E6M in Namukulu, AH51ba

W7GJ 6m EME DXpedition to Niue
September 7-21, 2012 (CQ DX Zone 32)

NOTE: FULL HIGH RESOLUTION PDF TRIP REPORT IS AVAILABLE BY CLICKING HERE ! A SMALLER FILE
LOWER RESOLUTION TRIP REPORT IS AVAILABLE HERE ! A DISPLAY OF THE POWER POINT PRESENTATION OF THE TRIP IS ON THE PNWVHFS WEBSITE HERE !

INTRODUCTION

You very well might wonder, “Why in the world would anybody go the opposite side of the world on a 6m DXpedition at a time of year with no Es and during a solar cycle with little to no chance of F2 propagation?” And on top of that, go at a time when the $US is at an all time low compared to the local currency and there is also an epidemic of Dengue Fever taking place on the island? The answer, of course, is to take advantage of the superb EME conditions afforded at this point in the low solar cycle! If you are thinking about a trip, you might as well go someplace VERY rare so you can hand out a new DXCC to virtually every half million mile contact. In order to provide sufficient advance planning for stations wishing to contact me while I am in Niue, I am providing plenty of advance notice of this DXpedition. Background on Niue can be found here. I urge you to gain experience with JT65A and especially review the QSO PROCEDURE that I use most effectively on these DXpeditions I look forward to contacting you on 6m EME!

This is VERY IMPORTANT: Because Niue has a new IARU prefix of E6, you will need to add E6 to the special DXCC PREFIX box on the WSJT SETUP/OPTIONS screen. This will enable you to use the more sensitive search for our new callsigns. Otherwise, WSJT will think that its copying of E6 is a mistake, and it will only decode the callsign if my signal is UNUSUALLY STRONG at your receiver.....which I certainly do not expect to be!

To the right, please see how I have added E6 to the list of recognized callsigns by putting it into the proper box on the WSJT SETUP/OPTIONS screen on my computer here at home. To confirm that you have properly added E6 to the WSJT prefix list, you should be able to click on the main WSJT screen's HELP tab and select the screen for "AVAILABLE SUFFIXES AND ADD-ON PREFIXES". At the bottom of that screen, you should see "Optional Prefix: E6".

Please also add E6M and E6RS in grid AH51ba to your call3.txt file. You do this from the main JT65 screen. If you have any question on how to do this, please either contact me, or ask any experienced 6m EME operator on the ON4KST EME CHAT PAGE or 2m EME operator on the N0UK JT65 PAGE.

LOGISTICS

Once again, ZL1RS/E6RS is providing 2m EME operation from the same location during approximately the same period. Bob's results will be on his web page. We plan to arrive in Niue on Friday afternoon September 7 local time. There is a VERY remote chance that we will be QRV by our moonrise at local midnight that day (Saturday September 8 GMT), or by our moonset the next morning. We hope to be able to get set up by local Saturday evening (Sunday morning UTC) moonrise. I hope to be able to stay QRV until my moonset on Thursday September 20 UTC, or until the activity disappears. The planned location will be in the relatively rare grid of AH51 at the northwestern end of the island. There recently has been a Dengue Fever outbreak on the island, which may impact out ability to operate the antennas manually during certain periods. If it turns out that there is no space to set up the antenna at this QTH, we will have to find somewhere else to set up the station and commute to it to operate.

The photo to the left is Kaliki Lodge in Namukulu, where we will be staying. The view is facing to the east. You can see that we expect to have restricted moonrise activity from this QTH, but will be on when the moon does rise. The photo is somewhat deceiving, though, since it was taken with a telephoto lens, which makes the background look closer than it actually is. According to my estimates based on the elevations displayed on Google Earth, I think we should have moonrise around 5 degrees elevation.

