PT0S Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago

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DX Pedition to Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago is planned in November-December 2012
Call of DX Pedition PT0S
More information soon

[IK0ZCW]

The Araucaria DX Group, in conjunction with the TX3A Team, is pleased to announce a DXpedition to St. Peter and St. Paul Rocks, PY0S, under the call sign PT0S. The DXpedition will take place in the late November to mid December, 2012 time frame. The actual dates will depend on weather conditions and will be announced later on this website: http://pt0s.com/

There has been an official ban on Amateur Radio activities from PY0S. Although the ban, which was created for environmental and safety reasons, remains in place, the Araucaria DX Group was given a special permit by Brazil’s SECIRM (Secretaria da Comissao Interministerial para Os Recursos do Mar), the Brazilian Navy, Ministry of Environment and LABRE to conduct a two week long operation.

The operation will have a strong low band focus. There will be a dedicated 160 meter station operating on 160 meters from sunset to sunrise. A second station will be on 80 and 40 meters at night. During the day we will operate two stations on the higher bands — and 6 meters — based on conditions. RTTY will also be supported.

The DXpedition’s goal is to give this rare and difficult entity to as many amateurs as possible, taking maximum advantage of this unique opportunity. The group will be using newly designed RX antennas and receiving equipment to allow small and QRP stations to work PT0S on all bands, but especially on 80 and 160 meters.

All QSO-s will be loaded onto LoTW within 36 hours of taking place.

Operators will be Fred Carvalho PY2XB (PY2XB/PY0F, PQ0F, VP5/PY2XB, 8P9XB), Peter Sprengel PP5XX/PY5CC (PY0FM, PW0T, HK0NA). Tomi Pekarik, HA7RY and George Wallner, AA7JV. Due to environmental considerations, we have been limited to four operators.

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UPDATE - Pre-expedition survey / story
http://pt0s.com/news.html#0805121908

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UPDATE - Link http://pt0s.com/

Most of the PT0S team is now in Natal. Fred, PY2XB is going to join us on November 3. All our gear has made it and is being stored at the local radio club. Because importation into Brazil can be difficult and slow, we feel that we have passed one of the most worrisome hurdles we’ve faced. We are now procuring supplies and items that we decided to purchase locally, such as car batteries, camping gear, etc. Local HAM-s, especially Mauricio Barreto, PS7RK, have been incredibly generous helping us to buy supplies and make the final preparations.

We are on schedule to leave for St. Peter and St. Paul Archipelago on November 5. The weather forecast is favourable, which is good news, as seas can be rough along the 620 nautical mile passage. We — and all our gear — will be travelling on the 70 foot fishing boat Transmar II, along with 8 fishermen. It will be tight and the lighter the seas the more bearable the passage will be.

We are hoping for a good and productive operation, where in addition to getting a lot of calls into the log, the entire community will have fun. We will soon start publishing operating tips and advice on how to work us best.

[IK0ZCW]

The PT0S DXpedition is scheduled to sail for St. Peter and St. Paul Rocks the evening of Nov 05 (maybe early Nov 06 because of weather).
We expect to arrive on the rocks the morning of Nov 09. The first to go up will be the 160 m station, which we hope to get on the air that evening.

Our plan is to TX somewhere around 1816.5 kHz and listen up 2 to 5 for EU/NA, and between 1822 and 1825 for JA-s.
PT0S will be very challanging for JA-s (and other Asian stations) on 160. They will have to work through a very
long path, close to the Auroral region, and over (really, under) much stronger EU signals.
To give the JA-s a chance, EU and NA stations please do not call us between 1822 and 1825. Your consideration will be much appreciated.

We will be located on the main rock, called Belmonte, where we expect very high levels of local noise from the
various scientific equipment.
We are planning to build two remote RX antennas on one of the remote rocks (called Cabral) and run the coax and control cables under water.
These RX antennas should be up by the 11th or 12th of November. We hope they will improve our ability to copy
weak signals.

For additional information and updates please visit http://pt0s.com/

GL and 73,

George, AA7JV

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DEPARTURE DELAYED - Link http://pt0s.com

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UPDATE: We landed on SPSP yesterday morning. After many difficulties we have raised our main antenna and have one station operational. Spent last night on 160 with mixed results. Local noise on the main TX antenna is S9+10 dB and we can only work stations with signals above that. It is like listening to the output of a switching power supply. Will try to build RX antenna today. Conditions are too rough to build the planned remote RX antenna. We must wait for calmer conditions to swim to the remote rock called Cabral.

