi home-build, a rope yagi, an array of two small
yagis, and finally we selected a 6M8GJ M2 antenna, 8 elements and 13
metres boom. The reasons were it has the minimum gain to succeed on EME,
not just working the two or three big guns, and it comes in a 1.1
metres long bag, easy to transport without extra costs.Each member of the team was allowed two 23 kg suitcases on the flight. It meant that since Salvador and I were flying together from Barcelona we could efficiently split the baggage: first one for Salvador’s belongings, the second one for the antenna, the third one for the power amplifier, the fourth to be used with my belongings and 6 m station. An 8 metre mast had to fly from Italy together with the HF antennas. Another issue was I didn’t know where the antenna would be installed. I only had some photos of the rental house and its surrounds, with big palms around. There were two possibilities: install it close to the house or install it close to the sea side, meaning we would need to run about 50 meters of Ecoflex 10. I would have liked to take Ecoflex 15 with me but it was impossible to fit it in the baggage.
6 metres goal
Already
said in the introduction, the first question the team asked me was if
we were going to work anything on 6 metres. I have to recognize that I
asked myself this same question many times. Well, I knew it was going to
be easy to work ten or more EME stations in spite of the dates were not
the optimal.
Terrestrial
conditions were another question. August is a bad month, as all we
know. It’s too early to work F2 layer or TEP. It’s near the end of the E
season and after the 15th August there are no multi-hop chances. So,
what we could expect from Comoros? Well, internet is a good tool and
there is lots of information. The expected SFI was around 120. Not a
good figure, too low to have F2 openings. I checked what SFI we had on
2002, 2003 and 2004. The smoothed figures were 169 (2002), 125 (2003),
105 (2004). It looked like 2012 would be similar to 2003. I checked what
spots had been published on August 2003 from that area. There were few
signals to look for: 5R, 3B, FR, 7Q and Z2. ZS stations are more to the
south but I checked them too. We were going to Comoros from August 8th
to August 21st:
Spots from Z22JE to Europe, August 2003
8/8: Z2 to 9H at 18:46 GMT
Spots from 7Q7/beacon to Europe, August 2003
14/8: 7Q to PA, ON, F, DL from 17:56 to 18:08 GMT
20/8: 7Q to EA7 at 16:46 GMT
Spots from ZS to Europe, August 2003
19/8: ZS to IT9 at 18:28
20/8: ZS to 9H, I0 from 16:02 to 16:54
No Spots found from FR, 3B, 5R to Europe in August 2003
It
was not very encouraging, about 10 spots only in 4 small openings
within the planned days of our DXpedition. We may see three propagation
modes: F2 layer to south Mediterranean area before local sunset
(openings at 16:00 GMT), TEP to Mediterranean area (17:00 to 19:00 GMT)
and TEP + E’s link to central Europe (around 18:00 GMT).
On
2002, with much better SFI, there were many openings and on 2004 there
were no openings at all as the flux was around 100. With this
information we decided our goal: to have two or three openings after
sunset to Europe and hopefully have some E’s link to central Europe.
With
high power and a good yagi we planned on making approximately 300 QSOs.
No F2 conditions were expected. Ambitious but not impossible, we only
needed SFI at 125 level or a bit higher.
The trip
8th August arrived and Salvador, C31CT/EA3QS, and I, EA3AKY, met at Barcelona airport. Soon we got on board and flew to Amsterdam, where we join the rest of the group: Fabrizio, IW3SQY; Paolo, IV3DSH; Franco IZ8GCE; Les, SP3DOI, and Sigi, DL7DF. From there we flew to Nairobi and then we took a new flight to Comoros via Mayotte.
We were flying over Comoros Island when we felt something was not going well. There was strong wind buffering the Boeing 737. The pilot tried to land but a few metres above the runway he aborted the operation the landing and we went around again! Wow, the adventure starts! We were forced to go back to Mayotte where we waited for two hours. The news was not good, wind was not better. Anyway the pilot told us he was going to try to land again. In case of being not possible we would go back to Nairobi. We took off from Mayotte again and we arrived to Comoros: first attempt aborted, second attempt … aborted, third attempt and last before going back to Nairobi…. yes, we landed! I have landed about a thousand times and this one will rank in my top five worst landings. Anyway we were there and alive.
