E51BKV FK/F4BKV Pacific IOTA trip

[IK0ZCW]

In addition to participating with the VP6T Pitcairn team, Vincent F4BKV informs DX World.net he will be active from the following:

E51BKV from Mangaia island OC-159 - February 10 to 15, 2012.

E51BKV from Rarotonga island OC-013 (short activity during transit to Mangaia) - February 9 and February 16, 2012.

FK/F4BKV from Ouvea island OC-033 - February 18 to 25, 2012.

FK/F4BKV from Noumea, OC-032 (short activity also during transit) - February 26th 2012.

HL2/F4BKV briefly active from Seoul on February 27, 2012 as Vincent makes his way home.

Equipment will be an Elecraft K3, 500w amplifier, monoband VDA (vertical dipoles array) for 17/15/12/10m and monoband verticals for 40/30/20m using SSB and Digital (RTTY/PSK31) modes only.

QSL via homecall and LoTW.

More info on http://www.f4bkv.net

[IK0ZCW]

Vincent also has this news:

QSOs until 20z on 13/02/2012 are already uploaded to LOTW and also on my online log at my web site. Antennas are 100m away from the operating position, so changing bands requires a walk into the wild tropical forest (trying to avoid all animals/insects!) to access the sea shore and to change the cable to another antenna. It is very challenging during the night with a simple lamp torch (and a bit scary sometimes!)

Conditions are very hard from a life-style point of view; hundreds of mosquitoes and no water. I need to QRX on my pileup when it rains here, so I can go outside to get fresh water using palm trees. Even on St Kilda, EU-059 (as MS0INT) it was more welcoming than this place!!

Hopefully during FK/F4BKV expedition it will be a better place. But, on the other side, radio conditions from Mangaia are the best with almost 4000QSO in 3 days !

[IK0ZCW]

Vincent is now QRV as FK/F4BKV from Ouvea Island , OC-033 until February 25.

[IK0ZCW]

Conditions from Ouvra OC-033 are very good towards Europe. The first night, I was in an unfriendly radio location not close to the sea and finally decided to move to a more expensive hotel (4 times more expensive!) to get a beach bungalow whereby all my antennas are directly facing the sea. That is far over my budget, and any voluntary contribution would be welcome (paypal at my OQRS system).

I also built a 40m vertical and was very surprised about the strong signals from Europe. I will try to wake up at 04:00 (local time) every morning to get that short EU opening. Please listen to the band near that time. This morning, I had to call for 30mins until spotted by someone and then all Europe suddently 59+ !

LoTW and my online log are up to date. This is a much better place to be compare to E51. I will be here until Saturday 00:00z. Please do not email for logbook queries or skeds.

[IK0ZCW]

Steve 9M6DXX reports the following:

" Just spoken to Vincent when things were a little quiet for him on 15m. He reports that he has made 6500 QSOs from FK, which is 1300 QSOs per day, 50% of which are with Europe. He said he was amazed how well the simple home-made antennas were working, due to their location on the beach. "