J75W, C6AQW by WQ5W

A word about paper QSL's

2008-08-06T17:10:00.003-04:00

A lot has happened in my life since my DXpeditions! I have moved back home to Fort Worth, Texas due to a job promotion and I have returned to college with the ultimate goal of completing a post-graduate degree.

Due to increased commitments at work and my return to school I have not been able to process any paper QSL's for either C6AQW or J75W to date.

I apologize to everyone who has sent me a card. I promise that I will process all cards starting this fall and will complete by the end of the year (2008). Please do not send me another card. I have all cards received stored in a safe place.

The good news is that all logs for both DXpeditons were uploaded to Logbook of The World (LOTW) shortly after their completion. I would encourage everyone who has not already joined LOTW to join at http://www.arrl.org/lotw/. It is a wonderful way to quickly (and cheaply) get DXCC confirmations.

If you do not see your QSO confirmed in LOTW and are sure you made a contact, you can email me and I will check my log. I am sorry, but I will not be able to answer emails regarding paper QSLs at this time.

My new address is:
Alan Benoit
3650 Chicora Court
Apt 332
Fort Worth Texas 76116

Apologies again for the delay, but I promise to complete and mail all paper QSL's by the end of 2008.

73,
Alan,
WQ5W/C6AQW/J75W

It's over and time for a Kubuli!

2007-11-25T20:16:00.000-05:00

Final results:

2108 QSO's (5133 points) X 142 multipliers (114 countries + 28 zones) = 728,886 points

All logs have been uploaded to LOTW.

For now, it's time to celebrate with a Kubuli (Dominica's beer) and explore the island the next couple of days.

2nd Night

2007-11-25T13:23:00.001-05:00

After a pretty productive 2nd night I'm up to 1900 QSO's X 130 multipliers (102 countries/28 zones) for 595K points. I ran more EU last night as my points/QSO went up from 2.32 after the first night to 2.41 total now. It's still nowhere near the 2.72 I had from ZF2TG. Here's the breakdown by hour last night:

Hour/QSOs:
19/3
20/18
21/45
22/82
23/95
0/66
1/80
2/66
3/77
4/56
5/62
6/86
7/58
8/20
9/20
10/12
11/19
12/4

No JA's in the log. I heard a few on this morning but they didn't hear me.

When the band opens back up I should have about 5 hours of operating time left. I hope to break 2000 QSO's and get that multiplier total up.

I received a few nice comments on the blog last night from folks that answered my CQ's-good to know it's being enjoyed!

First 11 Hours

2007-11-24T12:06:00.000-05:00

Here are the results so far:

1031 QSOs (2397 points) X 99 mults (76 countries + 23 zones) = 237,303 points

I'm already way ahead of my CQWW SSB score but I'm way behind the pace I had from ZF2TG in 1992 when I had 2985 Qso's X 31 zones + 111 countries=1,087,862. Of course, I had an amplifier there vs. 100W here.

Here's the breakdown by hour:

Hour/QSO's
0/121
1/124
2/124
3/178
4/150
5/95
6/83
7/75
8/32
9/12
10/36
11/1

I had a rough start as I couldn't find any place to CQ without QRM and 100W wasn't enough to clear any frequency. I realy didn't get into a groove until the 3rd hour (178 QSO's) when I established a good run frequency around 7.050. The last 3 hours were painful as I was really fighting back the urge to go to sleep. The rate slowed to a point in the 11Z hour where I could not resist sleep any more. I really need to work on my sleep schedule (and my fitness) going forward as I was not very productive those last few hours.

I need to pick it up this evening if I'm going to have a chance to come anywhere close to my ZF2TG score. I'm also not working enough EU as my avearge points/QSO are only 2.32 vs. the 2.72 I had at ZF2TG.

I'm going back to taking a nap now and will be back on the air around 20Z.