At the airport we found our PTT contact. It was very easy to get the VISA and the baggage. Well, not all. The baggage coming from Berlin and Barcelona was not there, including all the 6 meter equipment. We had only one station and the HF antennas. They told us it should arrive the following day… but only if the wind was not worse!
QTH
We
rented a house close to the beach on the western coast of the Island.
From there we had a clear take off from North to South through the West.
Not so good to the east with 500 metre high mountains quite near to us.
Locator was LH18PJ.
We
were attended to marvellously. The owner had everything ready, the
backup power generator was there, we had cleaning every day, and we had a
cooker and a guard every night.
There
were no problems to install any antennas. Only problems were power line
and internet access. Power line problem is something common there. It
was dropping down to 160v when all PAs were used at full power. It was
at 200v when working the four Power Amps at 50% level. Furthermore, the
power line was dropping out several times a day and the power generator
was giving 260v, dropping down to 240v when starting an air conditioned
set.
Internet
used a CDMA radio network. It was down most of the time and never
worked inside the house. I had to go in and out of the station every
time I needed it to sync the PC clock or when trying to use ON4KST chat.
If anyone wants to go there, this is the link with the information of
the house: http://www.brainworker.ch/Komoren/indexe.html I still need to work D6 on 6 meters, so please go there!
Radio!
When
we arrived to the house, we installed the first Spider beam for HF as
it was the only station we had with us. It was August 9th and we started
HF operation. The pile ups were very, very big.
The
following day we installed all other HF antennas during morning. We
went to the airport at midday, as the only flight arrives there at 13:00
local time. Good news, the flight arrived. More importantly, all the
delayed baggage was on the flight.
Unfortunately,
we arrived at the house with no time to install the 6 metres antenna.
It’s gets dark very early. I believe we lost a good day if propagation
on following day was anything to go by!
August
10th was our greatest day on 6 metres. The previous day we decided to
install the antenna on the roof. It was the highest point and far away
of all the surrounding palm trees. It was the nearest site to the
station, requiring only 20 meters of coax. So, early in the morning, I
started to install the antenna helped by Salvador and Paolo. I have to
say that the 6M8GJ is not an easy antenna to install. I had already
mounted it at home and marked every piece as Lance, W7GJ, and
others had advised me before the trip. If you plan to use it in a
contest or a DXpedition, yes, do it!. It took us two hours to have the
antenna ready to put it up on the mast.
As you may see in the photos, azimuth system was easy: just a small mast rotating over the main mast, turning the antenna with two ropes. The elevation system allowed us to use the antenna up to 45 degrees. My father, EA3LL (Thanks!) fabricated the necessary hardware: we inserted a rod through the boom and with the cords it was then easy to get the antenna to tilt up and down. EA3LL added a potentiometer from a cheap angle measuring tool bought at LIDL. A small digital voltmeter was able to read directly the elevation with accuracy better than 1 degree. I did hundreds of trips up and down of the roof to move the antenna direction or elevation, both at the day and the night, wearing a head torch.
After
completing the antenna installation it was time to assemble the 6 metre
equipment and start to check the band. The noise was very low and, as I
was used to having 10 or more dBs of noise at home, I thought something
was wrong. The SWR was at 1.1:1 and some weak 48.25 MHz signals showed
me that all was right. I started to call CQ, monitor TV signals, and
call again… after all, this is 6 metres.
Hours
were passing but and my colleagues were starting to joke and asking me
where the 6 metre stations were? I told them to wait and be patient,
this is 6 metres! Around 17:00 hours GMT, the team started to have
dinner. I kept going at the station as I was hearing some weak 49.75 MHz
videos. I was moving from 103 CW to 193 JT65A and back. They were
telling me to give up and join them for dinner.
Suddenly, I heard something on CW calling me on 193. I quickly moved back to 103 and again called on CW. Some seconds later, YO9HP called
us, weak but he was there. The first QSO was in the log at 17:34 GMT.
First step done, I thought. I continued calling and some minutes later
we had our first pile-up on 6m. We got 264 stations in the log that evening, with the opening finishing at 21:37 GMT and our last contact was into Germany.