Moonset was more favorable, with a negative horizon. The challenge was finding a clear spot among all the obstacles (house, buildings, trees, terraces, etc.) to erect the large antenna! The red asterisk below marks the finall location of the antenna:

EQUIPMENT

The 6m station is essentially be the same as that used at E51SIX, 3D2LR and 5W0GJ. The 6M-1000 has been modified by M2 for overseas use, and provides a solid KW output on JT65A mode with 3 watts of drive. The transceiver this time will still be the reliable K3 and PR6 preamp. The K3's flat, wide bandwidth is ideally suited to copying multiple JT65A mode callers spread out every 200 Hz from about -800 Hz to +800 Hz. The antenna again is my 6M8GJ yagi fed with LMR600 low loss cable and home-made manual elevation mount. As you can see from reviewing the E51SIX TRIP REPORT from that operation, many contacts were made with single yagi horizon-only stations, and the same was true from 3D2LR and 5W0GJ. The smallest station contacted from all three of those places was N3CXV with his single 6M5X yagi. If you have a good yagi, good ground gain, good power and lots of patience, we should be able to complete!

I also will be taking a 20m dipole, so may be on 20m JT65A or USB with 100w if I am not operating 6m EME.

OPERATING SCHEDULE

We expect to have limited access to the internet from time to time, and I will attempt to send out updates regarding our progress, status and confirm our actual grid locator and callsigns. If you copy us, please spot us on the DX Cluster so people will know the correct grid locator, as well as the frequency and our status. I will diligently try to be QRV during all EU and NA moonsets and EU moonrises. However, look at the photo above and realize that my moon may actually rise around 5 degrees elevation. Hopefully, my moonset will be a different situation. Please watch the ON4KST EME page and MMM on VHF page for updates. I will also try to post results and updates at the bottom of this page.

Please keep calling me even if you copy me working someone else. As long as you are not on the same frequency as the other station, you will not be interfering with them. Please coordinate your calling frequency with others on the ON4KST EME chat page to prevent interfering with each other - ideally, stations should be spread out every 200 Hz. I try to decode all callers every receive sequence, and I make a note of each caller and their and frequency so I can reply to you as soon as I am able. Therefore, NEVER change your transmit frequency after you start calling - pick a clear frequency nobody else is using and stay on it! I will try to contact any callers I can copy, but first priority will be given to contributors and stations with shorter common moon windows.

NOTE: The days of lowest Degradation are September 12-18. If you are in EU, you may not have any window left by then - I encourage you to try to contact me as soon as I am QRV. If you are in NA, I urge you to try to contact me before Saturday September 15 (new moon). Not only could the new moon be noisy, but the Declination is really starting to go negative after that. For those of you who may be new to EME, that means MY ELEVATION will become VERY HIGH during your moonset. Remember that I am using a single yagi, and it can be elevated only to a maximum elevation of 65 degrees (with great difficulty, trying to interlace the elements between the guy ropes), and if the guy ropes are wet, the elements are short out causing high SWR, making operation impossible. So I have a lot better success when my elevation is below 45 degrees ;-) So....even if you are in NA and figure we have plenty of windows, PLEASE don't wait until my elevation is too high to work you!

6M QSL INFORMATION FOR E6M

Please QSL direct with SASE (foreign stations include IRC or $USD for postage) direct to:

Lance Collister, W7GJ
P.O.Box 73
Frenchtown, MT 59834-0073
USA

NOTE: All QSL's for E6RS must be sent directly to ZL1RS at his QRZ.com address.

FREQUENCY AND SEQUENCE

For EME, I plan to operate on 50.190 and will always transmit in the first sequence JT65A mode. Please check this page because I may have to change this frequency due to receiver birdies at my end! If you copy me on some ionospheric mode while I am pointed at the moon and calling CQ on JT65A mode, please answer me on JT65A mode! When not aiming at the moon, I may also beacon on 50.190 or some other frequency, possibly using JT65A or ISCAT so people can detect me under marginal propagation. I also plan to have the ability to operate SSB and/or CW if there is a strong enough ionospheric propagation for those modes.

