St. Lucia - Day Four

Today has been non-stop contacts across the entire group on most bands.  17 metres has been hopping most of the day.  I was able to work many European contries this morning and this afternoon was spent working US stations.

So far my modest efforts have yielded four continents, 27 states in the US and 29 unique countries.  Some of the guys here will work 24 hours a day so it seems, but I tend to go in spurts and then get involved in a project.

Middle of the afternoon one of our group came down to the gazebo to join me for a while and set up his gear.  When he powered up the 12V supply for his radio BOOM!  He apparently had been working so far from a 110V outlet and the gazebo is 220V only.  Oh sigh...  We opened up the supply but there had been a rather significant explosion in there and so he tossed it in the bin.  Apparently there is one or two of these that bite the dust in this way on every trip of the group down here.  I switched everything to 220V before I left home to avoid such nasties.  Oh well.

St. Lucia - Day Three

Last evening I was sitting out on the gazebo listening to the surf and watching a cruise ship wander by the north end of the island.  It is a lousy picture from a mobile phone, but you can get the idea.

I was able to extricate my gear from the authorities and before heading back to the villa, we had lunch on the beach.  The island has lots of dogs running around loose and there was an assortment of them hanging out under the tables looking for a handout.

After getting back to the villa I was able to quickly get on the air and make about 25 contacts in quick succession and later in the evening our wonderful villa hosts brought us a very fine Indian cuisine meal to cap off the evening.

St. Lucia - day two

Today was a lot of antenna building, troubleshooting and for me a bit of frustration at the fact that my gear is still held prisoner by customs.  I am starting to adapt to "island time", but when trying to deal with government officials are very friendly and trying to help but offer to have the necessary individual call back when they come in, not being able to find the phone number I am using to talk to them, but they will figure it out, yadda, yadda...

So, frankly I am just happy to be here.  I have been so head-down for the last year to 1.5 years, it is just good to not be working and just trying to relax a bit.  I did get on 20 metres with a dipole antenna and a borrowed KX3 transceiver today and had fun collecting a couple dozen contacts, mostly in the states, but did get Spain and Canary Island as well.  It is fun being the station everyone is trying to work.  St. Lucia is not rare by any means, but does draw interest, so I enjoyed that process.

I did manage late in the afternoon to determine what the local officials needed from me in order to be able to release my gear from customs and they agreed to email me copies of the necessary paperwork.  My colleague that is in the same boat with one of his pieces of equipment finally got his updated paperwork submitted right at 16:54 (4:54pm) so he didn't hear back today.  Hopefully that will be at the top of this guy's in-box in the morning and we can finally go rescue the rest of my luggage.  So, I suspect much of tomorrow will be spent driving the length of the island twice.

We went shopping for food and supplies today for the eight of us and I about had a heart-attack when the bill was over ECD $750.00  (East Caribbean Dollars).  However, the exchange rate is about 2.7 to 1 so you basically get to divide that number by nearly 3 to see the actual cost in USD (US Dollars).

So, tomorrow looks like we should be on all bands except for 160 and 6 metres.  We ran into some problems getting an antenna up on 160 and 6 metres was the last priority for folks, but we have a small group working on it so I suspect we will be on all bands by end of day.

If you want to check out the villa we have for the week, you can read all about it at the website here.

So, I am enjoying hanging out on the deck listening to the surf.  We have a bit of wind tonight and it is a nice breeze.  If you want to work St. Lucia island tomorrow should be a good time to try it.  We usually spot on dx clusters as J6/homecallsign so our frequencies should be easy to find on web sites like http://dxsummit.fi.  Just search for J6 and you will find where we are hanging out.  Give us a call!

J6/KO7M - St. Lucia

Our license approval was granted yesterday (yay!) for operating on St. Lucia.  I will be operating as J6/KO7M.  Here is the rig I am taking:

We are still waiting on customs forms which hopefully will arrive today or else we may have a bit of a sit and wait when we arrive on Sunday.

I must admit I felt a little guilty sneaking off the the islands ahead of our first winter snow that is predicted for this week...  For about 19 nano-seconds...

St. Lucia - DX News posting

Hey!  We made the ARRL DX news posting today!  See the "St. Lucia" listing below!  I will be operating at J6/KO7M.


SB DX @ ARL $ARLD049
ARLD049 DX news

ZCZC AE49
QST de W1AW
DX Bulletin 49  ARLD049
From ARRL Headquarters
Newington CT  December 1, 2016
To all radio amateurs

SB DX ARL ARLD049
ARLD049 DX news

This week's bulletin was made possible with information provided by
QRZ DX, the OPDX Bulletin, 425 DX News, The Daily DX, DXNL, Contest
Corral from QST and the ARRL Contest Calendar and WA7BNM web sites.
Thanks to all.

RODRIGUES ISLAND, 3B9.  Olaf, G0CKV is QRV as 3B9HA and is active
holiday style on the HF bands until December 12.  He is also usually
active on 160 and 80 meters around his local sunset from 1400 to
0100z.  QSL to M0OXO.

FIJI, 3D2.  Chris, VK3FY will be QRV as 3D3FY from December 6 to 14.
Activity will be holiday style on 80 to 10 meters using CW and SSB.
QSL via M0OXO.

MAURITANIA, 5T.  Vladimir, UA4WHX is QRV as 5T9VB from Nouakchott.
He is active on 80 to 10 meters using CW, SSB and RTTY.  His length
of stay is unknown.  QSL to home call.