500 QSO's in the log, now it's contest time

2007-11-23T16:17:00.000-05:00

I put 500 QSO's in the log today and they have been uploaded to LOTW. My LDG Autotuner is not functioning so it looks like I will be limited to 40, 20, 15 and 12/10M with the loops. The QSO's so far have been evenly split between 40, 20 and 15M with a nice EU opening this morning on 15M. I tried 12M and even 10M a couple of times but nothing heard.

Today was rainy until afternoon then it cleared off. The rain kept the temperature down to a very comfortable level today. I purchased contest supplies today (Diet Coke, snacks, bottled water etc). EU started opening on 40M today about 20:15Z this afternoon and it was open this morning until at least 12:30Z to the states so looks like in between there will be my breaks.

Now it's about 2.5 hours before the contest starts. I'm going to eat dinner and try to take a quick nap (or at least lay down) until about 23:30Z.

I'll try to blog tomorrow afternoon with 1st day results, but no promises. See you in the contest!

J75W On the Air

2007-11-22T20:29:00.000-05:00

It's been an interesting couple of days. I arrived in Dominica yesterday afternoon around 3:15. Everything seemed OK until I went through customs. When the customs officials saw my Icom 7000 I was asked to put up a $300 U.S. deposit on the radio. They said that the deposit was required in case I should try to sell my radio on the island during my stay. I tried to convince them otherwise but they would not budge. I did not have $300 U.S. in cash with me so I had to leave the radio with them overnight. They also wouldn't give me a hard copy of my license until I paid the deposit. Fortunately, this morning, Gwen the very friendly owner of Seacliff Cottages where I'm staying gave me a check to leave as the deposit. Customs will give me the check back when I leave (with the radio) and I'll simply tear the check up then. I went back this morning and collected the radio and my license. I must say this treatment was totally unexpected and I hope serves as a warning to anyone that brings a radio into Dominica.

I woke up at 6:00 this morning with the sun so I had some time before I went to the airport to get the radio. I used this time to measure and build the antennas. I constructed 2 full-wave 40M loop antennas with 1/4 wave RG6 matching sections.

George, K5KG told me about and Lambert, J73LC (who I met at the airport this morning) arranged the services of the amazing Donford. He is a local guy who is renowned for his climbing and antenna erecting abilities. He came by this afternoon and climbed coconut and palm trees on the property to put up the antennas. Here are a couple of pictures of his work today:

We put up 2 antennas. A delta loop in the backyard behind the cottage broadside to North America and a square loop across the street broadside to Europe. Here is a view of the EU loop. It is hard to see, but the loop is betwen the fourth and sixth trees from the left:

The early results of these antennas are amazing. I was working loud EU pileups on my CQ an hour before sunset. I had so many calling I had to go split and even that was unmanageable at times. When I switched to the NA antenna, NA signals came way up. This looks like a great combination so I can null out 2 point NA signals to concentrate on 3 point EUs.

What I've seen of the island looks beautiful. This is a very mountainous, jungle-filled island and very green. I hope to do some exploring Monday-Wednesday after the contest.

The location here at seacliff seems perfect for radio. It overlooks the northeast coast of the island and is at a pretty good height above the sea. I'm sure most of the outstanding antenna results are due to the location.

I rented the one bedroom cottage. It has no air conditioning, but a ceiling fan is really all that is necessary to keep it cool as the temps are in the low 80's in the daytime and mid 70's at night. We have gotten a couple of rainshowers during the day and evening to cool things even more. It also has great WiFi internet access. Here's a picture of the cottage from the front:

Here is the view across the street to the Northeast. This is the same view the EU loop has....

CQWW is less than 24 hours away. I feel this is going to be a lot better result than I put up in C6.

Heading to J7

2007-11-18T11:11:00.001-05:00

I'm in the airport in Orlando as I write this awaiting my flight to San Juan. Yesterday I tested the rig/computer setup for J7 and got packed. I purchased a MicroHam Microkeyer to key CW with N1MM. One thing I forgot was that I needed an external keyer to use with my paddles. This necessitated a trip to AES in Orlando to pick up an MFJ-401D keyer. Everything checked out OK with the rig setup, the Microkeyer keyed the rig perfectly with N1MM under Windows Vista and a 1/4" Y adapter allowed me to use the paddle/MFJ Keyer with it simultaneously.