We have very limited Internet access so updates will be kept short.

AA7JV

PT0S Team Under Way (11-06-2012 from HA5X)

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UPDATE

We continue battling noise. The rocks are covered with scientific instruments that are powered through a number of inverters connected through a network encompassing the entire rock Belmonte. We were planning to install remote RX antennas on a distant rock (Cabral) but large swells have so far prevented us from being able to do so. Winds are down today and we hope the swells will moderate soon. As it is, we got some light injuries, when installing the main TX antenna on the top of a high section of Belmont. One moment we were looking down at the water from the top of a 25 foot cliff, the next moment a huge wave was washing over us. Scary!

The pile ups are large (and somewhat unruly). We will try to do a better job of maintaining them tighter, but we do need cooperation from the callers for that to work. Also, when we are asking for specific regions, we are doing that to make the pile-ups more manageable and put more stations into the log. Please cooperate for your own sake. TKS.

Low Bands: We are hugely challenged on 160 m by noise that is often 20 dB over 9. Anybody who has made us on 160 during the past two nights, has surely got a strong signal! The noise is not continuous, there are some gaps, where it is only S9 +10 dB. That is why we are requesting up 4 sometimes, or some other split number; we are trying to catch a rapidly moving gap in the noise. Yesterday we installed a flag RX antenna on the north facing rock wall. Unfortunately, it had more noise than the TX antenna! That, however, is giving us some hope that we may be able to locate the source of the noise somewhere near the flag. Noise hunting will be the main program today! 80 meters was fair in the morning towards Europe, NA and even Japan. We will be paying special attention to Japan again tomorrow morning (around 0700 UTC). 40 m was excellent this morning, especially towards Japan. Signals were very strong.

We hope that our efforts at noise reduction will be successful and soon we will be more effective on 160m.

30 Meter Frequencies: We will be transmitting on 10,138.5 and listening down. This is to due to local noise.

[IK0ZCW]

UPDATE

The first PT0S log has arrived and I have now enabled the online logsearch. Currently there are 533 QSOs in the database, the last one dated 0927 UT 10 November 2012. The data has also been uploaded to LoTW by Tomi, HA5PT. We hope we will get regular log updates from now on despite the very limited internet bandwidth on the rocks.

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UPDATE and First Logs Online http://pt0s.com/logsearch.html

Pilot Station Chris, HA5X / HA5XA / WW1WWW reports that some ops mentioned to him that after the log went online the last QSO date was wrong. Chris looked into the logfile and it seems that one of the computers used on the rock had its clock a day late. This is the reason why LoTW credits have not yet appeared yet. Corrections as well as more logs will follow shortly. I have already been promised a new batch, but George tells me that not only do they have limited bandwidth but also the satellite openings are very short and erratic. It took George some 4 hours to get a few messages and logs out! This causes severe delays in updates.

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Log Uploads Delayed Due to Poor Internet http://pt0s.com/NEWSUPDATES.html

We continue working the pile-ups, which are very large at times. We also continue adding more RX antennas. Our main challenges are limited Internet access, a difficult physical environment and extremely limited space.

The high speed Internet of the research station, which we had permission to use, has been down for some time and we have been using our back-up Iridium satellite phone, which has very limited bandwidth (2.4 kbps — yes, kilo). As the logs have grown we are unable to send them in a timely manner, even in a compressed format. We hope to have the Internet access fixed and catch up with the logs soon. Until then, please bear with us and do not ‘over-dupe’ us.

Low Bands: Variable conditions last night on 160. Initially we had very heavy static noise, which improved towards 2300 UTC but returned around 0600 UTC. There is also substantial QSB. Please pay attention to conditions and when we appear to slow down, send the call-sign twice. We continuously monitor for JA-s (and other Asians) between 1822 and 1825 (down 1 to 3 from 1825.5) especially during potential openings. There is a BC harmonic on 1824, which comes and goes. Please avoid this frequency. Unfortunately, no JA contacts yet on 160, not even faint signals. Today we will work on the main (160) TX antenna hoping to improve it. (The antenna sits on top of a 20 rock outcropping that juts into the water. At low tide it is 20 meters above the water. At high tide the large waves wash over its base. (During the past three days the waves have bunched up all the radials and we feel that performance has deteriorated.) 80 meters is doing well and we have worked a good number of JA stations. Conditions on 40 are excellent.

