T32C: Christmas Island DXpedition by FSDXA – Bulletin #3

[IK0ZCW]

Just a couple of months to go now until our T32C expedition to Christmas Island. Our container of equipment has reached Fiji and is due to ship soon to T32, to await our arrival.

TEAM

The team is now pretty much complete, with no less than 41 operators, some of whom will be there for the whole period, others will be there for the first or second half. At any one time there will be around 30 operators on the island, permitting us to operate round the clock on all bands with, propagation and other factors permitting, two stations QRV on each of 80 through 10.

The team consists of Neville G3NUG (Team Leader), Chris G3SVL (Co-Leader), John G3WGV (Co-Leader), Michael DG1CMZ, Franz DK1II, Falk DK7YY, Paul EI5DI, Dave EI9FBB, Gerard F2JD, Ian F5VKT/G3YBY, Michel FM5CD, Vincent G0LMX, Tony G0OPB, Nobby G0VJG, Richard G3RWL, Fred G3SVK, Laurie G3UML, David G3UNA, Gordon G3USR, Dave G3WGN, Mike G3WPH, Don G3XTT, Mark G4AXX, John G4DRS, Nick G4FAL, Mike G4IUF, Tony G4LDL, Justin G4TSH, Michael G7VJR, Clive GM3POI, Bob GU4YOX, Kazu JA1RJU, Dave K4SV, Paul KG4UVU, Bob MD0CCE, Arnie N6HC, Bob N6OX, Frank ON7RU, Ronald PA3EWP, Maury W3EF and Paul WF5T.
SPONSORS

We are very pleased to welcome Redweb Technologies as a new Corporate Sponsor. They specialise in tracking security solutions and have loaned us a container tracker. We are also delighted once again to have been granted a prestigious ARRL Colvin Award. In addition we thank CDXC – The UK DX Foundation, GDXF -German DX Foundation and the RSGB DXpedition Fund for offering support. Many thanks too to the many corporate, DX and local clubs and individuals who have come forward to support our expedition. They are too numerous to mention here, but are listed in full on our website. Details of how to donate also appear on our website. PayPal donations may be made directly via the site. All donations will be acknowledged.

DX CODE OF CONDUCT AND HOW TO WORK US

FSDXA supports the DX Code of Conduct and is committed to ensuring that all T32C team members operate to the highest standards. We have also, in conjunction with Wayne Mills N7NG and Steve Telenius-Lowe 9M6DXX, produced a document “How to Work Us” which can be downloaded from our website.

INTERACTING ONLINE

Internet access to and from Christmas Island is limited so we will not, for example, be watching the DX Cluster! If you have feedback for the expedition, this can be routed through Don G3BJ, via deserving@fsdxa.com . Don will pass this feedback to the team on a daily basis. In the reverse direction, logs will be uploaded to ClubLog on a daily basis and any news posted on the T32C website. We will also aim to send regular updates to the major bulletins.

BROCHURE

We mentioned last time that a PDF brochure about the expedition is downloadable from our website. We are pleased to say that this is available in Russian and Japanese as well as English.

DVD

The T32C DVD can be pre-ordered at the on-line shop on the T32C website. Full details are given there. In addition to the T32C story, the DVD will include the video made during the FSDXA DXpedition to St. Brandon Island (3B7C) in September 2007.

WEBSITE

As you have read above, much of what you need to know is on our extensive website. Do keep checking it for updates, both before and during the expedition

Don Field G3XTT, ( don.field@gmail.com ) 2 August 2011

(FSDXA Publicity Officer)

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It’s been one of those years. Spratly and Jarvis had to be postponed and now our own, T32C expedition has hit some logistical problems in that our container with its 6 tonnes of kit got as far as T30 (Tarawa), but onward shipping to T32 has proved impossible, despite our best efforts and promises from those involved in 3D2, T30 and T32. The ship that was due to bring our container from Tarawa has broken down and is being towed to Fiji for repairs.


