H Dale,
Perhaps I did. And perhaps you misread my comments, which were directed
more to others who might be planning DX trips than to you. I see many
such comments -- we encountered noise and were not prepared, so we
didn't work nearly as much as we had hoped.
Perhaps you also missed my offer to help. Although I'm a decent op, I'm
an old fart, not in great physical shape, so you probably don't want me
on your team onsite under difficult conditions, but I'm quite willing to
help in a support role. RF noise suppression is one of the things I have
worked on. A few years ago, I supported AA7JV with a bunch of
suppression cores, which he found useful.
73, Jim K9YC
On Sat,12/6/2014 5:31 PM, DALE LONG wrote:
Jim:
Perhaps you somehow misread things. We were prepared with multiple RX
antennas, preamplifiers, multiple transmit antennas tribanders. flooded RG6 ,
remote switching and lots of coax...but because of Haiti difficulties (of which
there are many) our tower was not in place and our container did not arrive.
This caused a last minute change and HH2JR was very kind and offered us the use
of his nice station. We are all indebted to him (again since he was the hero
in the Haitian earthquake)
I would note that in the past year I have on several occasions invited folks on
this reflector to join me for a dedicated topband dxpedition to Haiti. Noone
was available. Traveling alone I carried radio, amplifier and supplies for
both ham radio and our work project. Without doubt I could have used help. But
the RX problem was not due to lack of planning. It was due to the change to a
city lot QTH. Without the kindness of HH2JR there would have been zero topband
QSOs and very few contacts on high bands. I know the need is great and people
were disappointed but we worked many of our contest friends on 6 bands. Its OK
to note that we failed to meet the need. We know that and we know we had
serious QRN issues. The alternative was not to operate at all
I was aware before the contest that we would be unable to work EU. I expected
10-12 stations in the Caribbean. In the end we worked more than that, we worked
180 stations through the noise. During the CQ contest we prioritized 160 over
other bands.
We again invite interested topbanders to help plan a future 160m dxpedition to
Haiti that is not part of a contest.
The purpose for my earlier Email (which I now wish I had not sent) was to ask
if our friends in EU if they heard us and how was our signal. That is all I
wanted to know.
And I apologize for busting our callsign, and other mistakes that I may have
made. I am still recovering from an extremely difficult and very stressful
trip. My apologies to all.
Vy 73
Dale - N3BNA
P.S. I appreciate your offer of assistance and will let you know if we need
anything. At this time we need operators to go in a non-contest dxpedition
sometime in the future. With lots of planning.
________________________________
From: Jim Brown <jim@audiosystemsgroup.com>
To: topband@contesting.com
Sent: Saturday, December 6, 2014 4:11 AM
Subject: Re: Topband: topband report from 4V1JB
On Sat,12/6/2014 12:56 AM, Jan Erik Holm wrote:
Wow 20 over 9 noise floor, if I had known I never
would have called you, waist of power and time.
Any team that goes to a location, whatever it, is, unprepared to address
local noise issues is incompetent and ill prepared. I'm willing to help,
but that's part of planning for any such effort. It's at least as
important as what radios you bring and what antennas you plan to use.
73, Jim K9YC
_________________
Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
_________________
Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
_________________
Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
|