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PT0S — Sleeping Problems / Antenna Work http://pt0s.com/NEWSUPDATES.html + Log Updated http://pt0s.com/search.html + Stats http://www.twitlonger.com/show/k11n5m

Pilot station HA5X informs:


"I have received a fresh news update from George. They suffer from lack of space, meaning they cannot sleep anywhere while operating day and night and doing maintenance work during the day."


Strong winds and large swells continue but the weather is fine otherwise. We are now running three stations during the day and two during the night.

The very limited Internet bandwidth is a major problem as we have trouble (and large expense) uploading the logs. Also, we do not have enough bandwidth (and time) to deal with individual log search requests. We intend to make log corrections once we are back on land, but until then the logs are as published. If you can not find your QSO in the log, please work us again: it will not be a dupe! Also, we are unable to upload pictures at this time.

Today we will do maintenance on the main (160 – 10) vertical, as a large wave has almost knocked it down during the night. Also, we need to move some of the RX antennas as the Brazilian Navy crew is doing their work on the structures we have attached them to. We are also working on a dedicated 10 m vertical to run on that band when 6 meters is not open.

Because of the lack of room, we do not have space to sleep during the day. Because of that, and the daytime workload, we are getting very tired. (I fell asleep at the key on 160 two or three times last night. Sorry if it caused any confusion.)

Low Bands: 160 was good last night. There was some QSB but not as bad as the night before. Also, the lightning crashes have moderated. Signals from both EU and NA have been most good, with some stations being extra loud. On the average, however, it still takes two to three tries to get a call complete. We made our first JA QSO this morning. The signals were extremely weak and the QSO was marginal, but we hope that this is a sign of improving conditions towards Asia. We will continue monitoring between 1822 and 1825 for JA and Asia, especially during possible openings.

80 meters has been be excellent. (Our 80 meter vertical, which stands almost all the time in a pool of salt-water, is perhaps our best performing antenna.) We have made a good number of JA contacts during the past few days.

40 meter signals have been extremely good.

[IK0ZCW]

UPDATE on RTTY http://pt0s.com/NEWSUPDATES.html + LOG http://pt0s.com/logsearch.html

Pilot station HA5X also informs:


" PT0S has started working RTTY. George has sent an update which is an interesting read and explains how they struggle with the poor internet connectivity. I can’t help, but it brings back nice memories of how we used packet radio in the early nineties! I have also updated the log, it now contains 17639 QSOs with the latest QSO being 1025 UTC 16 November 2012, but as always, I cannot say it is the full log… "


We have started RTTY operations. We have three stations running most of the time. We now have around 17,000 QSO-s, including 1800 on 160.

Winds have increased to 25 kts and continuing large waves and swells make it impossible to install antennas on the remote rocks. On the other hand, we have installed a new low band antenna that is proving to be very useful.

Our main challenge continues to be the very limited Internet access. Log updates are very difficult to send. Logs need to be broken into small enough segments, which must be individually compressed into files of around 15 kbytes each. On some days we end up with 14 or 15 log update messages. Once these are ready to go, I have to climb to the top of Belmont (a steep, rocky climb), set up the computer and the sat-phone and wait for a good satellite pass. Once I have a connection, generally I am able to send our 2 or 3 files or e-mails. Then wait for the next good pass… The entire process takes 4 to 5 hours each day, is error prone and very time consuming. Log updates generally run 36 hours behind, and some files need to be resent. So please bear with us!

RTTY: We have big RTTY pile ups. Please note that on RTTY you need to work us only once on any band.

Low Bands: 160 m had good conditions most of the night. It started with a super enhancement as the gray-line passed us. Signals from EU were extremely strong. (One of the ops heard the booming signals through my headphones and asked if I was on the right band.) Once the gray-line passed, conditions became normal with a good steady stream of callers from EU and later NA. Conditions deteriorated around 0400 Z and quickly became very poor. No sign of JA-s last night. We would be interested if there were any spots or RX reports of our signals in JA?

80 m started our very noisy, but the noise dropped once the gray-line passed. 80 also experienced a gray-line enhancement, but not as strong as 160. Conditions during the night were mixed.

40 m has been a steady good performer all night and early this morning.

