VK9LA Lord Howe Island DXpedition 2009

Good news, bad news…

Hello! Will start with bad news ok? Good ones will improve our moods :-) I’m writing this post totally offline as we lost the Internet. Actually, the entire island went offline 2 days ago after we got hit by a tropical storm here. It’s all because of a very thick cloud cover blocking the sat link. There are very strong wind gusts reaching 70km/h since Saturday although it’s still warm and we wear t-shirts and shorts even during the night time. The ocean in VERY VERY rough and all trips like snorkeling and scenic cruises for tourists have been cancelled. Although we collected all logs (including all logs after the CQ WPX SSB contest) and merged them, we just can’t upload them. I’ve been trying to pass this info on the air to some ZL’s and hopefully it’s been already announced so that you know things have to wait for wx improvement now… We also have some rig issues. We lost 30m band pass filter and we must adjust roasters to not interfere any other bands while on 30. We also had major problems with Acom’s PA. It’s been tested in prior the expedition and it worked fine. Once we connected it at LHI, it seemed to be dead. Fortunately it’s been fixed and it works all fine now. Also the 40m antenna is back on the air.

We suffer from 2 things that bother the team: once the storm stroke, our noise level from 160 to 30 m reaches s9+. Sometimes it’s just impossible to work even JA’s who are probably the strongest next to VK’s and ZL’s here. However we managed to work some ZS’s over the South Pole which is the most difficult path for our and their location. We noticed a very weird thing last night. Suddenly all bands were gone like somebody switched the light off. All signals vanished in 30-60 seconds and bands became totally clean except the QRN. Then, after 25 min, signals stroke like somebody put the plug back into a socket again. Very interesting as it never happened to experience such super fast things to any of us like that before. Regarding the QRN level yet: there is also an airplane beacon situated on the island which helps pilots to locate the island. Time to time, when it operates, it adds like s1-2 of noise level at all stations…

I’ve got some kind of a virus infection of my throat and it hurts while speaking. Looks like I’m gonna reduce my SSB shifts dramatically as I try to avoid getting sicker. But will do my best during my night shifts on CW. I REALLY enjoy it and I never imagined I’d get along with those crazy pileups. It’s probably all thank to the Morse Runner which I use for off-the-air trainings at home. I do mistakes, of course, i.e. missing some characters at a first take but the longer I operate, the better. And I don’t log stations in until I’m 100% sure of their calls. I also try to pick up the weakest stations I can spot. I have a great fun in picking them up from the noise level and leaving huge guns for a next qsx round ;-) However after like 3-4h of operating cw my concentration takes a deep dive and I need some rest to handle pileups again. It’s all requiring more experience, which require more hours on cw, of course. Today I worked some of stations from my home area SP8 on 40/80 cw which was so nice! I also worked VK9GMW guys on 17/cw (with one take - it’s piece of cake from our part of the world heeee) and said “hi” to them. We really do cross our fingers for them as the place they’re transmitting from is one of the most dangerous reef locations for sailors in the world! Btw, somebody asked why are they stronger than us. The reason is simple: their antennas aren’t situated between huge hills like ours, but they are put straight into salt waters w/o any mountains around. In addition, they’re like 4000km towards North from our location which makes a huge difference regarding conditions, too.

Yesterday we took a lot of “official” pictures of the entire team that will be used on the VK9LA’s QSL card I’ve been asked to design. Will do with a real pleasure ;-)

I was told wx should slightly improve by Wednesday which makes some of us happy not only because the log uploads and checking our emails but also as the Mount Gower trip is set for that day. Attaching some of the newest pics we took. Can’t hardly wait to get this news posted for you. Ok going to bed as I’m supposed to get up at 02:45 here and to take a bike tire up to the cw camp. GN!

Gales lash Lord Howe Island

March 30 @ 10:30z

Source: Image from Japan Meteorological Agency satellite MTSAT-1R via Bureau of Meteorology.

On behalf of Stan & Pete, the following information from LHI has come to light:

The weather has changed dramatically on the island. Gale force winds are now lashing LHI. All satellite internet links are down. The weather forecast is set to improve by Wednesday, but nobody is 100% sure on this. The current forecast can be found here.

Due to having no available internet, it is currently not possible to upload the latest batch of logs. However, Stan mentions the logs are combined and put in order, so it’s just a matter of waiting and riding out the storm until the online logbook can be updated.

The heavy WX is taking its toll on the low bands. Static levels are incredibly high. The ops are using CW only on these bands at the moment as it’s easier to RX than SSB. Stan mentions he will be on 30CW later today and 15CW tomorrow.

MM0NDX on behalf of SQ8X/SQ9DIE

Log update

Just collected and merged all logs we’ve got for now (March 29, 07:00 utc) and put it online. Note, I and Pete SQ9DIE are NOT in charge of checking or correcting any entries. All questions regarding missing entries etc. must be sent to Bill VK4FW.

