DXpeditions
| D68C story (By G3XTT)From eham.net | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
How D68C Made 168,722 QSO'sFive Star DXers go to D68 – Bulletin No.6("reaching the parts that other Comoros expeditions have not reached") We’re back! The D68C operation is now history, and will go into the record books in almost every category imaginable. This bulletin brings you some facts and figures, and news on QSLing, forthcoming presentations of D68C, etc. Some reminiscences Now that we are back home, a number of articles are in preparation and will appear in the amateur radio press in due course. But, to whet your appetites, here is a (very) brief overview. After almost three, very arduous days of setting everything up, D68C hit the airwaves around midnight local on Thursday 8th February, working into Europe and the US on 8 bands simultaneously. We can only guess at what the PacketClusters looked like for the first few minutes as the spots started to appear! Suffice to say that we ended the first 24 hours of operation by beating the FO0AAA record for "most DXpedition QSOs in a day" with a new record of 16,412, and beat the FO0AAA record a second time on Day 2! The pile-ups were incessant, right to the end, despite some DX Clubs having said to us beforehand that D68 wasn't needed. Not by the hardened DX types, perhaps, but certainly by the wider audience. We were delighted to put D68 into the logs of novices, QRPers, those with indoor antennas, even a ham in W6 using a 10m handie-talkie! And we really did make an effort to give everyone, even the "big guns" some new slots. Topband proved to be tough going, due to the constant tropical storms across the African continent, but we worked through to the mid-West of the US on several nights, and the other way into Japan as well as putting a couple of KH6 stations into the log. At the other end of the spectrum, 6m didn’t offer the big openings into Europe that we had hoped for, but nevertheless we were able to work many stations in Southern Europe and North Africa, as well as across into Japan, Hong Kong and other parts of Asia. We held back with RTTY, as demand on the other modes was so high but, once started, put over 4,000 QSOs in the log (a good thousand or so higher than any previous DXpedition), along with over 1,000 QSOs on PSK. And many of you (over 3,000!) enjoyed the novelty of an FM QSO on 10m. Sadly, we were unable to undertake satellite operation. This was mainly because our plans had been centred around AO-40 which, in the event, was unavailable at the time of our DXpedition. It is no secret that we had hoped to be the first DXpedition to exceed 100,000 QSOs, but to do so before the second weekend of our operation was way beyond our imaginings. Our final tally of 168,722 QSOs is 75% above the previous ZL9CI record, suggesting that the level of interest in DX chasing is perhaps greater than any of us had ever thought. Here are the overview statistics (there are some minor inconsistencies in these tables, as we are still reconciling some of the log data):
(We have used OH2BU’s Mega-DXpedition Honor Roll as our source of previous records) Total UK QSOs: 13,689, UK Uniques: 3,452, Overall Rate: 238 QSOs/hr.
Nevada Comoros Trophies Claims are already starting to come in for the various individual and club awards we announced before our trip. Check out earlier bulletins, look at our Web site or e-mail for details if you don’t have them already. We would like to encourage applications. We think the 18 trophies will be very attractive and well worth having in the shack. Closing date for applications is 30th April.
Contests For logistical reasons we were only able to make a modest showing in the CQ WPX RTTY Contest (though we made up for this later, with our record number of RTTY QSOs!). However, as promised, we did make a major effort in the ARRL CW Contest, and are claiming a new African multi-two record of just under 3.7m points, a 1m point increase on the previous record set in 1997 by V51Z. To our surprise the 4,554 contest QSOs also added over 1,000 unique callsigns to the D68C log, setting our minds at rest as to whether, by entering the contest, we would simply be working the same stations all over again. QSLing With so many QSOs in the log, G3SWH’s postman is already working overtime. QSL card design is well underway. At present we are finalising details with some key sponsors. In due course we will let everyone know when the cards will be delivered to G3SWH. Presentations D68C presentations are already scheduled for Visalia (the Sunday breakfast), Dayton and Friedrichshafen, as well as at a number of UK club meetings and events. Please let us know if you are an event organiser and are interested in a presentation. In some cases a team member will be able to help out. In other cases we may be able to loan a slide set (one will also be lodged with NCDXF in due course). We took a considerable amount of video footage as well, and hope to edit this into suitable presentation material in due course.
Sponsors As might be imagined, mounting a record-breaking DXpedition on this scale is expensive, and would not have been possible without help from a number of sponsors, both corporate and individual. We want to acknowledge and thank each and every one of them: Corporate: Amateur Radio, Array Solutions, Cable Experts, CQ Ham Radio Japan, Cushcraft, Daily DX, Dog Park Software, Dunestar, Force 12, Funk Amateur, Le Galawa Beach Hotel, Linear Amp UK, Martin Lynch & Sons, Nevada, Patcomm, UK Radiocommunications Agency, Titanex, Vibroplex, World Space, Yaesu Young Amateur of the Year (M0DXR): Harlow & District ARS, BAE Systems, Johnson Stevens Agencies, Nortel Networks, Raytheon Web Page Since our return, Webmaster Nigel G4KIU has added several picture galleries, anecdotes, statistics, etc. to the Web page. He also tells us that between 8-28 Feb, the total number of individual pages viewed was 256,714. Awesome! Just to remind you, the URL is www.dxbands.com/comoros Don Field G3XTT, NK1G (g3xtt@lineone.net) 16 March 2001 (D68C Publicity Officer) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| mnicolao added:06-11-2006 00:06 |
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