I
finally had dinner around 23:00 GMT, one hour and a half after last
QSO. It was a great day. Our first day on 6m and we nearly reached our
goal of 300 QSOs! The question then was will we get more openings like
that one? And yes, we did. We worked stations every day except August
17th. It was incredible to have conditions every day except one.
Results on 6 meters
We
worked more than 1000 QSOs, including 13 EME contacts, in 11 days. DXCC
countries worked: 49. Continents worked: 5 (NA, EU, AF, AS and OC).
The following table shows the daily QSO count, by hour GMT and propagation mode. Green labelled are EME or MS contacts. Blue ones are F2 layer. Yes we got one opening before sunset. Red ones are TEP or TEP + E’s link all done after local sunset.
The
best day was August 13th. We moved to SSB and we had a big pile up from
50.120 to 50.160, incredible. It was a 40 KHz wild pileup, possibly
bigger than any other we had on HF. Some HFers operated on 6m that day
and they said it was amazing. They never expected a pile on 6m like that
one. Some people did not work us and some have asked me if we had good
reception. My answer is yes, we had good reception. Just it’s very
difficult to work everyone in such conditions.
We
had three hours were propagation was not all over Europe. It was moving
from one place to another one and with 40 KHz pile, I’m sure we missed
many stations that could only hear us for a few minutes.
The following plot from ON4KST shows the extent of the openings on 13 August:
I
would like to add one important thing. I decided not to answer the
first strong station heard in the pile. I was waiting 15 to 20 seconds
after getting a call from southern Europe while looking for central or
northern European signals. If I was not able to hear anyone from there,
then I answered the first heard. In this way my rate was not as high as
it could be, but I’m very happy to have worked stations otherwise
impossible to be worked through the southern European pile ups. We
worked LA, SM, OH, LY, PA, G, OZ and others through the southern wall. I
believe this way was very rewarding to us, in spite of possibly missing
some few dozens of stations in the log.
The
second half of the Dxpedition was much worse. Only 10% of contacts were
completed during this period and openings were short and limited to the
southern Mediterranean area. Actually, we saw a big decrease of
sporadic E openings in Europe, as expected, and not a single opening was
there at the time we had TEP link to southern Europe.
We
got a single F2 opening on August 19th. I started to hear big signals
from Middle East TV on 48.250 MHz at S9+60 dBs. After a while, beacons
from 4X, 5B, SV, 9H were coming at S9 level. We worked 19 stations that
day from IT9, 5B, 4X, SV, and one station from I4. It started at 15.35
GMT and ended at 16:36 MHz before sunset. TV signals on 48.25 MHz or
49.75 MHz were always much weaker on TEP, between S2 and S7, with
distortion and flutter, as expected. South Mediterranean beacons were S1
to S2 most days.
We
expended many hours beaming to northeast looking for BY, DU, VR, JA or
side scatter to VK. When there was no moon to work EME, we ran the rig
in beacon mode with 200 watts from the morning to sunset. TV videos from
Thailand or China were heard several days very weak, at S1 level. I was
waiting at least one opening but it didn’t happen. The most easterly
station we worked was UK8OM on August 12th at 17:02 GMT.
Another path we didn’t get was to North America, Central America or South America.
Most western stations worked were from Azores on August 10th and 11th: CU1EZ, CU3EQ, CU3AN, CU3EZ and CT8/KØRUI. We kept many hours the antenna beaming to USA when we had signals from EA8, quite often have to say, without success.
More
to the west, Caribbean and South America, I was checking regularly for
beacons or signals and the only day we get something in that direction
was our last evening, August 20th when we heard for one hour S9SIX/B, from 21:00 to 22:00 GMT.
Meteor-scatter
It was a nice surprise to work ZS6AYE on meteor-scatter with JT6M mode. And it was a pity not being able to work ZS6A and several others we tried, far away of the 2000 Km range. Thanks to all you for the test we did.
EME
Having given up EME work from my home QTH in Spain due to the high noise environment, it was very exciting to work this mode again. We worked the following stations: W7GJ (-17), G8BCG (-21), ES6RQ (-22), ZL3NW (-24), ZL3TY (-25), K2ZD (-23), OK1RD (-24), S59A (-21), IW5DHN (-15), SM7FJE (-21), SM7AED (-22), N2TIN (-24), NN7J (-24). We heard many times N7NW (-19), JR6EXN (-26), K7CW (-18). I’m sure we could work them if we had no power line problems and we had been able to run the full power available with the ACOM 1000. Other well known EME stations were worked on terrestrial mode, and I understand they didn’t call us on EME. And possibly others did not call us if they were not seeing our JT65A signal.