I also went to Lowes and purchased 2 145' sections of #14 stranded wire for the loops. This will make it easier to set them up as I should only have to trim a couple of feet for resonance. I also bought some extra RG-6 for the matching sections. I have decided to go with 2 single element loops as constructing a 2 element system is too complicated to pull off given the time I had to get ready. I will try to aim one NE and one NW to cover EU and NA through an antenna switch. I am also bringing a G5RV for other bands, but I will only put that up if I have time after getting the 40M antennas ready. One thing I decided NOT to bring this time is my Buddipole as I will use the G5RV to cover the other bands. 40M is the priority so losing the Buddipole is OK on this trip.

I am travelling with 4 bags; a SKB hard sided golf case with the 2 40' fiberglass masts and lots of 100' coax sections, a large checked bag with the non-electronic equipment, a carry on with the electronic radio equipment and my laptop bag with the work laptop and the contest laptop. The SKB case comes in handy because the airline lets you check up to 70 lbs. in golf cases whereas you are allowed only 50 lbs. in suitcases.

I almost guessed perfectly on the weights. I had 73 lbs in the golf case and about 45 lbs. in the suitcase. I moved a couple of the 100' RG8X sections from the golf case to the suitcase and I ended up at regulation 70lbs. in the golf case and 50lbs in the suitcase avoiding any overweight luggage charges.

I will be in San Juan on business today-Wednesday and fly to Dominica Wednesday afternoon. My plan is to set up the station inside on Wednesday evening and put up the antennas on Thanksgiving and Friday(if necessary). I am hoping this will be a lot less hectic than what I experienced in C6.

V25W Cancelled

2007-11-18T11:02:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately, it is necessary that I cancel my trip to Antigua for ARRL 160M. There is not a rig or amplifier at the station I rented. I (mistakenly) thought there was. That means I would have needed to buy and lug an amplifier and something to be able to use receive antennas. I just don't have time to pull this off. Operating low power with no RX antennas on 160M would have been painful at best. This and the fact that it is better that I be home at the time for business reasons necessitated the cancellation. I hope to be able to visit there for another contest next year.

J75W Approaching

2007-11-13T21:45:00.000-05:00

A little over 1 week to go before I'm in Dominica. I will do all packing on Saturday as I leave for Puerto Rico early Sunday afternoon.

I have decided to concentrate on my single-band 40M contest effort and not do much operating outside of the contest.

I will bring a G5RV and may put it up if I have time after I finish with my 40M antennas.

Above is a Google Earth shot of my approximate location on the island. It is hard for me to tell where my exact location is as I did in the Bahamas, but I think I have it within a mile or so. What's for sure is the location has a clear shot to EU and NA over the water.

Hurricane Noel

2007-11-01T20:46:00.000-04:00

Looks like Noel became a hurricane as it passed over Abaco this evening. Hope everyone fared well there. Good to be home.

C6AQW Final Statistics/Wrapup

2007-11-01T17:36:00.000-04:00

Total DXpedition statistics including the contest:

617 QSO's: 589 SSB, 28 CW

30M: 6
20M: 591
17M: 20

78 countries

After a few days of reflection, I'm not as disappointed in the overall results as I initially was.

Although it may not seem like much, I did successfully setup a portable DX operation with homebrew antennas by myself for the first time ever. This is significant to me because if you look up the word "appliance operator" in the dictionary, I believe there is a picture of me shown. My previous operations (VP2MW, ZF2TG, V31RR) all had antennas and stations already set up-I brought and set up everything myself this time.

Most importantly, to paraphrase Thomas Edison I discovered a 1000 ways NOT to do a DXpedition and have made several key learnings I will use on future operations such as:

1. Never arrive later than Wednesday for a contest that starts Friday evening. The day of arrival always seems to be taken getting aquainted with the surroundings and the real work doesn't begin until the second day. Arriving on Thursday puts too much pressure on getting things set up on Friday before the contest.

