VK9LA Lord Howe Island DXpedition 2009

How does this sound like from the other end?

Some of you probably wonder how does an expedition’s pileup sound from the other and at the station you try to work. Here you are - I recorded these files on my MD recorder and transferred them into mp3 files so you can listen to some VK9LA’s noizzzzzzzzzz… :-)

SV2KBS on 40m SSB part 1:

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SV2KBS on 40m SSB part 2:

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SQ8X on 40m SSB part 1 (it’s for you Ronan ;-)

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SQ8X on 40m SSB part 2:

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SQ8X on 40m SSB part 3:

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SQ8X on 40m SSB part 4:

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P.S. Apologies for a bit overdriven audio quality, I set REC setting a bit wrong - will try to do it right next time I make some additional recordings (will definitely do!).

P.S. 2: will try to take some recording tonight while I’ll be on 160 cw.

Top band problems…

I recently mentioned issues related to 160 meters, I mean those sonar howling stuff. In addition something even worse bothers all of us now. There is a huge tropical cyclone/hurricane called “Jasper” [ link 1 ] [ link 2 ]wandering between FK and VK’s eastern coast. We are in touch with VK9GMW guys and we know the struggle from this as well even more… This TC causes ENORMOUS cracking QRN on 160, 80, 40, 30m. I’ve been trying to battle with static crashes on 40m ssb last night but I just had to give it up. We are aware of problems with working us there, but try to put yourselves in our position, please… Nevertheless, we don’t give up and will try to do our best on top bands!

Here comes the online log

Hi guys, just managed to launch the 1st VK9LA online log and it is available at http://www.odxg.org/onlinelog/. Note we still miss like 400 first QSOs logged manually on paper. We will try to re-type  missing Qs asap. Please also keep in mind WE ARE NOT responsible for logs’ check-ins and correcting them.

160m is a real struggle. Band conditions and some strange noises like sonar or something. I was told they may come from some fishing nests which are usually equipped in signal transmitter. However guys responsible for the band will keep on checking it in.

I’ve been having a LOT fun today on 17m cw running 2h pile-up and then 1h on 40 ssb. It was great to catch old friends from EU this time :-)

Just added some more new photos to the gallery and you can see them in the gallery section there…

P.S. Getting some recordings of the other side of the pileup I took here with MD recorder - gonna put them here soon.

Stan SQ8X

Paradise found

Apart of the ham radio, as we sometimes notice what’s outside our radio shacks, the island is really beautiful. And I mean beautiful. Well brother, if you haven’t been here I can only recommend you to get every penny you have, sell everything you don’t need, book a ticket at Qantas Airlines, book room in Blue Lagoon and get here to the Southern Pacific.

Lord Howe is as friendly a place as you can imagine. Everyone you pass on the road you wave to, no one locks the door, you have self service snorkelling gear rental at the beach. Besides of that Lord Howe guys found great balance between the great untouched nature and human comfortable living. Oh man, that is really unique to find beaches with no one, and in couple of meters a good road with great lawn.

We enjoy every moment being in here. Honestly, if you leave your radio shack you could spend whole day out there forgeting about your addiction to ham radio, leaving your duties as the radio operator.We take nice swim bath every morning at sunrise at, mentioned earlier, Neds Beach. The water is around 23. There is always a lot of different fish along us, even if you stay in shallow water. They love everyone who takes bread and feed them. In the night, the sky above is spectacular. I have never seen (but I have not seen much in my life haha) so much on the sky. There is great bright milky way, southern cross and orion which leads you evereywhere your immagination can take you.

We gonna try to provide as soon as possible photos. But there are some limitations that we have. One is the time and our duties over here. The second one is the internet connection which doesn’t carry much transfer. So what we do is give you some photos hopefuly daily and after we return, or maybe even in Sydney we upload everything on Flickr.

E-mail avalanche

We’ve got strike by an email avalanche. Our deep apologies but we cannot handle that much of requests and inquires. So we decided we will not reply to emails we’re receiving while on LHI - sorry about that but we can’t spend our time on PC that much… if you have any important questions r suggestions, please contact our pilot station - Don N1DG. We are conscious everybody asks for some feedback, but it’s impossible to deal with that much of questions we’re receiving. However we will try to provide as much essential information over here at our blog as we can manage. Going back to our antenna farm.