TONGA, A3.  Hiro, JA6WFM is QRV as A31MM from Nuku'alofa until early
2017.  Activity is on 160 to 6 meters.  QSL via EA5GL.

CAPE VERDE, D4.  Larry, OH5XP and Zaba, OH1ZAA are QRV as D4X from
Sal Rei City on Boa Vista Island, IOTA AF-086, until December 5.
Activity is on 40, 30, 20 and 6 meters, and 70 MHz.  QSL via OH6GDX.

ANTARCTICA.  Francois, F4HLT is QRV as FT3YL from the Dumont
d'Urville Station on the Adelie Land group, IOTA AN-017.  Activity
is on 80 to 10 meters using mostly SSB.  His length of stay is
unknown.  QSL via F6KPQ.

SAINT MARTIN, FS.  Paul, K9NU, James, N9TK, John, W9ILY and John,
K9EL are QRV as FS/home calls until December 10.  Activity is on the
HF bands using CW, SSB and RTTY.  QSL to home calls.

ST. LUCIA, J6.  Operators W3FF, W6PNG, W6LDX, KI8R, K0BBC, WJ1B and
KO7M will be QRV as J6/home calls from December 4 to 12.  W3FF and
W6HFP will be QRV as J68FF and J68HF, respectively.  Activity will
be on 160 to 6 meters from various locations on the island.  QSL via
operators' instructions.

SLOVENIA, S5.  Special event station S509PMC is QRV during December
and January to call attention to the Peace Messenger City program.
QSL via S59DCD.

CRETE, SV9.  Members of the Radio Amateur Association of Chios are
QRV as SZ9/SZ8ARC/p from various locations on Crete until December
3.  QSL direct to SZ8ARC.

ANTARCTICA.  Oleg, ZS1OIN plans to be QRV as RI1ANA from the
Molodyozhnaya research station until April 2017.  Activity is on 160
to 10 meters.  QSL to home call.

KAZAKHSTAN, UN.  A number of stations are QRV in December with the
UP25 prefix to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Kazakhstan's
independence.  QSL via operators' instructions.

UKRAINE, UR.  Special event station EO25UD is QRV during December to
celebrate the 25th anniversary of UARL, the Ukrainian national ham
radio club.  QSL via UR7UD.

TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS, VP5.  Dave, W5CW is QRV as VP5/W5CW from
Providenciales, IOTA NA-002, until December 13.  Activity is on 160
to 6 meters using CW and SSB.  He plans to be active as VP5CW in the
ARRL 160 Meter contest and the upcoming ARRL 10 Meter contest.  QSL
direct to home call.

PRINCE EDWARD AND MARION ISLANDS, ZS8.  David, ZS1BCE is QRV as ZS8Z
from Marion Island, IOTA AF-021, until May 2018 while working as a
communications technician.  Activity is on the HF bands using SSB
and various digital modes when time permits.  QSL direct to ZS1LS.

THIS WEEKEND ON THE RADIO.  The ARRL 160-Meter Contest, NCCC RTTY
Sprint, QRP 80-Meter CW Fox Hunt, NCCC CW Sprint, TARA RTTY Melee,
Wake-Up QRP CW Sprint, TOPS Activity CW Contest, 10-Meter RTTY
Contest and the SARL Digital Contest are all on tap for this
upcoming weekend.

The ARS Spartan CW Sprint is scheduled for December 6.  The CWops
Mini-CWT CW Test, Phone Fray and QRP 40-Meter CW Fox Hunt are
scheduled for December 7.

Youngsters On The Air, YOTA, runs during the month of December.  A
number of stations with the YOTA suffix are active for the event.

The ARRL National Parks on the Air event runs during all of 2016 to
mark the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service.

Please see November QST, page 94 and the ARRL and WA7BNM Contest web
sites for details.
NNNN

/EX

DX-pedition coming up in December

Well, a week from today, I am off to the British West Indies for a week or so of ham radio fun.  A group of 8 of us are headed to St. Lucia for a mini DX-pedition.  I will be operating 160 thru 6 metres as J6/KO7M.  Here is the email to DX News from the trip organizer, Budd Drummond W3FF.

On Nov 25, 2016, at 3:28 PM, Budd Drummond <w3ff@buddipole.com> wrote:

Travel plans are set for the 8th BIC ("Buddies in the Caribbean") mini-DXpedition to St Lucia (J6).  Eight operators, some of whom have never experienced the "other side" of a pileup, will be operating from Chateau Devaux on the NE side of St Lucia from December 4th through the 12th, 2016.

This suitcase DXpedition will operate QRP to 100 watt radio stations using Buddipole antennas to make contacts from the villa, the surrounding mountains, and (of course) from St Lucia's superb beaches.

The eight operators are:  Paul W6PNG,  Thom W6LDX, Mike KI8R, Matt K0BBC, Harold WJ1B,  Jeff KO7M, Chris J68HF (W6HFP) and Budd J68FF (W3FF).  Ops will preface their own US calls with J6/.

Team members will operate several CW, SSB and/or digital mode stations on 160-6 Meters from the villa while others make contacts with portable setups from remote J6 locations. 

Per tradition, meeting and operating with local hams while on J6 is one of our key goals. 

QSO confirmation and QSLs will be available via LOTW or direct via information on each operator's www.QRZ.com page.