2. Have all antennas measured and tested before arrival, if possible. I spent way too much time getting the loops measured and tuned on Friday.

3. Doing everything by yourself is hard. Next time I'm going to try to get a helper, hopefully someone that can climb.

4. Know your location before going. Although I had done some research on Google Earth, it's hard to get a full impression without being there. If I had, I would have put the antennas much closer to the beach as there was easier access than I had thought. The flat location with no elevation was probably suited much better to verticals close to ocean than the loop and inverted vee I went with. Those extra dB's sure would have helped. Now I know why big DXpeditions do site surveys several months before they go.

5. Pick a location and a band suited to the contest you are operating. 20M from the Bahamas using low wire antennas was a competitive disadvantage. The Bahamas are too far west in low sunspot conditions to expect much from Europe with my low wire antennas. In general an island in the eastern Caribbean is a much better choice for CQWW. However, I think the Bahamas is an ideal QTH for the ARRL contests (ARRL DX, 160M etc) where you only work the U.S. For CQWW to have a chance from C6 you need either high directional antennas on 20M or more sunspots.

6. Directional antennas with gain are good, even on an island. Being on a Caribbean island with an exotic callsign doesn't automatically mean you are going to be loud. I took that for granted, not realizing the reason I felt loud on previous trips was due in large part to better antennas.

7. If you can't run BOTH U.S. and EU in CQWW you can't win. See above. I could run U.S. but couldn't run EU and therefore I had no chance.

All of the above said, I don't want to leave the impression I didn't have a great time because I did. CQWW is always fun and I'm one big step closer to getting this thing right.

Next stop Dominica as J75W in CQWW CW!!

The right decision

2007-11-01T12:23:00.000-04:00

Tropical Storm Noel is forecasted to pass very near or right over Abaco this evening with near hurricane force winds. Both yesterday's and today's flights were cancelled by AA. I think it's very likely tomorrow's flight will be cancelled as well which means if I wouldn't have left Tuesday I couldn't have gotten out until Saturday at the earliest.

While this news makes me feel good about my decision to leave, here's hoping all the friendly folks I met there fare well during the storm.

Logs Uploaded To LOTW

2007-11-01T11:55:00.000-04:00

I submitted documentation to the ARRL for C6AQW and J75W this morning and received LOTW certificates for both.

I uploaded all 600+ C6AQW QSO's to LOTW this morning. This generated 108 QSL's immediately. Good to see so many folks using the system now. My last DXpedition, V31RR in 2004 generated a much lower % of LOTW confirmations.

With the J75W certificate obtained I will be able to upload QSO's to LOTW during that operation.

Back Home

2007-10-30T21:35:00.000-04:00

Looks like I caught the last American flight out of Abaco until maybe Friday. Bahamas Air had already cancelled all of their flights out. The plane ended up being full since they waited to let as many people on as possible and therefore took off about 30 minutes late. The flight from Abaco to Miami was surprisingly smooth but I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the ocean below as there were whitecaps everywhere. The report I read this morning said the seas were 15-20 feet high in the passage to Florida (yikes!).

Due to the slow hell that is MIA I missed my connecting flight back to Orlando but I was able to get on the next one a couple of hours later.

Goodbye Abaco

2007-10-30T08:40:00.000-04:00

Sunny and not a cloud in the sky this morning. However, the forecast above now has the eye of Noel passsing directly over Abaco late Wednesday/early Thursday. Also it may strengthen into a hurricane. What was an inconvenience issue may become a safety issue so I'm getting out today. Airline reservation changed, bags packed and the cab will pick me up at 11 A.M. I should be back in Orlando this evening.

