Greetings - I thought I would share a few comments from the recently
concluded visit with friends at the Ethiopian Amateur Radio Society
and our ET3YOTA (Youth On The Air) celebration. It’s been awhile
since I’ve been back here, so it was good to reconnect with everyone.
Bob, W9XY, and I traveled together to Addis. It was his first visit
to Africa. The goal for the week was to spend a lot of time on the
air, not just ourselves, but also the club members. It was a chance
for us to work with them, to refine operator skills, and jointly work
on some station projects. This is a very enthusiastic group. They
love to get on the air and operate!
Specific to the lowbands, there were three challenges going into this.
First and foremost was getting permission from the university and
security office to stay overnight. The gates are closed from 8 PM to
6 AM. Second would be to install an effective transmit antenna. There
is a Butternut HF2V there now, without the 160 meter adaptor. We were
hoping to do something better. And the third item was how to deal
with noise in the city.
We were granted permission to say for three consecutive nights, both
Bob and I along with a couple of club members.
I brought along an 18 meter Spider Pole, with the idea that we would
put it on the 4th floor metal roof and try to string some sort of
vertical/inverted L, using a trap so it would work on both 80 and 160
meters. It’s like what I use at XW4ZW except in Laos, I have a rope
between two tall towers to support the antenna. And there I have to
lay out a counterpoise. The Spider Pole went up without much trouble.
The trap near the top makes it bend a bit. I had to add about 15 feet
of wire to the bottom of the antenna, at the base of the spider pole,
to get it to resonate near our operating frequencies. We used a piece
of string to hold that section of wire off the metal roof. The
segment of wire coming off the top of the pole slopped back down to
the metal roof, finishing a mere 15 feet above it. The SWR was close,
but we ran it through the station tuner to improve the match. This is
one of the ugliest antennas I have ever built, but boy did it work!
After a few CQ’s on Topband, we were told half of Europe was calling.
And guys in the US, as far west as W5, reported hearing us. I looked
at Bob and starting laughing, pointing to that antenna and saying, you
have to be kidding, that!?
The city noise. It was as bad as anticipated, solid S9 plus 20 on
Topband and S9 on 80 meters. I was hoping, like I saw during Z81Z,
that the noise might subside some by early morning. That did not
happen. It was steady.
To those who spent a lot of time calling to no avail, we feel your
pain too. We didn’t come here to be alligators. Our sense of
accomplishment comes from putting stations in the log. I did have an
MFJ noise cancelling unit and played with it a bit, but it didn’t
offer any relief. Part of that is probably me, not having an
effective “noise” antenna, and having a lack of time to really play
with it. Remember our days were very busy and we had only three
nights to operate. I do think it will be possible to devise a better
receive system to combat some of the noise. W9XY and I both agreed
that even if we could knock the noise down a few S units, it would
have opened up another layer or two of stations. On Topband we heard
a lot of people right at the noise, often getting a character or two
before they would drop back down. We were both listening. I should
mention that W9XY is a frequent winner or top finisher of CW pileup
competitors, so he’s no slouch picking out calls.
For those wondering about FT8, yes it would be very effective in this
environment. I am not anti-FT8, and I sure don’t want to start
another debate about it. Simply, it doesn’t interest me. I don’t
derive any satisfaction making QSO’s with it. If the choice was FT8
only or stay home, I would choose the latter. I like the challenge
this situation provides and developing solutions to overcome it. It’s
also a good learning experience for these young engineers at the
university. Members of the club are active on FT8, so perhaps they
will try.
The final numbers are 92 QSO’s on Topband with 24 DXCC entities. As I
mentioned, we heard many calling. I didn’t know what to expect going
into this. It would have been nice to log more stations, but I’m good
with the number given the situation.
On 80 meters we had 433 QSO’s with 44 entities. Maybe the signals
were louder, but for whatever reason we had much better luck on this
band, even working some western US, who I know were not using a remote
station in another part of the country.
All in all I was very pleased with the results for three nights of
operating. We took occasional breaks to let the club members,
spending the night with us, operate 40 SSB. Some were also working on
WSPR and QRP transceiver kits obtained during their participation in
the 2018 YOTA conference this past August in South Africa. We took
time to give them a hand or discuss what they were working on. After
all, this trip was about mentoring youth, and filling the age gap that
exists in our hobby.
It was a wonderful week with our friends at ET3AA. As I said during
my presentation at Visalia last year, my involvement with the club
here is one of the coolest things I have done in amateur radio. I
think W9XY would agree. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Terri
K8MNJ and the team at DX Engineering for the support they have
provided to the station. Thanks to them and the others who have
helped, youth and amateur radio is flourishing in of all places,
Ethiopia!
73
Ken K4ZW
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