CONTRIBUTIONS

It is very expensive to haul a 6m EME station halfway around the world - especially with the current unfavorable exchange rate! Therefore, any contributions toward the DXpedition are greatly appreciated! If you would like to contribute via PayPal, please send your contribution to my email address, which is my new PayPal account. Many thanks to the following stations who have already provided generous contributions:

SM7FJE, G8VR, K7CW, K2ZD, G8BCG, ON4IQ, VE1JF, KB7Q, N3CXV, G3WOS, KJ9I, ZL3NW, SM7AED, IW5DHN, FO4BM, N8JX, K0JY, OZ4VV, VE5UF, S51DI, VA3NCD, N7NW, K1SIX, VE3KH, W8PAT, OH2BC, W9RM

PHOTOS AND UPDATES

	E6M 6M EME RESULTS

COMPLETED ON 6M EME:

DATE	TIME UTC	STATION	# WRKD	STRENGTH	NOTES
	1340	G8BCG	1	-26
09/09/12	1354	ON4IQ	2	-18
09/09/12	1410	ON4GG	3	-23
09/09/12	1418	K2ZD	4	-27
09/09/12	2118	ES6RQ	5	-25
09/09/12	2332	IW5DHN	6	-18
09/09/12	2342	OZ4VV	7	-28
09/10/12	2308	LY2BAW	8	-27
09/10/12	22324	SM7FJE	9	-25
09/10/12	2331	SM7AED	10	-20
09/11/12	36	OH6MIK	11	-22
09/11/12	1628	N7NW	12	-30
09/11/12	1718	WA4NJP	13	-27
09/11/12	1758	NN7J	14	-25
09/11/12	1916	VE3KH	15	-26
09/11/12	1945	N3CXV	16	-27
09/11/12	2314	W7IUV	17	-27
09/11/12	2318	OH2BC	18	-26
09/12/12	1545	G8VR	19	-22
09/12/12	1623	W7GJ	20	-24
09/12/12	1700	AJ7LL/7	21	-23
09/12/12	1716	WA7U/7	22	-22
09/12/12	1730	KE7X/7	23	-27
09/12/12	1742	KB7Q/7	24	-22
09/12/12	1920	OA4TT	25	-28
09/12/12	2158	W5UWB	26	-28
09/13/12	0214	ZL1RS	27	-25
09/13/12	0220	PA3HP	28	-19
09/13/12	1944	VE1JF	29	-24
09/13/12	2010	W8PAT	30	-28
09/13/12	2128	K2AXX	31	-24
09/13/12	2150	N8JX	32	-18
09/13/12	2208	W9RM	33	-26
09/14/12	0140	UT7QF	34	-19
09/14/12	0324	LZ2WO	35	-23
09/14/12	2012	VE1ZJ	36	-27
09/14/12	2034	VE5UF	37	-27
09/14/12	2334	K7XQ	38	-25
09/15/12	0406	HA8CE	39	-29
09/15/12	1934	K7CW	40	-21
09/15/12	2151	K1SIX	41	-21
09/15/12	2222	K4RX	42	-22
09/16/12	0512	S59A	43	-17	Strongest signal decoded during the Dxpedition!
09/16/12	2242	KJ9I	44	-28
09/18/12	2116	K6MYC	45	-22
09/18/12	2218	W1JJ	46	-25

COPIED ON 6M EME BUT NOT WORKED:

DATE		STATION	# HRD	STRENGTH
09/11/12		G3WOS	1	-21
09/11/12		G4HBA	2
09/11/12		G4IGO	3
09/09/12		G5WQ	4
09/11/12		GM4WJA	5	-29
09/11/12		GU8FBO	6
09/11/12		GW4WND	7	-28
09/14/12		HA0DU	8
09/11/12		JR6EXN	9
09/13/12		K0JY	10	-25
09/12/12		LA8AJA	11	-24
09/15/12		N5DG	12	-21
09/09/12		OK1RD	13	-24
09/11/12		ON9CC	14	-23
09/14/12		S51DI	15	-24
09/16/12		SV1DH	16	-26
09/11/12		VA3NCD	17	-26
09/14/12		W3XO/5	18	-24
09/15/12		W7CE	19	-24
09/15/12		W7MEM	20	-26
09/13/12		W7UT	21	-21
09/19/12		W9GA	22	-26

During my moonrise on12 September, 2012 after my yagi was elevated to 15 degrees

Elevated and aimed to the north. Note that the antenna is installed on a terrace, so there is an extra 4 foot drop off to the south for more elevation clearance.

This page last revised on 8 October, 2012