[AARA] Swaziland DXpedition 3DA0ET

Tue Nov 19 06:55:39 CST 2013

Herman,

Please email this out for me.

I received this email from Bob Hardie W5UQ today, he is on the Swaziland 
DXpedition 3DA0ET. According to Bob they have over 5,000 QSO's and one 
of the hams on the DXpedition works CW at 79 WPM??????  Bob is the 
gentleman that gave a talk about his DXpedition to Montserrat at our 
last hamfest.  I think most of you will find this email interesting reading.

BTW- Bob is also the USA Expert Amp repairman.

73
Glen Thibodeaux
KF5FNP

-

To a bunch of my friends,

Shift No. 1: You will probably miss since it is only an hour 45mins away 
from now.  I will be on CW from 1000 to 1200 local or 2am to 4am your 
time today(Tuesday).  They just asked me to split a shift with someone 
else..................it's 08:15am here now or 12:15am (Tuesday) your 
time... you are probably asleep when I'm on this shift.

Shift No. 2: CW on air today at 1600 to 1800 here and your time should 
be 0800 to 1000 or 8am to 10am Texas time Tuesday.
Not sure what band, but will be CW.

Will let you know when I know about other shifts/times I'll be on.  I 
have learned the RTTY setup and will take a shift on it later.  
Christopher Plummer, not the movie star, is on RTTY now.  HI.  Oh yes, 
his accent sounds like Michael Caine, the actor.

I have been mainly on the building all antennas crew.  Today we will 
erect the 160m vertical and also an 80 meter vertical. (DX engineering 
aluminum tight fitting tubes) One we measured is 23.54 meters long. But 
we may make it a bit longer.  One of the guys went to figure that out.  
Will see.

The 80m vertical will be an inverted L to make up for its shorter 
length.  So, right now, we have four HexBeams and several other wire 
antennas. Example, 30M wire antenna.  A 6m vertical beacon is set up.  
On the website is a telephone number for anyone to call if they hear the 
beacon.  It goes to Hal, ZS6WB... I may remember his call 
wrong...sorry...  but he is near Johannesburg and will relay the info.

We are also putting up a beverage antenna later today.   I hear that 
they plan to put up two.  One a convenient direction that is not  
towards the USA and later one that is more towards USA but won't be a 
really good beverage antenna.  Not sure what they meant about that.  
Accents cause it to be hard to hear all being said.  Plus they turn 
their back to me and all I hear is mumbling.  HI.   The USA is to the 
Northwest of here.  We have very little real estate NW of the complex to 
run antennas.  It would need to go SE and would be long path.

We seem to be working MOSTLY Europe, Asia, Australia/NZ and Africa.  
Very little South and North America stations so far.  I will check to 
see if my info is accurate, however.  Will follow up later on spread of 
Q's.

It poured down rain very early Monday morning.  Mostly cloudy yesterday 
for putting up antennas.  Good weather for working. Not too hot but a 
bit humid.  Not bad.  Today is cooler and cloudy so far.  Some are 
wearing sweaters and long shirts.  A cool front must have come through.  
It's not nearly as hot as it was when we arrived Saturday night at 
midnight.  Sunday was sunny and hot.

We had a meeting yesterday and most problems were worked out. Everyone 
seems to be cooperative.  Some have strange personalities... but to be 
expected until one knows them better.

Lost power to some of the rooms last afternoon and evening.  Of course, 
off air.  It was fixed. Then lost power to whole complex around 11pm or 
midnight for a while.  Got power back during the night.

See SwaziDX.org/News for latest news.    With five rigs set up, we 
should be increasing the Q's faster.  There will be 2 SSB and 2 CW and 1 
RTTY rig.  With four Hexbeams, some rig will have to be on lower bands 
antennas.  Hexbeams cover 20 through 6meters including WARC bands.

*_We are over 5,000 QSOs now. _*With one week, or more, left to go and 
CW contest this weekend.  I leave Monday morning early on the 25th but 
some are staying until the 27th with limited antennas and rigs setup as 
we will take several antennas on Sunday afternoon/evening.  Four of us 
will leave Monday morning, four more on Tuesday and rest later. We have 
13 persons  on expedition.

DL8JJ, Emil, worked over 2,000 Q's before we got most of the other rigs 
and antennas up and going Sunday evening and Monday morning.  He is the 
one that is on the air the most of anyone. He was up all Saturday 
night/Sunday morning(after arrival midnight) building a hexbeam and 
erecting it.  Got some guys to stay up with him to help.
Then he was on the air asap and worked around the clock Sunday into the 
night. Grabbed some shuteye and got back on as soon as he could.  We 
were bringing him food and drink.

Emil, DL8JJ, is the guy that picked Frosty and I up at the Frankfort 
Germany airport, took us to his home, and we slept some as he went back 
to work.  He and his wife came home later and took us to dinner then 
back to airport.  He's a great guy. His rig is something else to 
describe.  I'll do so in some follow up emails, if you are interested.

He will work only CW here and can copy 85 WPM.   He is upset because he 
can't seem to get over 79 WPM sending.   HI.  He is the youngest one 
here.  I am next to the oldest.  Sam, from So Africa, who owns a Radio 
Store near Johannesburg, I forget his call, but he is one year older 
than me. His heritage is mainly oriental. He and I were the grunts on 
building antennas for all verticals and we had several other people to 
help build the hexbeams.  They went together much faster with people 
spaced around them to thread the wires through the eyelets.

Most all is done on laptops using N1MM logging.  Wifi was hooked up 
yesterday/Monday and Roger Jones, ZA6RJ, co leader of DXpedition with 
Frosty, is trying to get upload to online logs going.  He's being pulled 
several ways but doing a great job.  I thought they were going to link 
the five rigs laptops together to collect QSO data.  But sounds like 
that is not the plan now. Roger will collect the data and upload daily I 
think.

He is also the one that uploads the NEWS on SwaziDX.ORG website.  Very 
nice guy and never complains... well, not much. HI.   Hard to not 
complain a bit with the conditions we've had. Not to go into some of 
that.....   every DXpedition hits obstacles as you know.

See you guys.  I started to send an email to one guy and decided to 
expand it to several of you.

Bob Hardie
W5UQ at  3DA0ET

Bob H

-- 
W5UQ.com .... and the beat goes onnnnnn!

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