WHAT NOW?

So what happens now? The answer is that we will go ahead anyway. The team is complete and set to go, the hotel is expecting us, and the sunspots seem to be on the increase.

Thanks to Yaesu, our Global Sponsor, we will have ten FT-450D radios, which we will hand carry to T32, along with several lightweight linears. Yaesu’s support has been absolutely outstanding. We will also take enough hardware to set up verticals and vertical arrays for all bands 160 through 10. It may even be possible to run multiple stations on some bands, though not to the extent that we had previously planned. All our computer equipment was to be hand-carried in any case, so daily log updates to ClubLog will be unaffected. Unfortunately, unless our container makes an unlikely late arrival on the island, 6m EME will have to be abandoned, and we will not have the 4-square arrays for 30 and 40. But we will do our best to set up phased systems or other antenna configurations to achieve gain, especially towards Europe where will continue to focus our efforts.

TIMINGS

The expedition dates are unaffected, but we cannot realistically expect to have stations running on nine bands by the first weekend, though we will aim to be on some bands, at least. As we will not have everything pre-kitted, there will be a lot of building and configuration work to do once we arrive at Christmas. The good news is that we are there for nearly four weeks and will be operating through four weekends, so there should be plenty of opportunity to get into our log.

WEBSITE

As always, but especially in these new circumstances, the trick is to keep a close eye on our website http://www.t32c.com/ . Do keep checking it for updates, both before and during the expedition. You will also find details there of how to interact with us once we start operations – your feedback will be especially important so that we can maximise every band opening.

Don Field G3XTT, (don.field@gmail.com) 16 September 2011

(FSDXA Publicity Officer)

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Aloha from Hawaii.

Some of you have noted that our Advance Party on Christmas Island have been active from time to time this week, checking out propagation. We are delighted to see that the solar flux has been high and T32C has already worked Europe on 28MHz!

The remainder of the initial team is now assembled here in Honolulu and I write this immediately following a team meeting at which we have worked out the final details of logistics for getting to the island and setting up for what will still be a large-scale operation. We have 10 Yaesu FT-450 transceivers and eight linear amplifiers, along with the hardware to put up gain antennas for 10 through 80, and a big vertical for 160. We also plan to install Beverages for receiving. We particularly want to extend thanks to KH6OO and KH7U who have been a great help to us here on Hawaii.

We fly to Christmas Island tomorrow, and it is likely there will be no more operation until the weekend, as we get everything installed and ready to go. In any case, we will aim to post any breaking news to our website via the Captain Cook hotel’s Internet facility.

Don Field G3XTT, (don.field@gmail.com) 26 September 2011

(FSDXA Publicity Officer)

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This Bulletin is written Friday afternoon Christmas Island time. We have been busy the past two days erecting antennas for all bands 160 through 10, as well as setting up stations and the IT network, which interconnects all logging positions and provides lots of data for helping us plan the operating schedules once we are under way. Everything has gone well during set-up, with great co-operation from the staff of the Captain Cook Hotel. For the record, our advance party (G3NUG, G3USR, DK1II) made around 1800 QSOs on 10 and 20m, using 100 watts (FT-450D) to a small vertical by the sea, so we are confident that we should be able to make a big impression on the bands once we are fully operational.

Our plan is to commence operations at midnight local time today here in Christmas, which is 1000 UTC Friday 30th September. We expect to be active on several bands from the start.

We do, however, have only one station per band for the time being, so for the first few days will probably alternate modes on a (roughly) 24 hour basis. On the non-WARC bands we expect to start on CW and then, at 1200 UTC on Saturday, move to SSB and make a serious multi-multi entry in the Oceania contest (which runs for 24 hours). This should get our SSB operations off to a great start. We are able to work all comers in the contest, so we very much want your call, whether you are taking part or just need a T32 QSO. We will give you a contest report (RS+serial number); if you are taking part please give us your serial number in return.

