Hi All
While it is still fresh in my mind and while I have a few moments this morning, I thought I might pass along a few OPERATING OBSERVATIONS that I made while over at JT5DX this past week. I will organize these into GENERAL OBSERVATIONS, TOPBAND THOUGHTS and HF THOUGHTS.
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS - & What it was like getting there.......
First let me note that this was NOT a Topband Dx'pedition. From a timing perspective, with no overlapping darkness to NA on either coast, the timing could not have been worse for NA. What it WAS was an invitation to join a talented International team of old friends to operate the CQ WPX CW contest and to visit Hong Kong, China and Mongolia and JT1CO. Despite the downside of SPRING conditions, there was still enough of an attraction there to say - "HELL YES - I want to go!!!!!" Plus it was a chance to visit CHAK and see his station up close and personal. And, even more important, it was a chance to help build some updated capability into the JT1CO lowband station for the upcoming Winter months. While I was out at the farm, my wife and daughter accompanied K1LZ's wife on a wonderful tour of the Southern GOBI desert so they were totally cool with my going off on my own thing with the boys.... In some respects their experiences and what they got to see and do was as equally
exciting to THEM as was my experience out on the farming steppes to the NW of Ulan Bator.
Getting there...
The farm is around 220 miles to the NW of the capital city. That is about the the distance from New York to Boston - but there are few paved roads in JT land. And what exists could HARDLY equate to the I-95 corridor along the East coast of the US. There are two PRINCIPAL roads in Mongolia - one North South and one East west.
Our route was on one of them for the first part of the trip - perhaps the first 4 hours of what was about a 6.5 hour drive in total. At about the 4 hour point, Chak headed LEFT out into the mountainous steppes along a dirt road and, from that point onwards, it was total dead-reckoning using "this hill" and "that hill over there" - plus many rock outcroppings which served as guideposts along the way. THERE ARE NO ROAD SIGNS!!!!!!!!! There were MANY dirt roads and Chak knew exactly which one was the road that would lead the last 45 miles or so out to the farm. (Honestly - if you did not know where this place was located, you nor I would NEVER find it. There was no GPS system I was told - I did not understand that - but I did understand that only Chak's expertise got us there!!!)
There are also few treed regions in JT. We did pass through a few clusters of BIRCH - some evergreens now and then along the hillsides - but mainly sheep, goats, cows and the occasional hairy YAK.
I kept looking out for the station and finally, we dropped down out of the hills into a valley below and there in the distance I could see 6 tall towers way off in the distance. There were wheat fields everywhere - many of which Chak owns as that is what he does for a living. There are 3 million people in JT and Chak likes to say "I feed 300,000 of them every year!"
The farm is enormous with quite a few LARGE buildings about the size of aircraft hangers. He employs a large number of staff - most of whom work the farm. He works his tail off on the farm, and remember - he does NOT live there - and, with no home station back in UB any more, operating timeframes are hardly a top priority for him - he gets on when he has time. He is hardly retired.....
Some years ago, he bought the land and then built a compound on it - the MAIN structure has 4 main connected components:
The family residence
The business side of the operation where his accountants and office are located
The station component which has 4 rooms (one which is a HUGE workshop), two operating rooms, a full bathroom and a lounge at the rear.
The last connected component is what he calls the HOTEL - which has 4 upstairs guest bedrooms, a kitchen and a dining room where we took our meals. Three ladies looked after us - and if you came into the dining room, within 30 seconds you were handed a cup of coffee or tea and two minutes later a plate of food. So we were well taken care of - that's for sure.
A fridge was stocked with BEER, COKE, COLD WATER and the coffee mess was ALWAYS there with a full pot of coffee. I do not care if you came in at 0200AM local - someone had made a full pot of coffee - which I personally took full advantage of as I was up each night from about 0300 local until grayline sunrise.
So much for the PROLOGUE....
TOPBAND HIGHLIGHTS
All of us dedicated topband afficiandos know what 160M is like - usually there is a well-defined peak in signals as SR approaches - sometimes it is not there - but it USUALLY works that way.
I would get on at about 0300 local - which was 1900z - and start listening on 160M. It was an interesting time to be on the air as JA SR was occurring at about the same time as SS was moving from RW2F westward towards Central EU and towards the UK.
Of course UA9/UA0 and the JA's were pretty loud. Then came the UA4 and UA6 boys. You had to work the 8 circle array all the time because after each CQ, JA's might be calling and/or EU stations and depending on where your RX antenna was aimed, you would not hear both. The JA's would ultimately disappear and then it would be all EU as one reached 2000z. and beyond
Here's what it was like:
Scandinavia was pee-weak. I did work a few OH and SM stations. OH1RX was one. I do not remember working an LA.
Clearly, the LOUDEST EU signals were from SOUTHERN EU - mostly IK7JTF, I2TAO and the well-known SV stations which had the front door into JT for sure.
