My experience with the BS7H operation was one that was difficult to
quantify. With POOR solar numbers for the first 2 days, no copy, and then
marginal copy only in the morning for 30 minutes, and a huge split on
frequency QSX, I pretty well wrote it off as hopeless. About midweek
though, the "worm had turned"! Unfortunately for me, my primary source of
livelihood required morning meetings with the exception of one day that I
had taken off as a fallback Plan B, other than their "just announced"
departure date on Saturday.
The pileup was wide and unruly, as most are when #1 first comes back on. I
will refer you all to the BY1PK operation in China after 50 years (!)
absence. I do recall a 50 and 100 khz spread, which was just as unruly if
not more so! This team could do nothing but work the stations that were
there and "spread'em out" to hear'em. I was a member of the CY0AA 1996
operation. We had a 2 day solar flare when we were there also. It was so
bad we could barely work the W1's from Sable, so I know what frustration
that must have presented to them. CY0 was #3 in JA land. We spread over 20
khz on CW and SSB, and it sounded like a solid wall of noise throughout the
spread. We started going by numbers to filter the signals, which helped
quite a bit. This operation did the same, I'm sure, in an attempt to calm
things down also. The first few days were freestyle, and confusing. A lot
of familiar calls were heard.
There seemed to be 2 windows here in the Midwest "blackhole". With halfway
decent prop, about 2 hours in the morning, and 1 hour in mid to late
afternoon. I had a one day chance there, and didn't make it. Propagation
seemed to be the big complaint by stateside guys. I would call despite the
weak signal, because there were periodic ebbs and flows of the signal rising
and falling. I missed Friday totally. On the final day of their operation,
I again tried in the AM, to no avail. I felt many had done what I had done
and said,"it's over", and just got upset with what was going on and began
jamming, and QRM'ing, like I had not heard through the days prior. I had
decided not to "roll over" and keep trying. By the Saturday afternoon about
4 hours prior to their QRT, I had again said that's it. I "talked" with a
KA8 on the internet packet, and was kindly soothed that it wasn't my fault.
I kept listening, hoping for a "last hurrah" signal, which sometimes happens
just before prop shuts down. The split was now down to 6 Khz. His signal
had built up to almost what it had been in the morning. At 2014Z he came
back with a confirmed call. There was almost no calling activity! I posted
a message to the packet network, and things seemed to "get busy" again.
It's easy to criticize, but when you've walked a mile in shoes much less
tortuous than theirs, you appreciate what's on the other end of the pileup
that they must have handled. I may have done some things differently, but I
wasn't there, they were. I want to thank the team, the support stations,
and KU9C for all of their past and future efforts to close this out as a
successful expedition.
I hope this comforts those that missed it somewhat, and damns those that
tried to undermine the operations out of spite, or frustration.
Only my humble opinion...
Best 73
Ken Scheper
WA8JOC/CY0AA (1996)
----- Original Message -----
From: <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 3:03 AM
Subject: digest for [email protected]
From: Alan Braun <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Mon, 07 May 2007 06:24:38 -0500
Subject: Re: [DX-NEWS] Scarborough Reef Press Release Number 14
As did I. Could only hear them well a couple of times, and on one of
those occasions they were working 90% JA. The other time the pileup was
wild & crazy with no definite listening pattern that I could figure. I
bet less than 1/3 of those 45,000 QSO's were with NA stations. Too bad
they couldn't stay a little longer. This expedition did not begin to
satisfy the need for BS7.
Alan NS0B
Gkcarr wrote:
I for one missed it. Only twice did I hear very weak signals. However, I
am glad for those who did log it. And Surely I can speak for many when I
say "thank you" to all the team for your persistance, vision and courage.
73
George
WA5KBH
(EM30) SW Louisiana
-----Original message-----
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# # # # # # # # # # NEW ARTICLE # # # # # # # # # #
From: Steve-KF2TI <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Mon, 07 May 2007 17:42:03 +0000
Subject: CQ Serenade
From Ann "The Queen of DX" by way of Lew, W2BIE
Very cute and definitely DX oriented
The CQ Serenade
http://www.zerobeat.net/cq_serenade_en.mp3
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