OTHER DXPEDITIONS

We are very much aware that there are other expeditions active at this time, and will take every care to avoid causing any sort of mutual QRM. This may well mean that we operate on frequencies other than those that we pre-announced. No doubt we will be spotted on the Cluster network, in any case.

ONGOING PLANS

We remain committed to maximising band openings to Europe, but expect the number of callers in the first few days to make this difficult if not impossible. But bear in mind that we will be active for 3 weeks and four weekends, so there should be plenty of opportunities (propagation permitting) for a QSO. We will continue to send out news and photographs when the opportunity arises – our website is being regularly updated by webmaster G3WPH and those of who you who use Twitter can follow us on G7VJR’s Twitter feed (@G7VJR).

Don Field G3XTT, (don.field@gmail.com) 30 September 2011

(FSDXA Publicity Officer)

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We have now been operating for four days and have passed the 50,000 QSO milestone. There is still almost 3 weeks to go, so those who are still needing us on various bands and modes have many opportunities still to come. This bulletin is by way of a summary of what has been done and what is planned.

Bear in mind that this has turned out to be something of an unplanned Field Day style operation, and we now have no expectations of our container of equipment arriving while we are here on Christmas Island. Instead, the team hand carried just over one metric tonne of equipment (poles, cables, radio gear, computers, etc) to the island. We are extremely grateful to all those who loaned equipment at short notice to help enable the expedition to take place and be successful. Inevitably we have had teething problems, as we have a variety of amplifiers, Microham routers, etc. where we would, ideally, like to have standard equipment and interfaces. Fortunately the transceivers are consistent as Yaesu came to our rescue with the loan of ten FT-450D radios at very short notice.

Antenna-wise, we have two-element vertical dipole arrays by the sea for 20 through 10, quarter-wave verticals with elevated radials for 30 and 40, a quarter wave vertical with ground radials for 80 and a 15m high T antenna with ground radials for 160. We also have two Beverage receive antennas for 160 and now have additional vertical dipoles for 10, 15 and 20 to allow us to retask the low band stations as second stations on those bands when LF is closed. We are continually refining our antenna systems within the limits of the wire, poles and coax that we have here, though the second tranche of operators who arrive in a week’s time will bring more.

We started our SSB operations at the weekend with an entry in the Oceania SSB contest in which we believe we have comprehensively beaten the previous contest records. We will not, however, be entering the CW leg as this would undoubtedly lead to a lot of unnecessary duplicate contacts as we will by then have been very active on CW on all bands.

There has been high demand for Christmas Island, especially on LF and also on 10 and 12 where, for many years, there has been little or no propagation. So far the sunspots have been helping those bands along, with 10m being our QSO leader to date. We have pretty much been working all comers to clear the decks so that we can begin to focus more on Europe where band openings are much more limited than to the US and Japan. We would appreciate cooperation from those two areas – US and Japanese stations should find plenty of opportunity to work us on all bands. We did have to delay starting our RTTY operations – our original plans would have allowed us to be on RTTY right from the start. The good news is that RTTY is now well under way on several bands. If 10m continues to play well, we may even show up on FM!

On 160, we made our first European contacts last night, Italy and Germany and at our sunset and Russia, Ukraine and Finland at our sunrise. Hopefully these openings will improve over the next week or two. 80m shows a similar pattern but with longer openings, but right now only our topband station has access to the Beverages.

We will continue to make regular updates on our website and Michael G7VJR will no doubt update Twitter while he is here (he leaves with the first group next week). The online log on ClubLog is getting a very high hit rate, as expected – we are uploading logs twice a day, at 7am and 7pm local time here. The Internet connectivity from the hotel is turning out to be better than we had anticipated (since our site visit a year ago the hotel has installed a satellite Internet), and not only does this make log uploading easier but has meant that we have been able to follow everyone’s feedback better than expected – we are grateful for that and it feeds into our daily team meetings. There is a feedback facility on the t32c.com website, which is the best way to reach us.