We had several problems to solve in future DXpeditions:
First
the power problem as I have already explained before. During the day,
with all four power amplifiers running, I could only use it at 200-400
watt output level. I had to ask to the other stations to stop their PAs
when I was going to send RO, RR or 73 increasing then the power to
500-600 w output. At night the power line was slightly better and I was
able to run up to 700 w output. So, unfortunately, our signal was not
powerful enough to work more stations on EME.
Second
issue was strong QRM from HF stations running on 10 MHz or 24 MHz
stations. We had band pass filters for all HF and 6 meters and we don’t
know why we had this strong QRM. It was not a problem at night, as there
were no HF conditions in these bands, but it was a serious problem at
moonset (our mornings) when some HF operators didn’t want to move to
other bands and didn’t allow me to work EME.
Third
issue were the dates we did the operation. They were not the best for
working EME as we had the sun very close to the moon several days.
Moreover, several flares generated very strong noise. Unfortunately,
this was not a 6 meters expedition and I was not able to change the
dates.
I
think the results on EME were poor and far from expected. We will work
to solve the problems in order to be able to work around 30 stations next time.
Final
Propagation
modes followed what we analysed before going to Comoros. Hours of
openings are also within what was seen in 2003 spots. But the results
surpassed what we expected before going to Comoros.
A
powerful station with a full-time dedicated 6m operator has showed us
that there are much more propagation conditions than we expected. There
are openings most days in August and they may be quite long lasting for
several hours. It’s important to consider this is true between 10
degrees and 20 degrees latitude south. Our ZS friends had no conditions
at all while we had openings every day.
The
graph below shows SFI, other data and the beginning and the end of our
operation. Solar flux index was slightly worse than expected first days
and much worse than expected last days. It was at 120 on August 10th and
ended at 95 on August 21st. Possibly, with higher SFI than 125 we would
have worked much more stations.
For
future operations, I would suggest planning them at least one or two
weeks before our expedition dates. We didn’t get any sporadic E link to
central Europe after August 13th.
And
one consideration, if we had good TEP on August, what would be the
conditions be like in July, or June? Maybe they could be similar?
Sporadic E is much better making possible to work much more EUs and
possibly NA and Caribbean area?
What
it’s important is that we need more DXpeditions working seriously the
magic band. I know it’s difficult with this discouraging solar cycle,
but we have to work together asking for all Dxpeditions to take 6 m
seriously.
And some recommendations:
• Have a dedicated experienced 6m operator.
• Have a powerful station, a minimum of a 10 metres boom, more than 500 W and low losses to be used 90% of the time on 6 metres.
•
Transmit always, beaconing or calling. Use at least 200 W when
beaconing. I think it’s not useful to transmit a beacon with low power
as openings may be short and weak and nobody would hear it. High power
will allow to have more openings and longer
After
our results and the generous donations we received, I hope more and
more DXpeditions will take good 6 metres station with them and take this
band seriously. In our case we did more QSO on 6 metres than on 160 m,
and the same as on 80 metres.
Finally, this is the number of stations worked by each DXCC on 6 metres:
Well,
I like pile-ups on HF and 160m too. I had the pleasure to work several
good piles on CW and I enjoyed working several days on 160 metres and 80
metres. We had problems with the 80 metre antenna and radials due to
rough seas, and on one occasion the 80 metre antenna fell down! It was a
pleasure to work several good 6 meter friends on 160m like GØJHC, DL8YHR, IK5MEJ, OE3GCU, A92IO, SP5EWY, PY2XB, etc.
Overall figures were 61,248 QSO from 160m to 6 m, using SSB, CW and RTTY. You may see the detailed data per band in the table.
We closed the DXpedition the 21st of August at 02:00 GMT and were back in our homes in Europe the following day.
Thanks to all again and we hope to work you in 2013 on 6 meters from …
73 Josep, EA3AKY, on behalf of D64K team