ARLA/CLUSTER: Noticias da DXpedition PT0S

[João Gonçalves Costa]

Sleepy Operators, Chocolate and Coke Running Out (11-19-2012 from AA7JV)
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Nov 19, 2012, SPSP

The waves just never stop. The 10 m vertical got swamped again. this time we have filled the gamma match capacitor with Teflon grease. No salt water can get in there any more. Also, the CAT5 control cable to the main antenna tuner got shredded by the strong wave action at high tide and the sharp rocks it was laid over. The cable was replaced (and suspended) this morning. We got buried a few times by some large waves as we did the job at high tide; we did not want to lose the time waiting for low tide. (Low and high tides alternate approximately every 6 hours. The tidal range on SPSP is about 2.5 meters.)

We are all suffering from a lack of sleep. It is no longer just me, others are starting to fall asleep at the key. (We also ran our Coke, now munching on instant coffee powder to stay awake. Chocolate and other treats have been long gone. It is not that we did not plan sufficiently, but we are sharing with our Brazilian Navy friends: their facility and our stuff.)

Last night we concentrated on Japan on 30 and 40 meters. We feel that it is better to make actual contacts than chase elusive openings on 160 meters.

One aspect of the location is that most bands are open to both Europe and North America at the same time. This results in huge and very difficult to manage pile-ups. Also, a lot of Europeans feel that we favor NA, while some North American stations believe that we favor Europe. For the record, the QSO counts are about even, maybe one or two percent in favor of EU. If we could, we would favor Japan and East Asia, as this is a very difficult QSO for them (especially on the low bands) but we can not get enough openings to really make a difference.

Low Bands:

160: We spent only a couple of hours on 160. Noise was high. We were not on 160 at our SR.

80: The band was also suffering from atmospheric noise. (A front passed through late yesterday afternoon and early this morning, with its associated lightning activity.)

40: Forty meters was in excellent shape last night and that is where we focused our energies. (And on 30.) Signals were strong from both Europe and NA. Later, around our SR, we were able to work a lot of JA-s. Their signals, however, were very fluttery and difficult to copy.

George, AA7JV

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