How D68C Made 168,722 QSO's
Five 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):
|
Category |
Previous record |
Held by |
D68C |
|
Mixed |
96,004 |
ZL9CI |
168,722 |
|
SSB |
41,343 |
ZL9CI |
75,497 |
|
CW |
52,270 |
ZL9CI |
84,482 |
|
FM |
N/A | |
3,458 |
|
RTTY |
2,827 |
FO0AAA |
4,167 |
|
PSK |
N/A | |
1,112 |
|
Unique calls |
36,109 |
4J1FS |
45,315 |
|
First 24 hrs |
14,000 |
FO0AAA |
16,412 |
|
First week |
N/A |
|
92,728 |
(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.
|
Mode |
1.8 |
3.5 |
7 |
10.1 |
14 |
18 |
21 |
24.9 |
28 |
50 |
Total |
% |
|
CW |
1294 |
4311 |
10607 |
9314 |
11843 |
9477 |
13117 |
10356 |
13925 |
238 |
84482 |
50.1% |
|
SSB |
101 |
1680 |
3235 |
0 |
14227 |
7525 |
17093 |
10852 |
20617 |
167 |
75497 |
44.7% |
|
RTTY |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1160 |
0 |
1390 |
0 |
1617 |
0 |
4167 |
2.5% |
|
PSK |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
157 |
0 |
524 |
0 |
431 |
0 |
1112 |
0.7% |
|
MFSK |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
4 |
0 |
6 |
0.0% |
|
FM |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
3458 |
0 |
3458 |
2.0% |
|
Totals |
1395 |
5991 |
13842 |
9314 |
27387 |
17002 |
32126 |
21208 |
40052 |
405 |
168722 |
|
|
Previous record |
2385 |
5554 |
9518 |
8814 |
31193 |
13368 |
23769 |
8644 |
15202 |
2500 |
168722 |
|
|
Continent |
1.8 |
3.5 |
7 |
10.1 |
14 |
18 |
21 |
24.9 |
28 |
50 |
Total |
% |
|
Africa |
20 |
49 |
85 |
38 |
187 |
92 |
180 |
109 |
179 |
29 |
968 |
0.6% |
|
Antarctica |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0.0% |
|
Asia |
196 |
608 |
1595 |
846 |
2738 |
1724 |
3306 |
1851 |
4007 |
101 |
16972 |
10.1% |
|
Europe |
1039 |
3602 |
7786 |
5795 |
12550 |
10947 |
18821 |
14283 |
23255 |
275 |
98353 |
58.6% |
|
North America |
134 |
1624 |
4149 |
2491 |
11198 |
3983 |
9381 |
4823 |
12181 |
0 |
49964 |
29.8% |
|
Oceania |
5 |
42 |
63 |
45 |
338 |
160 |
199 |
58 |
167 |
0 |
1077 |
0.6% |
|
South America |
1 |
66 |
164 |
99 |
375 |
96 |
239 |
84 |
263 |
0 |
1387 |
0.8% |
|
Britain |
96 |
356 |
823 |
636 |
1679 |
1708 |
2727 |
2248 |
3416 |
0 |
13689 |
8.2% |
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
Corporate: Non Amateur, Air Mauritius, Bass Take Home, London Business School, Parfetts, Sofitour, States of Guernsey Tourist Board
DX Groups: Akita DX Assoc, ADXA, Alamo DX Amigos RC, Arkansas DX Assoc., British Amateur Radio Teledata Group, BARTG, Chiltern DX Club, CDXC, Clipperton DX Club, Delta DX Assoc, Echelford ARS, European DX Foundation, EUDXF, Far East DXploiters, FEDXP, Fort Wayne DXA, German DX Foundation, GDXF, GM DX Group, Guernsey ARC, Horndean & Dist ARC, Kermadec DX Association, Lone Star DX Group, M2000A Team, Magnolia DXA, Nara DXA, Japan, North California DX Foundation, NCDXF, Northeast Wisconsin DX Assoc, Northern Ohio DXA, OHDXF, Oklahoma DX Assn, Osaka DX Lovers Group, ODXLG, Racal Amateur Radio Club, Reading & District ARC, RSGB DXpedition Fund, RSGB IOTA Committee, Shiga DXers, Japan, Six Meter International Radio Klub, SMIRK, Virginia DXCC, Western New York DXA
Major Individual Sponsors: CN8WW, DJ9ZB, G0WAT, G3JNB, G3URA,
G4EAG, G8FXX, JA3AAW, JA3CSZ, JA3EOP, JA7FWR, JA7JHT, JA7MFL, JA7QQQ,
JA7RHJ, JA7SN, JA7XVZ, JE3AGN, JE3USO, JE7RJZ, JG3KFM, JG7AMD, JG7LQU,
JH3OTS, JH7BZR, JH7NPF, JR7WFC, JR7FBR, JR7HAN, JR7JPC, JR7VHZ, JR7XKN,
JS3CTQ, K8ME, KO4RR, N7MQ, VK5WO, VK6LC, WA4OBO
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)