[NEWS UPDATE] – The story of this DXpedition can be found here, written by Gerben PG5M. 

[DECEMBER 3 – QRT] – Pictures courtesy of Ronald PA3EWP. 

5R8PA – 5R8CG

LISTEN TO 5R8WG ON 12 SSB

LISTEN TO 5R8PA ON 17 SSB

[NOVEMBR 27] During the first night we were operating on 160m one of the top-loading wires was broken. We had to wait for the next day to do a repair during daylight. Once we replaced both top-loading wires the 18m spiderpole could be erected again and 160m was operational again.

Since we had quite some trouble with interworking of the antennas and amplifiers (going in protection mode), we were exploring some alternatives. Finally we installed a sloping dipole far away from our operating room. Behind the swimming pool there was a rather steep slope. We have fixed the top part of the dipole to a structure near the swimming pool and the lower end to a tree 15 meters lower. A 110 meter long coax was running to the patch panel near the operating room. Resonance was on 7.055 kHz with a SWR 1.11. With this new 40m antenna we could much better combine some bands which made us more productive.

Funny thing was that in the evening the Christmas-like decoration lights at the pool area of the hotel were flashing and you could clearly see that is was CW! The owner of the hotel did not recognize it came from our operation.

Johannes 5R8PA also installed the DX pedition QO-100 station (provided by other PA’s) and made already some 200 QSO’s!

Generally we have a noise level of S5 on the lower bands which is not ideal.

Updates also posted here