Earlier today we put a tweet out (see below) regarding VP6DX which included a recording of their 80m CW signal heard in Japan in early February 2008.
Absolutely agree. To me, this was the best expedition of all time and has not been bettered. They were the first to absolutely nail down every single band, consistently fantastic RX and TX performance and slick, professional operating from start to finish. Legendary.
— Michael G7VJR (@g7vjr) August 24, 2021
We have indeed read a few times this particular DXpedition is considered to be the among the best (if not the best) of all time, so this prompted DX-World reader Oliver, F6EPN to send the entire (scanned) copy of the VP6DX story. It’s posted below for everyone else to enjoy. Thanks Oliver !
DK6AO ………. True …… very true …. Bliss
…….73
It must be December 2007 when I received a phone call from Carsten, DL6LAU. Do you have some time to help me with some antenna work ? Sure.
We were in the garden of his house near Hamburg, it was a cold and wet day. So we cut wires for the 2 element vertical single band yagis (VDA designed by Uli, DJ2YA), preassembled the antennas.
I couldn´t imagine that these antennas will work properly, but Carsten was convinced.
No “normal” beams and a distance of 15.000 km from DL. Could that work during that phase of the sunspot cycle ?
A few weeks later I left the Munich office early driving to DJ6ZM/DL1A´s superstation in his furniture store in Germering. Stuck in the traffic, so I was happy to climb the steps to the station and fired up the transceiver and Acom 2000 linear.
Heard on 15 mtrs a clear and loud signal 539 and had the proof the VDA antenna was the right choice. 180 seconds for the heating (it is a long time) of the Acom gave enough time to find the split on CW. First call and in the log . Wow, I was really happy !! Heard no further signals on 15 mtrs.
It was the right team with Eric and Carsten as leaders, a superb operator team, fantastic advisers on all fields with so much experience and of course the braveheart crew.
Hope that we will see Dx expeditions like this after corona.
An NO FT8!