VK5GR Amateur Radio Adventures

A good friend once told me, everything is enhanced with statistics! So here are some tallies for my operation here at YJ0AG Vanuatu

The workhorse band as always was 20m although a sizeable contribution came from 17 and 40m. The low bands fared well with the same number of contacts on 80m as 15m. 61% of the contacts came from bands above 14MHz while 39% came from bands below 14MHz.

Mode wise it was a relatively even spread with SSB and FT8 roughly equally split, followed by CW then RTTY. This showed the greatly increased focus on SSB and CW modes this trip compared with Niue last year.

Finally, the chart everyone always comments on. As always when operating in the pacific it is hard to not work the Asian stations and they feature heavily in the log. I am however pleased to see that both NA and EU were well represented as was OC (as it should being my home region). Unfortunately SA and AF were insignificant, despite several times when SA stations were being seen on FT8 calling CQ SA. There are clearly a lot of stations that need a geography lesson. It seems whenever I called for a region on FT8 that was exactly the region I didnt work. Not sure what to do about that. I spent a lot of time manually selecting who to call next to try and control the balance.

In the last 2 days I also tried to prioritise first time entries into the log as opposed to slot hunters. Again hard to do on FT8 and often saw me madly checking callsigns in N1MM before selecting them to answer.

The grand totals for the trip are:

Total QSOs : 3357
Total Uniques: 2234 (66.55%)

Not a bad effort for a one man show on holidays. This was carried out over 85Hrs of operating at an average QSO rate of 40/hr across the 2 weeks.

Where did we work?

Thanks to everyone for all the QSOs – without you on the other end trips like these would be very lonely!

Thank you everyone for all of the contacts! Time to tear the station down and pack it away for transport home tomorrow. Its been loads of fun. I worked 96DXCCs over 3200 contacts in 12 days covering CW, SSB, FT8 and RTTY modes from 160-10m.

The following map gives an idea of the reach we achieved this year from Vanuatu.

A full write up and tourist report will follow! Vanuatu is an amazing if not crazy place – a must see destination for any intrepid traveller!

73 de Grant YJ0AG / VK5GR / E6AG

The Rise of the HexBeam

It has taken about 6 hours of hot sweaty work but I am pleased to announce that the 20-6m HexBeam is now in the air and working fabulously. Currently as I type this I have a pileup on 20m FT8 more than 20 stations deep. A big thanks again to Ant MW0JZE who special ordered one of his Light weight portable HexBeams for me.

The Operating Position

Meanwhile, the operating position is also established. Apart from some TVI issues forcing restricted power on some bands during viewing hours everything is working 100%. I only forgot one cable – but fortunately ComputerWorld here in Port Vila had the missing USB link for the SDR receiver.

Now to settle in, enjoy the DX and slip into island life yet again….. 73 de Grant YJ0AG / VK5GR / E6AG

Departure Looms: 16th April

Only 11 days to go before we depart for Vanuatu and our next DX Holiday adventure! Everything is falling into place. The gear is all tested, accommodation has been reconfirmed, flights are confirmed and we have finally solved the customs conundrum (called how to export and then reimport something over $2000 in your luggage). We are now closely watching the weather (hoping that no more cyclones form out in the Pacific – they have been late this year) and watching the ionosphere hoping for good conditions. Final software shakedown will be this weekend with both the main and backup laptops being put through their paces before we lock out Windows and other software upgrades/changes (something I learned last time that I didnt want happening on “thin internet”.

If you would like a personalised propagation chart for when to try and work us, enter your grid locator here.

(Thanks to Jari OH6BG and the www.voacap.com team)

Vanuatu Propagation Planning

Updated Operating Plans

Bands that I will be operating on will include FT8 and CW by request on 160m (including 1840/1908 split operation), FT8, CW and SSB on 80m and then most modes on 40m-10m. I will try and pay attention to and be on air for the openings to Europe in particular (as YJ to there is in the top 60 most wanted) as well as providing time on 80m where YJ also is wanted. I am planning more SSB operation this time compared to Niue as well and will self spot when I can come up on air (noting that family does come first and principally this is a holiday for them and me above all else). Principal times I am likely to be on air are from 0600-0800, 1000-1500 UTC and 1900-2300UTC most days. I will also try and operate at various times during the day as well – however that will not be daily.

NOTE: VK/ZL/OC/SA/AF stations can call at any time!

If you are on one of these call areas your calls will be welcome at any time regardless of which region I may be calling. On a volume basis there are comparatively few hams in those areas so the disturbance to any pileup will be minimal. I will also try to identify the best times for regions like South America and try to particularly target there on the appropriate band time.

I am prepared to take requests for Skeds as well, however can make no promises that I can fulfill them all. If you want a sked tried, email me at vk5gr.radio@gmail.com

Looking forward to working you all on the bands! 73 de Grant VK5GR / YJ0AG!