My good friend Ron DL3BPC / DU3BC borrowed my home brew 7QNL solid state PA.
He will be active from the Philippines, also during the Oceania DX contest and CQWW SSB in October.
So, when you work(ed) him, you work(ed) a bit of 7QNL too!
(click on image to enlarge and open in a new tab)
QSL design is almost ready.
Processing is expected to start in August/September.
Almost the whole trip is recorded. However in Holland I had no time left to
make an audio switch/mute box for the TX side.
Here a 2-way example of the YouTube movie where my reception is
inserted.
This is a recording from Ruud Vos (SWL13562) on 10m (pimped up a bit ; -)
After 58 (!) hours travelling we arrived home safe and sound.
We ‘lost’ one day due to heavy (!) fog/bad weather conditions at Blantyre Airport,
resulting in missing our connecting flights to Amsterdam.
With the help of ‘connections’ at Emirates our tickets were rerouted
(which is a story itself). Miraculously our luggage was routed correctly.
Due to the Karachi incidents we faced some issues (read: delays) in Dubai.
The whole airport felt nervous and was very crowded.
E.g. we were not allowed to ‘import’ coax cables via our hand luggage
into UAE. After Remco negotiated with UAE-customs our hand luggage
(with coaxes, rig etc etc) was allowed to ‘check in’ (separately).
As far as we could ascertain, all luggage arrived well in Amsterdam.
Remco received some mails concerning busted callsigns and/or errors.
Please route these mails to Alex PA1AW (qsl@pa1aw.nl) and issues will
be solved. Bottom line are the recordings, so don’t worry.
Total amount of QSO’s (excl dupes) is around 7700 (i.e. 7QNL and 7QØNL <- CQWPX).
At this time of writing some 7QNL is stored in Mpalaganga to reuse?
For now… we take some sleep, as spending 58 hours in/on airports
is not a vacation/DXpedition !
More to follow!
Today (June 8th) is the last day and the station will be dismantled.
This morning it was very foggy and very cold! The last 30m stint finished with a few more (NA) stations in the log. The evening before I worked a pile of JA’s with RTTY on 30m.
After the last 30m stint I tried 20m but, due to the bad propagation and the Field Day Contest, I only made a few QSOs.
Brake off strategy for today is as follows: first 30 and 20m. (already fixed at this time of writing ; -) This leaves the 12m and 17m antennas up.
During the day, while packing, I will be QRV on 12 and 17m. In the afternoon 12m will
be dismantled first (around 1600 UTC), after that 17m (around 1830 UTC).
Unfortunately today we encountered one of the longest power outages experienced:
around 3 hours, and the batteries of the laptops almost dried out.
It’s Sunday, so I cannot guarantee if the station will suffer from another power outage today. Let’s keep fingers crossed.
During a power outage yesterday I forgot to ‘reset the radio’ (in N1MM).
As a result QSOs between 1723 – 1925 UTC (RTTY) were logged wrong.
This will be fixed.
QSOs after 1925 UTC were RTTY QSOs on 30m (10.145 MHz).
Thus, when you do not see your QSO in Logsearch, don’t worry!
I had a lot of fun with the pile ups and looking forward to return to Malawi
(my licenses (7QNL and 7Q0NL) are valid till May next year : -)
Back in The Netherlands I will write a ‘full report’ with ‘lessons learned’
and other experiences.
Thanks to everyone, and especially the stations willing to work me,
either for an ATNO, new one, for the fun, to sponsor the project,
or for other reasons.
Special thanks to Alex PA1AW, who did an outstandingly good job!
At this time of writing I made around 7300 QSOs (dupes not included)
during the time available to make ‘socially accepted’ QSOs ; -)
After all, this was not a 101% hard core DXpedition, but a ‘holiday style’
operation, during which I tried to make the best of it.
Sorry for the power outages, and sorry for the collapse of my SSPA
power supply, resulting in 10 dB less 7QNL field strength during the last week.
73, Remco 7QNL / PA3FYM