[IK0ZCW]

UPDATE

Winds have further increased during the later afternoon and evening. During high tide the waves were crashing over the south perimeter rocks, flooding the area around vertical No 2 (our 80 to 10 antenna for Station 2). One of the waves has ripped off the coax cable from the antenna coupler, breaking in tow a large male N connector, as well as causing some other damage. We had to wait until low tide to fix it but it’s back in operation as of 1600 Z. Waves also took out our new 10 m antenna. It is also fixed now.

The combination of swells and high waves makes a pretty sight around the rocks, with lots of white water all around, but it makes working on the antennas (which are naturally close to the water) very difficult. Another challenge we face is noise (the acoustic kind, this time). The huge waves crashing against the rocks create a constant noise, even the rocks under us tremble at times. There is also noise from the various activities by the Navy, and just simply noise from being so cramped together. On the other hand, the Brazilian Navy guys have been very friendly, accommodating and helpful. Without their support this operation would not be possible.

We are also experiencing failures with our K3 radios. We brought four K3-s and had problems with three of them so far. We have been able to repair two of the problems, but the third one seems to need a firmware download, which is not possible from here.

The pile-ups are large and we are trying hard to hear the callers but it is proving to be very difficult. We are now spending more time on 30 and 12 meters, but there the narrow band makes our pile-ups even more troublesome.

Low Bands:

160: Excellent conditions during the early part of the night, but later, from around 0300Z, we had increasing lightning QRN. Worked UA0 but still no sign of JA-s.

80: We continue working JA-s on 80 early in the morning.

40: Was excellent the short time we spent working it.

[IK0ZCW]

UPDATE by Pilot station HA5X


Briefly I could speak to Tomi yesterday, they are all right, but are very tired as they can only sleep in their seats. Also, waves are huge, often reaching higher than the building. Also, there is a lot of acoustic noise.

The log now contains over 25k QSOs, and I have also uploaded the logs to Clublog where you can see further statistics.

As for LoTW: logs are sent to LoTW at the same time as they go to the online logsearch, but there is several days of delay at ARRL processing the files. If you have received a LoTW confirmation, please drop me an e-mail with the date of the QSO and the date that you uploaded your own log so that we can know how much delayed LoTW actually is.

George, AA7JV states: The winds have moderated somewhat during the night but large waves continue crashing all around us. We have lost the 10 m antenna again: several waves have completely covered it and we are pretty sure the gamma match is full of salt water. A large wave has almost washed away all of our supply boxes this morning: despite the boxes being on an elevated walkway, tied down and covered by a large canvas. We were picking up items 30 meters downstream! We have recovered most of the essential gear and are 100% operational.

Due to the very limited Internet access, we are unable to receive most e-mails, so please do not expect replies. We get a daily summary, put together by Chris, HA5X, so we are mostly aware of your complaints and try to act on them. We are especially working on keeping the pile-ups narrow. For example, tonight on 30 m we have a pile-up all night kept mostly within 3 kHz. Of course, this is not possible to do on SSB. We have spent most of the night working 30, 40 and 80 meters, trying to satisfy the demand there. Will do it again tonight, starting on 80 around 0100z, trying to reach UA9 and UA0.

Low Bands:160 was very poor, due to a contest or perhaps conditions. Still no sign of JA-s. (We feel that we are wasting time on 160 when we could be giving out QSO-s to JA-s (and other Asians) on 40.) Will post our decision regarding this later. 80 was mixed with a very good run of JA-s in the morning over long path. We will construct a new long path RX antenna, which we hope will help on both 80 and 160 meters.

40 was excellent whenever we were on it. We had a good run of JA-s, but the window was very short. Will QSY to 40 (from 160) earlier tomorrow morning.

[IK0ZCW]

UPDATE by Pilot station HA5X


The ops are all right, but still coping with high waves affecting their equipment and the lack of space which forces them to sleep in the chairs. I have also updated the log, it now contains nearly 29k QSOs, and George was able to squeeze a long awaited missing log from the earlier days of the expedition which was still missing due to the unreliable satellite link. Clublog is also updated, as well as LoTW, but do not expect your credits to appear quickly, it looks that the delay at LoTW is greater than we had initially thought.

George AA7JV states: 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 out of 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.

[IK0ZCW]

UPDATE by Pilot station HA5X


George has sent a most interesting reading today, reflecting on comments that PT0S is a very poorly planned expedition. George explains how and why some of their original plans had to be changed.