Online log, WPX and 160

Just a quick one this time: I’ve been on 160 last night our time and been trying to seek EU. But probably due to recent wx changes we are experiencing terrible statics on all low bands. And 160 is the worst regarding this. I managed to log in only 1 station today. Will keep on trying tomorrow at Eu sunset hours.

I had a really GREAT fun working on 40/CW between15-19z. Thanks for your efforts to break through those terrible QRM! I feel so happy for that person each time I manage log in somebody. It’s terrific!…

We are working on another major log update (probably inc. the latest WPX logs, too). Hope I’ll manage to get onlie tonight to post it. Stay tuned!

We are running 2 stations in multi for CQ WXP , Pete SQ9DIE spent like 11 hours there…

10h on CW and an exceptional trip to Ball’s Pyramid

One could think we are just running holiday operation style here. WRONG. Yep, leisure is a part of stay here, but it’s really hard to say if I’m having any rest in recent days as I get more and more into cw.

For last 2 days it’s been like dealing with a huge lack of sleep due to operating on bands during night time and being very active during daytime, too. We’ve been on 3,5h long trip. But let’s start this post with the ham stuff first.

After almost 4 hours spent on the sea, I went to bed for 1,5 hour at midnight. Chris VK3QB woke me up at 01:30 loc asking whether I could join the upper camp and help some with cw. So did I. 40 meters were great, but our 40m antenna went south right after a very sudden tropical rainfall. Later we discovered there was an issue with some water getting into a connector ruining its performance for good. We couldn’t get things fixed in total darkness there so I was forced to QSY to other bands. I started at Eastern Europe’s sunrise on 160 but after calling CQ for almost 1 hour and only 3-4 Q’s logged I just gave it up for a while as I’ve been not able to receive anything. Conditions were awful. 80m looked a bit better, but not that much as 40. After 8 hours I got swapped by Bob N2OO who continued on 160 while I’ve been battling with JA’s on 20 cw. Bob gave 160 up after 1h, too. After 9 hours on CW my concentration to pick up calls at once was really bad. I’ve been forced to resist one hour more while waiting for somebody to swap me. At the end I took a short recording for you while running the rest of my shift. I had big problems with that as once I got my MD recorder connected to rtx, audio became very dirty and harsh (it happens while on IC-7000 here on LHI but not on my 756 PRO 3 at home) making picking up calls really really difficult. So please forgive me all mistakes there at the very last of my 10th hour on the air last night. Nevertheless I’ve been really happy to run my very first pileups that long on cw in my life! Here comes the recording:

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Now back to the trip ;-)

Yesterday we took a boat to see one of Lord Howe’s unique and remote places. Its name is Ball’s Pyramid. It’s a part of very very old volcano’s piece located several miles from the main island towards South. It’s stretching right from the Pacific Ocean and it’s a very sharp, rough, solid and tall rock formation. Actually it’s the tallest rock like that in the world as its altitude exceeds 550 meters high! There’s another unique thing about this place. There are many endemic species of plants and animals living there and nowhere else in the world. One of good examples are extremely rare stick insects reaching 20cm long. They were supposed to vanish from Lord Howe’s surface something like 80 years ago and scientists have been assuming they completely extinct. One of the latest expeditions to Ball’s Pyramid discovered them again just a few years ago but only several dozen creatures were found there. The Australian government allowed to take some to the mainland and to breed them to help this species to survive. What was special about our trip was how we managed to get some closer to the Pyramid. When we’ve been leaving Lord Howe’s harbor, the ocean seemed to be just fine - calm and pleasant. But not anymore once we got into the wide open waters. It started to be REALLY rough and our boat used to feel taking a crazy bull rodeo ride! At one time we were hopping over huge, massive waves and then taking a deep dive several meters deep. And again, and again… Our skipper said it’s been really rough even for him either. The whole trip took 3,5 hours of up and downs. And there was no wonder Tony IZ3ESV and his YL Maddalena got sea sick badly … Our photos don’t express too much what we’ve being experiencing there. The video I took does in a way, maybe. Thanks God once we reached the Ball’s Pyramid, waters became a bit calmer. We had a chance to feed loads of sea birds following our path all trip long. It was so great to discover and experience a very rough side of the Lord Howe’s nature for a change! Pictures say for themselves…

I surprisingly didn’t get sea seek at all, but I needed some good refreshment after holding a boat’s railing for over 3 hours and jumping to resists waves’ and our boat’s dynamic rhythm. This trip just helped me to decide to have another one next week - to the top of the highest mointain here - Mount Gower…

P.S. Check the photo section for the newest pictures I’ve uploaded