OK Noel, you win

2007-10-29T20:36:00.000-04:00

The latest forecast track puts Noel even closer to Abaco. Notice on the map that it will be tracking right between where I have to fly (Abaco to Miami, then connecting back home to Orlando) beginning Tuesday night and passing very near Abaco on Thursday. That means the one Abaco to Miami flight on AA is likely to be cancelled Wednesday and Thursday. I have to be back in the office on Friday so it appears that my only shot to get back home is to take the flight back tomorrow. So unless the forecast changes dramatically overnight, that's exactly what I'm going to do.

I took down the 20M loop this evening and pretty much everything is packed and ready to go.

I sure wish I would have had the chance to explore this place and do some snorkelling and fishing but I guess that will have to wait until I can return.

Today

2007-10-29T15:58:00.000-04:00

Today's been a productive day. I disassembled the 20M inverted vee near the beach and rolled up the 3 100' rolls of RG8X coax. I also got everything packed back in the golf case. The only thing I left standing of mine is the 20M delta loop on top of the Spiderbeam mast lashed to the coconut tree with a 100' RG8X section back to the rig. I left that up mainly to listen to the Hurricane net on 14.300.

I figure if Noel requires, I can disassemble the loop and mast, roll up the coax and have everything else packed and ready to leave within an hour.

I am now officially in vacation mode. I expect to do very little radio operating from this point forward.

For lunch today I decided to go to the beach bar shown in the guidebook for the villa. It was supposed to have great hamburgers and was a 10 minute walk to the west on the beach. After 15 minutes of walking west on the beach I found nothing. I suppose it was closed for the season (this place is dead by the way-I have the beach all to myself but the sea is pretty rough today) so I headed back to the villa. I stopped by the Marina and talked to a guy who can take me snorkelling or fishing tomorrow if the sea isn't too bad and I don't have to leave due to Noel. He told me about a beach bar right across the street that served lunch, about a 2 minute walk from the villa to the EAST. I proceeded to walk over there and enjoyed a great $8 cheeseburger and fries along with a Bahamas Mash that was composed heavily of Rum. All of this overlooking a beautiful beach with sand and water that I've never seen more beautiful.

All in all a great day so far.

Who is this guy Noel and why is he trying to ruin my vacation?

2007-10-29T15:46:00.001-04:00

This doesn't look good. Today's a beautiful day on the island but if this forecast holds it's about to get ugly. I'm supposed to leave Thursday afternoon but may have to get the hell out of Dodge tomorrow or Wednesday. I'll probably have to make a decision on that in the next 12 hours.

Contest Report

2007-10-29T14:37:00.000-04:00

The contest started off promising, I ran 91 stations the first hour and 84 the second hour almost all U.S./VE. When the band died at around 0500Z I had 269 QSO's in the log with 6 countries and 6 zones. All of this was on the delta loop as the inverted vee was a few S units down on most signals from the states.

I woke up around 1030Z Saturday morning and that was just about the right time as the band was just starting to open. I worked my first QSO @ 10:55Z, DR1A from Germany. It was soon after this that I discovered what was to be my achilles heal in this contest-Europe. Most European stations were S-9 or above on the loop but could not hear me. The inverted vee I put up on the porch was no better. I called and called many stations without even a hint of them hearing me. It was incredibly frustrating to the point I rechecked the SWR and resonant frequencies of both antennas with the SWR Analyzer thinking something must be wrong. Unfortunately nothing was wrong-the antennas were just not performing to EU. I did manage to work a lot of mults in the Caribbean and South America with the inverted vee and even a few loud stations in EU after many calls over the nest couple of hours. The frustration mounted to the point that I had to do something. I decided to scout out a new location closer to the beach for the inverted vee. About 300 feet away across the road near the tennis courts was a location that had a clear view to the water about 250 feet or so from the beach. I then proceeded to move the inverted vee with the Buddipole portable mast to this location and strung 3 of my 100' RG8X sections together back to the Villa. I oriented it broadside NE/SW and guyed it off to keep it standing in the face of the constant 20-25MPH sea breeze. Here is a picture of it with the sea in the far background:

This little project cost me about 1 1/2 hours and I was back on @ 1535Z working SP3HRN for a new country mult. The new antenna was a definite improvement but didn't solve the EU problem. I only had to call stations 4 or 5 times now instead of 10-15 to get their attention. It also seemed to work best for Caribbean and South American stations so it became my main antenna during the daylight hours.