George AA7JV states: The weather is nice today, and the waves are smaller too. We continue experiencing issues with antennas: anything exposed here gets smashed, flooded or dragged away. We have located our TX antennas close to the water and are paying the price (and hopefully reaping some benefits). Because we could not land on a remote rock we had to locate our RX antennas on the highest part of the rock, near the light, and can not move the TX antennas there. We just simply continue maintaining and strengthening the existing antennas.

Some have commented that this is a poorly planned operation. This is a fact: most of our plans went out the window the day we landed. We had to improvise because things have changed since our July survey trip. We ended up with a totally different basing, antenna and operating plan. To begin with, we had to share the space of about 3 x 5 meters with a dive team, who used it for most of their gear and cameras. Dive gear dripping salt-water is not good company to sensitive radio gear! Operating while somebody is hanging wet-suits right next to you is uncomfortable to say the least. Because of the lack of space, we located one of the stations and most of our gear outside. (Later, when the dive team left and the navy team arrived, we gained the entire space, but we had to move the outside station and all our gear inside. Some of us also sleep there on a folding chair.) The 160 – 10 vertical ended up on a high point of a rocky outcropping: the original location was regularly inundated by huge waves at high tide. We ended up installing our 80 – 10 m vertical in a shallow “crater” instead of the planned tip of a dock. (The dock was being used by research divers). By the way, the antenna in the crater gets out very well, as the bottom is always covered by 10 to 20 cm of salt water. We cannibalized our Garden Beam Yagi for materials for the 10 m vertical, as the the place it was planned to be installed, is now being worked on by a Brazilian Navy construction crew. Instead of being able to locate our RX antennas on the remote rock of Cabral (where I had no problem landing in July) we had to locate our RX antennas on top of Belmonte, Cabral being pounded by 5 meter waves, that often was over it, around the clock.

Our current operations are strongly influenced by the need to work around the local RF noise, the very limited space and the need to continuously repair antennas. Also, because the Internet service of the research station, which we were planning to rely on, is down, we have to spend 3 to 4 hours every day to get the logs uploaded through a 2.4 kbps, low availability satellite link. (One of those LEO-s!) On the other hand, we have two stations on the air virtually all the time, while a 10 and 6 meter station is on the air about 12 hours a day. We now have over 30,000 QSO-s in the log, including 2400 on 160 and 800 on 6. Please keep in mind: there are only the four of us!

Low Bands:

160: Noise was OK this time, but conditions were mediocre. We were on 160 early in the evening, a few times for an hour each during the night and just before our sunrise. No JA-s. At other times, we were using Station One to work JA-s (and others) on 40 and 30 meters.

80: The band started off very poorly but conditions improved later during the night. No JA-s this morning!

40: The band was open all night to EU and NA with strong signals. Both in the earlier part of the night and for a few hours around SR, it was also open to JA, with some very big and stable signals (JH1GNU).

[IK0ZCW]

UPDATE

George AA7JV states: The pile-ups continue unabated. A lot of people are dupe-ing us despite the logs being on LoTW generally within two days of the QSO. We understand making an insurance QSO, but doing more than that is very selfish. The dupe QSO may take the place of a QSO with somebody with no contact at all, and perhaps a new country! So please, no ‘serial duping’.

Some have commented on the fact that we spend too much time on 10 meters. This is a result of our set-up: we have two main stations (with amplifiers) that work all bands. A third, bare-foot, station is for 6 meters. We have added a 10 m antenna for the 6 m station, which allows it to be on 10 meters between 6 m openings; which is a lot.

The improved weather also means that we have not had any antenna problems and were able to catch up on some small maintenance chores. Unfortunately we lost one radio and one amplifier during the night, but we had spares and we continue to be 100% operational.
We are aiming to stay for the CQWW contest but that is not sure yet at all. More navy activities are planned in the coming days and we will need additional permission to stay during the weekend. Otherwise, we may go QRT as soon as Friday, Nov 23.

Low Bands:

160: Conditions have been reasonable during the early part of the night, with both Europe and NA coming in with good signals. On the other hand, we feel that we are now working the smaller stations and signals are generally weaker because of that. Fortunately, noise levels have been fairly low. No JA-s yet. The furthest signal report we got was from KH2, where on a well equipped station our signal was barely detectable. This does not bode well for the possibility JA contacts. Still, we continue listening for JA-s around our sunset and sunrise. (Transmitting on 1825.5 and listening down 2 to 3.) The amount of time we spend on 160 is being questioned. We have two reasons: One, this is a low band oriented DXpedition, and Two, it is hard to install effective 160 (and 80) meter TX and RX antennas here,. It is likely that future DXpeditions may not go to the trouble.