Finally, for that small but enthusiastic group of 6m EMEers, we are still hoping to give this mode a go in the second two weeks of the expedition, but cannot at this time make any guarantees.

Don G3XTT
T32C Publicity Officer

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With two weeks still to go, T32C now has over 100k QSOs in the log, including 22k with Europe (and 23k with Asia), our target area. As the JA and US pile-ups continue to diminish, we hope the percentage of EU will increase. However, the decline in solar activity since we first started has not helped. That said, we are on track to set at least a few new records.

We have been increasingly active on RTTY, with 6.5k QSOs now on that mode and increasing rapidly. The demand for RTTY, as all DXpeditions have discovered in recent years, seems to be never ending.

We continue to cover as many band/mode openings as we can, with the equipment we carried here – we are well aware that the situation would have been better had our container of equipment arrived, as we would have had the opportunity to install a greater variety of antennas, and would have had linears at all operating positions. Nevertheless, we feel justified in pressing ahead with the expedition – 100k QSOs in 9 days, Field Day style, can’t be bad! That said, it has been a constant battle to keep everything working – an antenna party a week into our operation found lots of saltwater corrosion in connections and coax and guys that were badly abraded, just as one example. We are currently able to operate two stations simultaneously on 10, 15 and 20 and are looking at being able to do the same on 12 and 17 to make the most of the main band openings, but with limited coaxial cable (it’s heavy to hand carry!) we are having trouble achieving the antenna separation we ideally need.

There is a team changeover tomorrow (Wednesday our time), when 11 operators leave and another 11 arrive, with 16 remaining for the whole period. The incoming team are bringing a couple more FT-450D radios and one more amplifier, as well as some other useful items. We stopped operations for a couple of hours yesterday evening our time for a party to wish the outgoing operators well.

It’s not all work, work, work here on Christmas. Apart from last night’s “Christmas Party” (which was, naturally, attended by Santa himself), a couple of groups’ have been deep-sea fishing when not on operating duty, with great success. The local people that we have met in our travels have been, without exception, friendly and helpful. It’s a fascinating location, with some equally fascinating history (some of which appears on our website).

Don G3XTT
T32C Publicity Officer

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With just over one week to go the QSO total has now passed our total from 3B7C four years ago, with about 140,000 contacts in the log. QSO numbers don’t reflect the whole story, of course, as we have wanted all along to focus on Europe and on the edge bands. The good news is that European QSO numbers are now well over 20k and growing fast, especially as propagation has picked up again in recent days. Low band openings to Europe have been variable – some days are excellent, some very disappointing. But we will hang in there (see below).

The second tranche of 11 operators arrived on the island earlier this week, to replace the 11 who had left. 16 operators are there for the whole 4 weeks. Several of those who left had the opportunity to operate from the KH6BB station on the USS Missouri in Pearl Harbour while transiting Hawaii on the way home. We thank Bill KH6OO, one of the volunteer guides on the Missouri, for making this possible and for giving us an excellent tour of the ship, which is well worth a visit.

The remainder of this bulletin sets out to answer some of the questions we are being asked. Many of the answers can, in any case, be found on our website or on the ClubLog website, but you may find this summary of interest.
I AM NOT IN THE LOG?

We are, as we have said before, unable to deal with your log queries while the expedition is in progress. The best solution, if you are not in the log, is to work us again. We will deal with queries during the QSLing process.

That said, one issue has arisen which may affect a handful of contacts. It is very difficult to achieve a good RF earth on T32 as the ground is fine, dry coral. As a result, we occasionally get RF into places where it shouldn’t be (despite lots of ferrites!) and this has occasionally taken out the link from radio to PC, which has affected the frequency logging. As a result some QSOs have been assigned to the wrong band. If you think you might be affected, please let us know (correct band and logged band) so that we can investigate and correct.