Eastern EU was copiable - usually 559/569 or so but with alot of QSB. I did work some SP's, OM/OK stations, some S5 and 9A and one loud EA6.
I recall, working a handful of DL - but probably less than 10 total.
I did not work a single FRENCH station. I worked ONE G station on sked - G3XHZ I think who called me on ON4KST chat and had I not sent him to 1829 outside the pile, I never would have worked him - he was in the noise but we did manage a difficult QSO.
It is clear to me that the UK on 160M suffers greatly into JT land - & unless it gets better in DEC/JAN/FEB - (maybe it does) - hard for me to tell in late May - these guys seem to struggle on this path. Signals were really weak and more than a few were trying.
Via CHAT I learned that ZL3IX was hearing me both nights and VK4MA asked for a try - and I made it with Paul who had a 579 signal - I worked nothing else down into the Pacific.
At 0500 (one hour before local SR) the band peaked into Eu and then it dropped like a rock for the last hour as SR occurred. There was no traditional SR bump. The I and SV stations did hang in there to the end but the rest of EU was totally just not there - I did manage a qso with 4X4DK five minutes into daylight - the last night I was on before the contest.
HF THOUGHTS and OBSERVATIONS
One of the things I wanted to check was what NA signals sounded like over in JT and 20M was really the only place that I knew would likely be open. I also knew 1130-1230z might be a good time for over the pole prop into W1.
On Wed evening before the contest I had made a sked with VY2GF, George Dewar, who has a modest station and low power on PEI and we had planned to work at 1230z.
But around 1115z I found W1MK CQ'ing with a LOUD signal around 14015 and worked Rob. He was pretty surprised when I told who I was. A few minutes later I found Nate N4YDU who was just playing around with the remote EASTPORT, ME RHR stacks - using his laptop in his kitchen. He was so loud I could not believe it - and I do not remember anyone louder either - but I did not have too much time to check either. I also worked K1RM a few mins later with a good signal. KP2M with KT3Y operating was a good signal as well a few mins earlier. I did work VY2GF on sked which was a new one for George - so I am sure he was delighted.
On 20M I tried to see who had the front door - K3LR was in there the longest - but not that much louder than the best E Coast stations. VY2TT held up for quite a long time as well - he has some SUPERB 20M stacks and it showed. These guys, again, were not what I would call DOMINANT - they just held up longer as the prop waned into the East Coast during the contest.
While it is still fresh in my mind and while I have a few moments this morning, I thought I might pass along a few OPERATING OBSERVATIONS that I made while over at JT5DX this past week. I will organize these into GENERAL OBSERVATIONS, TOPBAND THOUGHTS and HF THOUGHTS.
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS - & What it was like getting there.......
First let me note that this was NOT a Topband Dx'pedition. From a timing perspective, with no overlapping darkness to NA on either coast, the timing could not have been worse for NA. What it WAS was an invitation to join a talented International team of old friends to operate the CQ WPX CW contest and to visit Hong Kong, China and Mongolia and JT1CO. Despite the downside of SPRING conditions, there was still enough of an attraction there to say - "HELL YES - I want to go!!!!!" Plus it was a chance to visit CHAK and see his station up close and personal. And, even more important, it was a chance to help build some updated capability into the JT1CO lowband station for the upcoming Winter months. While I was out at the farm, my wife and daughter accompanied K1LZ's wife on a wonderful tour of the Southern GOBI desert so they were totally cool with my going off on my own thing with the boys.... In some respects their experiences and what they got to see and do was as equally
exciting to THEM as was my experience out on the farming steppes to the NW of Ulan Bator.
Getting there...
The farm is around 220 miles to the NW of the capital city. That is about the the distance from New York to Boston - but there are few paved roads in JT land. And what exists could HARDLY equate to the I-95 corridor along the East coast of the US. There are two PRINCIPAL roads in Mongolia - one North South and one East west.
Our route was on one of them for the first part of the trip - perhaps the first 4 hours of what was about a 6.5 hour drive in total. At about the 4 hour point, Chak headed LEFT out into the mountainous steppes along a dirt road and, from that point onwards, it was total dead-reckoning using "this hill" and "that hill over there" - plus many rock outcroppings which served as guideposts along the way. THERE ARE NO ROAD SIGNS!!!!!!!!! There were MANY dirt roads and Chak knew exactly which one was the road that would lead the last 45 miles or so out to the farm. (Honestly - if you did not know where this place was located, you nor I would NEVER find it. There was no GPS system I was told - I did not understand that - but I did understand that only Chak's expertise got us there!!!)
There are also few treed regions in JT. We did pass through a few clusters of BIRCH - some evergreens now and then along the hillsides - but mainly sheep, goats, cows and the occasional hairy YAK.
