VK9DWX Willis Island DXpedition

VK9DWX Willis Island DXpedition

The main group of the Bavarian Contest club members arrived in Cairns and after loading the MV Floreat with all the DXpedition equipment including a substantial supply of liquid refreshments (after all it is Oktoberfest time) set sail for Willis Island Monday evening.

After a pleasant trip out they arrived safely at Willis South Island around 0300 on Wednesday morning. Some of the group called into the Willis Island Bureau of Meteorology station and dropped off some supplies for them that were transported from Cairns. A Bavarian “backwards” clock was presented to the officer in charge as a memento of the visit.

The team then moved to Willis Middle Island and spent the day setting up the VK9DWX station. Much fun was had setting up tents and antennas in the windy conditions. WIANews said that VK9DWX commenced transmissions on Thursday the 9th and already have logged an impressive tally of contacts.

For full details of the DXpedition including propagation and stations logged go to http://willis2008.dl1mgb.com/


Source: Wireless Institute of Australia

 

Another "FIRST CLASS" effort!!

Thanks for going the extra mile you guys...your efforts are always 100% first class!

I managed a contact with /NH8 last evening and signals were 5/9+10 around 2400z on 14251...That is at least in the right direction from here in K7 land. Hope the website can be accessed and kept up while you are there...it is a great help to us "newbie's"...

The "upper end" of the bands has plenty of room for your pile ups, and that is where our GENERAL's can operate here in the USA...

Stay safe and stay loud...

de Mel
KD7DCR

 

Peep

Not that I need them, but haven't heard a peep yet from that callsign on the air....
Suspect they are still setting things up or are not there yet.

 

Seen them a number of times on the DX cluster, doubt I'll get them though at the moment. Bit busy with other things.

 

Could be

Haven't seen one spot here. could be prop, and only working EU at the present time. Hard to say.

Will check later in the week.

 

Willis Island is heard on the air...today.

Since there seemed to be some quesiton about this operation being up and running..

I heard VK9DWX on the air this late afternoon, around 2200Z on 14210 with a 10-15KC wide "mash pile" starting UP about 10kc...signals were 5/6 to 5/8 variable here in Montana. He was trying to work USA at first, then seemed to switch over to JA land...worked many while I listened. They have also been active on 17M (mostly EU). One of my regular JA contacts said he worked them on 20m and 15m about 24 hours before (2200Z+/- on 9/10/08).

According to my cluster, they have been active on a single band at a time, with some/few concurrent contacts on 2 bands when they were switching over to another band... (VE7CC-1) Not a full board press as yet...

A lot of General's are hoping that they will run large splits like VP6 did, with their "listening frec" up in the high end of the bands... This created some discussion when they did it, but it sure worked well to accomodate 10's of thousands of Q's... They had some "REAL EARS" on that island too! Maybe they are still rigging up their beverages here??

Anyway...something to chase over the weekend while it snows...

de Mel
KD7DCR

 

14.300 emergency freq please qsy off

14.300 emergency freq please qsy off

 

I heard them on 40 CW this morning in Arkansas. However, all they were working were JA's and ZL's. I tried calling for about an hour. Hope lots of those ops got in the log, and I hope that with current band conditions I can hear them again. The CW ops were not using big splits. On SSB are wide splits honestly needed? Even as an avid DXer it seems to me that it is poor operating to take up so much of the band attempting to work one station. There must be a better system, what ever happened to working by numbers and keeping the split a little narrower? Of course I do understand that it is tough on the DX ops, as no matter what they try some lid is going to keep calling no matter what the DX is listening for at that time.

73 de W5EN Steve

 

Heh since when has 14.300 become an official emg frequency?

 

It never has, and hopefully never will. There's a "gentleman's agreement" about that frequency but nothing official in the law.

 

17 has been open frequently here in the past few days ...It would be a neat contact in this part of cycle 24

73

 

Can you please pass on the declared emergency and share with others in case we missed the bulletin. Can I help? Are you holding the frequency for a future emergency? Gee can't find a part 97 rule, FCC declaration of emergency traffic or even an band plan suggestion.

Please advise
n1fm

 

Yeah I agree Ryan. I think that emergency nets are needed and from what I recall it was a freq that everyone knew to go a brush up your traffic skill when there was or was not a declared emergency.

I can tell you that our community has had 3 hurricanes in 14 months. The first one Hurricane Jeane, caught us all off guard. We had no generators, no cell phones or electric so no way to contact relatives. My two towers were still standing but the Yagis were twisted like pretzels. All I had was my 706 in my car with a mini screw driver at a hundred watts so for all intensive purposes I was QRP. The band was in poor shape and I could not find very many QSO's. I managed to find two hams adjusting their audio on 14.178. They immediately stopped what they were doing to help and took my relatives phone numbers to tell them that I was ok and when power was restored (3 weeks by the way) I would be in contact. Just a couple of rag chewers.

The point of this is that any spot on the VFO can be an emergency frequency whether your are a DX net, rag chewing, or dXpedition. This comes from a ham who now has been on both sides of helping and needing help in an emergency.
N1FM

 

VK8WDX Willis Updates

Find a complete history of Willis operations, sound files from VK8WDX and broadcast interviews during and after the expedition at: www.dokufunk.org <go to English section and follow the link>
OE1WHC

 

Really?

When did the emergency happen? What emergency?

Anyway...heard the VK9 on 160 but didn't even try with all the east coast stations calling on his frequency. Bedlam. Too bad the operator didn't know how to do split, as it was a total mess. I noticed that style a few times on some other bands. Sad that the 160 operation (so far) wasn't more regimented. Nothing but QRM.

I doubt the VK9 will go up toe 14.300 either so the emergency frequency should be clear....LOL