WHEN ARE YOU ON LF FOR EUROPE?

We have been asked to be more precise about our 80/160m scheduling at European sunrise. Starting on Friday 14 October, we will operate CW on 80m for two days at European sunrise, then we will operate 1 day on SSB. The pattern will be repeated, so CW days will be 14, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24 October. SSB days will be 16, 19, 22, 25 October. On 160m we are always on CW from our sunset to Western European sunrise.

CLUBLOG

T32C has generated a big increase in interest in ClubLog, but not everyone is aware of the full range of facilities it offers. Of particular interest is the propagation data, which is based on actual log data rather than forecasts. You can pull up graphs for your own country, your CQ zone, etc.

You may also not be aware that if you hover the mouse over the green tick showing your QSO, you will see who the operator was at the T32C end.

As regards the league tables, be aware that if you make multiple QSOs on a given band/mode slot, this pushes you below others who have the same number of slots but without such multiple QSOs. This is a consequence of the algorithm used within ClubLog for the league tables.

OTHER BANDS AND MODES

As we have said before, we do not anticipate any PSK operation – for DXCC this counts exactly the same as RTTY, where we are well on course to set a new record. Neither will we be on 60m – we did not ask for permission for this band, so it is not included in our licence. We may, though, do some 10m FM operation towards the end of the expedition. As far as RTTY schedules are concerned, RTTY operation is largely at the discretion of the scheduled operator – some T32C operators are more comfortable than others with RTTY operation.

Don Field G3XTT

T32C Publicity Officer

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The QSO count is currently at 188.75k with 49% CW, 41% SSB and 9% RTTY. As you might guess we are working hard to exceed 200k.

During the day (local time) we are running a 6m beacon on 50.102.MHz. If you hear the beacon please put a note on the cluster and we will break the beacon and try for QSOs. So far we have had 99 six metre QSOs, mainly with the West coast USA and Hawaii. The beacon has been heard in Japan and South America. We have also completed a number of 6m EME QSOs.

With just a few days to go to the end of the DXpedition we are beginning to plan the station close down. There will be a phased shut down beginning at 1600z on Monday 24th October, with the last station closing by 0100z on Tuesday 25th. We will keep the ‘high rate’ stations running as long as possible.

If you look at the on line log and QSOs that were previously in there appear to be missing, don’t despair, query the log a little later, they will be there.

[IK0ZCW]

It’s about six weeks now since the team returned home from Christmas Island and we wanted to update everyone and answer some of the questions we are being asked.

TOTALS, RECORDS
Firstly, as most of you will know, our final QSO total was 213,116, the first time any DXpedition has exceeded the magic 200k (some will recall that, with D68C, we were the first to exceed 100k). We also worked 49,535 uniques, another world record. Just a few short weeks before the trip started we wondered whether we could manage a respectable total at all, as it had become clear that our container of equipment would not arrive and we would have to hand carry everything. In the event, team members and others, including our major sponsors, rallied round and we were able to run up to ten stations, eight of them equipped with linears, along with a very respectable array of vertical antennas for 160 through 10 and, later in the trip, an 8-element Yagi for 6m. What also came as a very pleasant surprise was the upturn in HF conditions just days before we started – 10 and 12m propagation was well above what we had dared to hope.

Partly as a result of those improvements in propagation, we are particularly proud of the number of European QSOs included in that total, some 59,673. A breakdown of our QSOs appears on the Club Log website.

Other records that we broke included the band records for 30m,15m and 12m and those for CW (102,216), SSB (88,416) and RTTY (19,225). Another record was with North America (109,327).

