[QRT] – 3DA0RU is now QRT with 94K QSOs in the log. Team photo for DX-World below – thanks guys! 

The expedition has finished its activity on the amateur radio bands. Everyone is alive and well, equipment and antennas dismantled and the team left for the border of the Kingdom of Eswatini. During this expedition we made over 94 thousand QSOs on Amateur bands, including QO-100, 168 DXCC countries, on 6 continents. More details can be found at Clublog service. Upon return home, there is still work to be done to adjust the Expedition Log, as equipment failures were noted at some locations.

[OCTOBER 20] The team starts disassembling antennas and workstations this morning. By evening, one workplace will remain on the air. October 21, early in the morning, the team leaves the Kingdom of Eswatini and heads to Johannesburg to return home.

OCTOBER 19, 2021 – 3DA0RU is approaching 90K QSOs. Many thanks to Vasily, R7AL for the new pictures exclusively for DX-World. Vasily says:

It’s been a very hard DXpedition. Erecting multiple antennas, with difficult landscape / terrain but we are very happy with nearly 90K QSOs. Tomorrow is the last day of activity for the team. Now tired and happy, we thank the radio community for all support.

OCTOBER 13

  • Approx 200 Top Band QSOs made yesterday by R7AL.
  • Plans for 60m today or tomorrow, probably FT8 only using Inverted V. 
  • Another BOG will be added at the Digi site.
  • Lost QSOs on 40m been found. Next upload they will show. 
  • Team working on SSB problem (bad audio). 

OCTOBER 12

All planned antennas have been installed and workplaces have been set up. There were some casualties – one amplifier. At the moment, 2-3 CW / SSB radios and 3-4 radios in FT8 mode (normal mode) are on the air. The first QSOs were established on the 50 MHz band. The weather is fine.. [more]

OCTOBER 10

The team work in MSHV at normal fashion, not F/ H, as WSJT does not want to accept our callsign. This was confirmed by the author of the program and could not help. And the absence of the Internet does not allow automatic time synchronization, but team are working on it.

We specifically chose the second period for FT8 to make everyone understand that this is not a fox mode. Call us in a simple fashion, you can call higher by 1.5-2 khz and lower by 500 hertz. Do not call on our frequencies! QSO doubles are disabled, so if there was an answer and you are in doubt and call repeatedly for a long time and unsuccessfully, then there is a chance that you are already in the log.

OCTOBER 9: Many thanks to the team for sending pictures of their activity to DX-World.

 

OCTOBER 9

The team spent a lot of time yesterday installing the antennas. The main antennas are installed and the TOP band was printed tonight. LF reception is not good yet, but HF is fine. There are problems with the digital, WSJT does not work correctly because of the 3DA0 prefix, and there is no internet at the positions (except one) for time synchronization. The team is working on these problems.

OCTOBER 7

At 12:00z, 3DA0RU hit the airwaves. Remember to keep an eye on their blog for further updates.

OCTOBER 7 @ 10:00Z 

Yesterday evening (local time 19:00) the team arrived at the Eswatini border. Initially they were detained briefly, but all was fine in the end. This morning at 03:00 local time, they arrived at the QTH. It was a very difficult journey as heavy rain meant they were constantly helping / pulling cars out of the clay and mud. The final 5km took 5 hours. [Tnx UA3RF] 

OCTOBER 4 

Dates for this DXpedition have been brought forward and 3DA0RU team head off tomorrow, October 5th. Planned activity is now from October 7-21, 2021. The team also have a new website. See here: https://3da0.ru/en/