Still I had no ability to run EU. I tried many times in the EU subband (14.100-14.150) to get something going but never could. I also couldn't run stateside during the day at any decent rate due to 2 factors:
1. Most of them were pointing at EU
2. 20M was a war zone during the day with no clear frequencies.
My 100W had no chance of holding a frequency for any length of time.

Having run out of options I decided to search and pounce and go for multipliers. This seemed to be fairly successful as my country and zone count improved considerably.
I did manage to run a few U.S. stations Saturday evening after EU died out but still, I ended the day with only 414 Q's in the log-145 more than I ended with the night before. The last QSO in the log Saturday was PS2T at 0108Z.

Sunday was no better for rate, maybe even a little worse as I ended the contest with 543 QSO's. It got so bad I took a 2 hour nap around noon on Sunday. I had to work hard for every multiplier and ended up with 100 of them (79 countries/21 zones). Almost all of these were in NA and EU. I managed to work a couple of African stations (c50C and 6W1RY) and both VK and ZL. Asia was a bust as I didn't work any JA's or anything else for that matter. I did manage to work KL7RA and a couple of KH6's. I even missed CE and zone 13. The one highlight of Sunday was stringing together about a 20 minute run late in the afternoon including having a couple of EU stations call me (the only time during the contest that happened).

Final result: 543 QSO's/1201 points, 79 countries, 21 zones = 120, 100 points.

All in all I turned in a great single band score....if that band were 160M, for 20M not that hot.

For what it's worth, I managed to beat the old C6 20M LP record (set by C6ALZ in 2003) by abut 60K points. The overall C6 record of 327K points, held by VP7NS since 1973 (wow!) is quite safe for at least another year.

Well that sucked

2007-10-28T21:41:00.000-04:00

Overall a very disappointing result:

543 QSO's, 79 countries, 21 zones = 120,100 points

I'll post a complete recap tomorrow.

Photos

2007-10-26T18:10:00.000-04:00

Here are some photos I took this afternoon. They show the villa, the antennas and the beach, which is about 100 yards from the villa.

Inverted Vee Up

2007-10-26T17:10:00.000-04:00

I managed to build and get an inverted vee up about 20' at the apex broadside NE/SW. I used the Buddipole center insulator and portable mast with wire for the inverted vee legs. All ready to go now; going to grab some dinner across the way and a quick shower before the contest.

Success!

2007-10-26T15:34:00.000-04:00

The weather finally cleared and I was able to get the loop up. It's pretty close to an equilateral triangle fed 1/4 wave down from the top on one side as specified in ON4UN's Low Band Dxing for vertical polarization. I fed it with a 1/4 wave matching section of RG-6 75 ohm coax and after some simple pruning it tunes to 1.5:1 SWR or less across the entire 20M phone band. I made a few QSO's with it and it seems to play pretty well (at least to stateside). It's oriented E-W (the only direction I had room to put it. I may now try to put up an inverted Vee on another palm tree pointed NE. 4.5 hours to go and I still need to eat sometime too.

Some Sun, Now Rain Again

2007-10-26T13:08:00.000-04:00

We had a 1 hour period of no rain where I was able to measure the loop and get everything assembled...now it's back to rain. Hope it stops soon so I can get the antenna up.

Rain, Rain Go Away....

2007-10-26T11:07:00.000-04:00

The rain has only got heavier, it appears to be a repeat of yesterday's monsoon. It stops for a few minutes every 15 minutes or so then starts downpoaring again. So far my attempts to lash the fiberglass pole to the palm trees has been unsuccessful. Not looking good. Worst case I go with the vertical already installed here, but I hope it doesn't come to that.