Monday, January 31, 2011

South Orkney - once, twice . . . three times?

VP8ORK is the latest DXpedition on the HF bands, working from South Orkney Island, which is (sort of) between Chile and Antarctica way out in the ocean. Whoever said ham radio wasn't good for your geography? The VP8ORK team are mostly American operators, but the group includes a Canadian, a Singaporian (if there is such a word) and even a Tajik operator, Nodir EY8MM.



They have been QRV since January 27th and will be on the air, all going well, until February 8th. I thought I had ended the weekend with VP8ORK (DXCC VP8O) in my log three times, but upon checking their online log today I find that the 30m CW QSO I thought I had with them yesterday evening is not quite there. What do I mean by "not quite there?" I hear you ask, disdainfully?

Well, I checked for EI2KC and found I'm there twice - for QSOs on 15m SSB and 20m CW, but NOT for 30m CW. So then I searched the EI leaderboard on Clublog and in there I found EI2CC, which is possibly/probably my 30m CW QSO. Basically, they busted my callsign! And worse still, I didn't realise they did it! I'll put it down to lack of experience HI!

I tried them again this evening but they were weaker on 30 tonight than last night, so no luck. And 40m CW is just a mess. Here's some of the DX cluster spots which will give you some idea as to what's happening on that band:
VP8ORK   7024.0   31 Jan 22:40   K0DG   Veritable LID Convention
VP8ORK   7024.0   31 Jan 22:44   KE8G   Lids are out tonight!
VP8ORK   7024.0   31 Jan 22:37   NF9V   TNX FOR QRM DURING QSO

















Need I say any more?









4 comments:

  1. Well Done Anthony the are hard to work between them having a small signal and all the Lids in EU it is a challenge.

    Busted Calls are a nightmare as the usually just say to work them again if only it was that easy HI

    73's
    Trevor
    EI2GLB

    ReplyDelete
  2. Trevor,

    100% agree - "work us again" ain't that easy. I've tried them two nights running now on 30m and no luck. They were stronger than before last night on that band and still I couldn't get them. Damn!!!

    73

    ReplyDelete
  3. I spent at least 6 hours trying them on 20m RTTY yesterday with no contact.

    there RX window was over 6khz it was impossible to know where the were listening.

    lets hope today will be better.

    Trevor

    ReplyDelete
  4. Trevor,

    All I could rely on for where they were listening was the DX cluster but they seemed to be listening anything from 1 to 4 kc up which is a wide slot, especially when you can't hear most of those calling him. So I was poking around in the dark too. Very frustrating.

    ReplyDelete

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