Pista, HA5AO will be active from Lesotho 10 - 26 February 2017 as 7P8EUDXF.
He will operate on 40 - 10m CW.
QSL via home call, OQRS.
7P8EUDXF 22 February 2017
Pista HA5AO is operating from the Molangoane Lodge, near Ha Ntsi. The lodge is located on a plateau with no high mountains nearby. The take off to the N and NW it is clear. The NE to JA is slightly blocked by a mountain but it is far enough away to not cause too much of a problem.
He is using a K3 with KPA 500. The antenna is a wire vertical on a 10 meter fiberglass pole with a remote controlled SGC 250 auto tuner. There are 12 x 10.5 meter radials with a copper ground rod. It can be tuned from 80 to 10 m, sorry no TB capability this trip due to high noise levels. The noise is s6 s9 on the low bands making the copy impossible and s3 s5 on the higher bands where copy is difficult. RFI is not a problem, at least no complains from the lodge management.
He received a Busted call request claiming QSOs on 20 February between 15:10 and 16:27. He was not operating at that time, probably a pirate.
He is operating in his free time from the orphanage project. The last operating time will be this Saturday morning when he will disassemble the station. He departs for Budapest on Sunday morning.
Lesotho 7P8EUDXF QSL.
7P8EUDXF News 20 October 2016
By now you may have seen Pista HA5AO operating as 7P8EUDXF on the DX Cluster network.
His Log is posted at: ha5ao.com Log Search / OQRS
Thursday Update:
There have been heavy storms for two days, it started Wednesday afternoon. He's never seen so many lightening strikes within one minute.
Today (Thursday) the afternoon was not bad on 15m, his most productive band. A storm is moving in as he's writing this update on Thursday afternoon. The noise level still very high below 17m.
There is now a backup generator in available, so power blackouts will be just a couple of seconds, as he does need to restart the station.
He is now on the air 2-3 hours a day, next week he will be on the radio more often
Tuesday Update:
He reports a very high noise level on all bands. On Monday it was S7-9 on 20, 30 and 40M. Signals from EU were weak, almost impossible to copy in the noise.
On Tuesday afternoon there was a nice opening on15m but a power blackout shut him down. Later that evening he went to 20 m, but there was another blackout. He will continue trying 40 and 80m, hopefully he'll get a break in the noise.
73,
Gene K5GS for Pista 7P8EUDXF
7P8EUDXF Information from Gene K5GS
Pista HA5AO arrived Maseru, Lesotho on the afternoon of Friday, 14 Oct with 4 suitcases weighing over 110 kg (242 lbs) of radio equipment and gifts for the orphanages where he is a volunteer.
He began setting up the station and antennas on Saturday and will finish on Sunday. The noise levels are S2-3 on the higher bands, but S5-6 on the low bands. He has an appointment on Monday with the Lesotho Communication Authority to pick up the license.
He has written confirmation that a special callsign, 7P8EUDXF, may be issued celebrating 30 years anniversary of "European DX Foundation" (EUDXF). At this time he does not plan to use 7P8AO, just depends on what is actually issued on Monday.
He hopes to be on the air starting Monday 17 Oct for at least 10 days - look for him on CW, late afternoon and evening / night. Blackouts are frequent, usually 15 minutes to 1 hour. If he unexpectedly disappears without sending QRX or QRT it is possibly due to a blackout.
There is Internet access, he will upload logs daily to OQRS on - HA5AO.com - he will operate has much as possible.
He begins working on his humanitarian projects at the orphanages on Tuesday.
73,
Gene K5GS for Pista
The Malibamat'so River, Lesotho. Author - Olivier Flambeau.
Lesotho. Author - Francis metroa2a.
Lesotho. Author - Robert Scott.