I kept looking out for the station and finally, we dropped down out of the hills into a valley below and there in the distance I could see 6 tall towers way off in the distance. There were wheat fields everywhere - many of which Chak owns as that is what he does for a living. There are 3 million people in JT and Chak likes to say "I feed 300,000 of them every year!"
The farm is enormous with quite a few LARGE buildings about the size of aircraft hangers. He employs a large number of staff - most of whom work the farm. He works his tail off on the farm, and remember - he does NOT live there - and, with no home station back in UB any more, operating timeframes are hardly a top priority for him - he gets on when he has time. He is hardly retired.....
Some years ago, he bought the land and then built a compound on it - the MAIN structure has 4 main connected components:
The family residence
The business side of the operation where his accountants and office are located
The station component which has 4 rooms (one which is a HUGE workshop), two operating rooms, a full bathroom and a lounge at the rear.
The last connected component is what he calls the HOTEL - which has 4 upstairs guest bedrooms, a kitchen and a dining room where we took our meals. Three ladies looked after us - and if you came into the dining room, within 30 seconds you were handed a cup of coffee or tea and two minutes later a plate of food. So we were well taken care of - that's for sure.
A fridge was stocked with BEER, COKE, COLD WATER and the coffee mess was ALWAYS there with a full pot of coffee. I do not care if you came in at 0200AM local - someone had made a full pot of coffee - which I personally took full advantage of as I was up each night from about 0300 local until grayline sunrise.
So much for the PROLOGUE....
TOPBAND HIGHLIGHTS
All of us dedicated topband afficiandos know what 160M is like - usually there is a well-defined peak in signals as SR approaches - sometimes it is not there - but it USUALLY works that way.
I would get on at about 0300 local - which was 1900z - and start listening on 160M. It was an interesting time to be on the air as JA SR was occurring at about the same time as SS was moving from RW2F westward towards Central EU and towards the UK.
Of course UA9/UA0 and the JA's were pretty loud. Then came the UA4 and UA6 boys. You had to work the 8 circle array all the time because after each CQ, JA's might be calling and/or EU stations and depending on where your RX antenna was aimed, you would not hear both. The JA's would ultimately disappear and then it would be all EU as one reached 2000z. and beyond
Here's what it was like:
Scandinavia was pee-weak. I did work a few OH and SM stations. OH1RX was one. I do not remember working an LA.
Clearly, the LOUDEST EU signals were from SOUTHERN EU - mostly IK7JTF, I2TAO and the well-known SV stations which had the front door into JT for sure.
Eastern EU was copiable - usually 559/569 or so but with alot of QSB. I did work some SP's, OM/OK stations, some S5 and 9A and one loud EA6.
I recall, working a handful of DL - but probably less than 10 total.
I did not work a single FRENCH station. I worked ONE G station on sked - G3XHZ I think who called me on ON4KST chat and had I not sent him to 1829 outside the pile, I never would have worked him - he was in the noise but we did manage a difficult QSO.
It is clear to me that the UK on 160M suffers greatly into JT land - & unless it gets better in DEC/JAN/FEB - (maybe it does) - hard for me to tell in late May - these guys seem to struggle on this path. Signals were really weak and more than a few were trying.
Via CHAT I learned that ZL3IX was hearing me both nights and VK4MA asked for a try - and I made it with Paul who had a 579 signal - I worked nothing else down into the Pacific.
At 0500 (one hour before local SR) the band peaked into Eu and then it dropped like a rock for the last hour as SR occurred. There was no traditional SR bump. The I and SV stations did hang in there to the end but the rest of EU was totally just not there - I did manage a qso with 4X4DK five minutes into daylight - the last night I was on before the contest.
HF THOUGHTS and OBSERVATIONS
One of the things I wanted to check was what NA signals sounded like over in JT and 20M was really the only place that I knew would likely be open. I also knew 1130-1230z might be a good time for over the pole prop into W1.
On Wed evening before the contest I had made a sked with VY2GF, George Dewar, who has a modest station and low power on PEI and we had planned to work at 1230z.
But around 1115z I found W1MK CQ'ing with a LOUD signal around 14015 and worked Rob. He was pretty surprised when I told who I was. A few minutes later I found Nate N4YDU who was just playing around with the remote EASTPORT, ME RHR stacks - using his laptop in his kitchen. He was so loud I could not believe it - and I do not remember anyone louder either - but I did not have too much time to check either. I also worked K1RM a few mins later with a good signal. KP2M with KT3Y operating was a good signal as well a few mins earlier. I did work VY2GF on sked which was a new one for George - so I am sure he was delighted.
On 20M I tried to see who had the front door - K3LR was in there the longest - but not that much louder than the best E Coast stations. VY2TT held up for quite a long time as well - he has some SUPERB 20M stacks and it showed. These guys, again, were not what I would call DOMINANT - they just held up longer as the prop waned into the East Coast during the contest.
Comment