6 METRES
Just a word about our 6m operation. Not only did the container fail to arrive, but Kazu JA1RJU, our 6m guru, had to cancel his participation at the last minute for health reasons (as we reported in a previous bulletin). It was left to team members Michael DG1MGZ, Mike G3WPH and Bob MD0CCE to learn “on the job”. Not only did they manage seven EME QSOs in two continents (it would have been more, but the 6m linear developed a fault), but they also managed 103 terrestrial QSOs, including some quite long-haul ones into the USA and South America (possibly due to some early 6m F2 propagation?).

THE CONTAINER
We are regularly asked what happened to the shipping container with its six tonnes of gear. The good news is that, while we were let down by local agents and shippers in the Pacific area, there is no problem with shipping on the main routes, and it is currently on its way back to the UK, scheduled to arrive in late January.

QSLing
Full details of how to request a “traditional” QSL appear on our website, so are not repeated here. You can send a direct or bureau card, or make an online request. The card design has been finalised and we plan to start mailing cards in January after the Christmas postal rush.

As for Logbook of the World, we promised an upload within six months and, in practice, it will be very much earlier. We wanted to upload as clean a log as possible and have made some 500+ editorial changes to the log as a result of feedback from the log uploads to Club Log and notes received from many of the Deserving. But we are very conscious that many of you want to do a DXCC update before year-end. Therefore, LoTW permitting, we plan to start the upload on 15 December 2011, just over six frenetic weeks after our return from T32C. Uploading 213k QSOs is a huge task and we don’t necessarily expect it to go smoothly first time (D68C, 3B9C and 3B7C all experienced problems), so the upload may take several days to complete.

We have a team of 10 QSL managers ready to start processing the T32C cards and we estimate that we will eventually confirm around 140,000 QSOs. StarQSL, our internet-based QSLing system, has been enhanced recently by its author John G3WGV. Major developments include a new batch import facility to work directly with Club Log’s OQRS, incorporating an address label printing facility. We will be printing direct to QSL cards this time. Various improved ergonomics have also been introduced to help speed up the QSLing programme.

Just a word too about QSLing our earlier DXpeditions, as T32C has prompted renewed interest in getting missing cards from those trips. The following have taken over QSLing responsibilities for our 3B7C and 3B9C DXpeditions:

3B7C QSLs should now be sent to:

Jim Steel M0ZAK
6 Central Avenue
Shepshed
Leics LE12 9HP
United Kingdom
3B9C QSLs should now be sent to:

Derek Moffatt G3RAU
Mill House
Middle Street
Glentworth, Gainsborough
Lincs DN21 5BZ
United Kingdom

Email addresses for both Jim M0ZAK and Derek G3RAU are shown on QRZ.com

PRESENTATIONS, ARTICLES
An early DXpedition write up has already appeared in the WIA (Australia) journal and one is in preparation for Brazil (in Portuguese, tnx PY2WAS). The RSGB’s RadCom will carry a four-page article in the January issue and the latest edition of the CDXC (Chiltern DX Club, the UK DX Foundation) Digest is very much a “T32C Special”. We have also accepted invitations to present at Dayton and Visalia and at next year’s RSGB Convention as well as at the LADX (Norway) and ARI (Italian) events. We expect to feature on the programme at Friedrichshafen and other national and local clubs over the next 12 months.

DVD, etc.
A DVD is currently in preparation and orders can be placed via the website. We expect it to start shipping in January – there is 25 hours of material to be edited down! The DVD will also include the 3B7C story.

THANKS
Once again, we want to offer our thanks to every individual and organisation who have supported our efforts to put Christmas Island on the air in a big way. We have acknowledged all sponsors on our website. By the completion of the project and thanks to our sponsors (corporate, club and individual), donations through OQRS and with QSL cards, and taking into account projected sales of some of our equipment, we expect to just about break-even. We must, though, finally add our thanks to the staff of the Captain Cook Hotel and, indeed, to all those local residents we met on the island. It’s a great place, with good fishing and a friendly welcome from all.

And to all our fellow amateurs, a Happy Christmas from those of us who encountered ‘Christmas’ early this year!