A very nice hour-and-a-half opening here in HC yesterday afternoon. Worked
FG (2), FM (1), HI (3), KP4 (12), XE (8) plus 21 US stations (17 FL, 3 TX
and 1 LA). Some stations were worked twice, once on CW and once on SSB.
That's 4 new DXCC entities for this newbie on 6 from HC, although on 6
since 1961, originally as W9CGX in WI. All this was with a K3 runing 100
watts and a one-wavelength loop up 14 feet! Magic Band, indeed!
My apologies to those who experienced my QLFs on CW...my Brass Racer paddle
became badly corroded in the salt-air environment (4 blocks form the ocean)
and It made clean sending nearly impossible. I cleaned it this AM and it
seems to be fine. We'll see when the band opens this afternoon (be
optimistic). :>)
Unfortunately I have no Internet access at my present, temporary, QTH, so
could not see what was going on except from the XE1H beacon, which gave me
the first clue the band was opening at about 2200UTC. Other XE beacons
became audible and I started calling CQ on 50.110...things just exploded
from there. I will upload the log to eQSL in a few minutes but LoTW will
have to wait...I have been having serious issues with getting certificates
for our operations as HC2UA/HC2UB and HC2/home calls and can't seem to get
helpful responses from LoTW!
Here is a post I have sent to many friends and some reflectors about our
future (my XYL is K7MKL/HC2UB) in HC:
(start copied text)
A quick heads-up...
It appears we are closer to moving into a permanent location in Ballenita.
It is an 850 square foot, 2 bedroom, fully furnished house that is inside a
small compound and has a total of 500 square meters of surrounding property
that is part of the rental. There is an unfinished 2nd floor that is now an
open terrace with protective railing around the perimeter. The owners, an
older French-Canadian couple, are perfectly okay with erection of antennas
on and around the home. We will start moving in on April 1st and will be
completely moved in by April 7th. Hopefully, during that first week, we
will have a "split" air-conditioner system installed that will serve as an
environmental control for the second bedroom shack. We want to keep the
radio gear as isolated as possible from the salt-air environment!
At this point our first priorities will be getting up our 5BTV vertical for
80-10 meters, throwing up the one-wavelength vertical loop for 6-meters and
buying mast material to allow us to put up the 6M8GJ yagi for 6-meter
terrestrial and EME work. The home is about 2 blocks from the ocean and has
an essentially unobstructed view of the ocean from the terrace. The 6-meter
yagi will be above terrace level and should work beautifully. We also plan
to put a horizontal loop for HF around the perimeter of the property, which
should give us decent performance on 160/80-meters and probably other HF
bands. The supports for the HF loop will be large diameter bamboo poles
that cost about $2.00 for a 6-meter long piece. Two can be easily spliced
together to give a minimum 11-meter long support at each of the corners of
the loop.
As soon as the first antennas are in place we will e-mail everyone to
announce our activity. We will have to obtain telephone and Internet
service but that will not be a problem since the property owners already
have such service in their home.
The last remaining piece of the Ecuador puzzle is our permanent resident
Visas, which were applied for on February 20th and which our attorney
assures us will be issued soon.
We have received an extension on use of the HC2UA/HC2UB calls and are
hopeful that those calls will be issued permanently when our Visas are in
hand.
This is certainly exciting and we are both looking forward to contest and
casual operation on all bands, 160 through 6-meters. Two meter operation is
planned, made possible by the loan of an Elecraft tranverter from K9YC
(thanks, Jim), but will not be EME capable until antennas are built and an
amplifier is obtained.
More later...
(end copied text)
There will, indeed, be more later with notice of the erection of the 6M8GJ
posted to this reflector and the Magic Band reflector as soon as it happens.
73,
--
Jack, W6NF/HC2UA
Shelley, K7MKL/HC2UB
Ballenita, Ecuador
EI97
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