80: The band was wide open to both Europe and NA most of the night and to JA around sunrise.

40: We have worked some much wanted SSB on 40, as well as a good number of JA-s on CW just after our SR.

[IK0ZCW]

UPDATE by Pilot Station HA5X


The log is updated, including 40928 QSOs, the last one being 0845 UTC 22 November 2012. Log is uploaded to Clublog for stats and also to LoTW. I have bad news for some. A lot of people were asking about missing RTTY QSOs. We asked George, and he writes: ”We made no RTTY contacts between Nov 18 11:24 and Nov 20 07:38.” so if your QSOs fell in this timeframe, you may have worked a SLIM :-( As George writes they may have to go QRT tomorrow morning (Friday), whether they can stay depends on the navy who are to start maintenance work on the rocks.

George AA7JV states: We were hit by a strong rainstorm this morning. As the operating position windows are permanently open, and there are some vents along the upper edges of the wall, we got quite a bit soaked. There was about an inch of water on the floor but we were able to continued operating. No damage to any of the equipment, just a lot of wet clothing. On the bright side, the winds have died almost completely by this morning and the seas have flattened out. Very pleasant, especially after so much rough weather. We just hope the seas will stay like this for the 3.5 day homeward trip..

We continue working the piles ups. During the short openings to JA, the demand is very strong and pile-ups have very high densities that make copy difficult. Still, we are happy as we have over 2500 JA contacts in the log.

There was a very good opening late afternoon on six meters. Interestingly, just a few minutes before the opening 20, 17 and 15 meters went almost completely dead. I was operating 20 m CW and had a huge pile-up. Within one minute the pile-up completely disappeared. There was not even one weak signal to be heard. Almost instantly, the six meter radio cam alive and we had over 200 QSO-s in 90 minutes, mostly with Southern Europe. A very nice surprise! 20, 17 and 15 meters recovered within a few minutes and we had big pile-ups going 15 minutes after the beginning of the disturbance. As we have no Internet access, we could not look at conditions that caused this event.

We may have to go QRT as soon as tomorrow morning (Fri, Nov 23). We will only know in the morning after meeting with the Navy officers in charge of the large project taking place here, and who will be arriving at 06:00 local time.

Low Bands:

We got onto 160 just after sunset at 20:00 Z. We could hear EU stations working each other, but nobody could hear us. We QSY-end to 80 meters, where conditions were worse; 80 sounded like a bad 160. We then moved to 40 and worked both CW and SSB for a few hours, returning to 160 at 21:45 Z, by which time 160 was in decent shape and we were able to work a steady stream of EU stations until about 12:30 Z, when conditions deteriorated. We QSY-end the main station between 40 and 160 a few times, trying to make QSO-s while keeping our fingers in the 160 pie. We finished with 160 at SR but could not hear any JA-s, just the odd NA caller, with mostly weak to very weak signals. We quickly QSY-end to 40 at 07:30 where we were able to work a steady stream of JA-s until about 08:30, when the band suddenly closed to JA. Meanwhile, the second station was working NA, EU and JA on 80 meters, under good conditions until 08:00 Z..

[IK0ZCW]

PT0S went QRT at 10:30Z.

[IK0ZCW]

UPDATE from Pilot station HA5X:

After a long journey at sea, the team is now safely back to Brazil, where they are trying to catch up with what they had no chance for on the rocks. That is sleep and food – Latest news

The log of the last day was sent and is posted to the Logsearch, Clublog and LoTW. Also they have now been finally able to send – pictures http://pt0s.com/gallery.html

[IK0ZCW]

In Summary – PT0S

The PT0S DXpedition was long in the making. At the time when we started considering it, sometimes around the middle of 2011, the position of the Brazilian Navy, which controls the SPSP, was that there was no room for radio expeditions and their activities were incompatible with the mission of the scientific research station and the Navy. In other words, No DXpeditions!

At high tide, there were huge waves washing over the rocks surrounding the antenna base. It was dangerous and very wet.

Read full details http://pt0s.com/PT0S_Summary.pdf