This is the last night operating on Cocos Keeling Island. Tomorrow we all fly home and tear down will start around 8am local, (0130z).
Currently we are taking one last chance to call NA & SA on 17m (18075 CW) . We are focusing on USA tonight in a last night concerted effort…. The path is tough and conditions not favourable but if you can hear us call us, we plan on being here all night!
For the next couple of days VK9XI will continue to be heard as well as VK9CI, although mostly on digital modes. Cliff, VK9VKL our resident Amateur Radio operator will continue operating under the expedition callsign VK9XI when he has free time until the 17th of October – mostly using FT8. Look out for him and give him a call, particularly if you missed the crew when the main station was active from the island.
This is your second chance to work the expedition call VK9XI!
The team on Cocos Keeling Island has been hearing the comments from many areas about the lack of signals from VK9CI. We have honestly been trying our best, however the current geomagnetic storm has been making life very difficult. Even VK is struggling to hear us and only the paths to the north and east have been working for us.
In particular we are focused on calling for North America at the best times we have seen for that region, knowing how difficult a path it is. So far, we have found that the best times we have heard North America are around 0000z either Short or Long Path West Coast and 1100z on the Long Path for the East Coast, with 1100z being best pick on 20m and 17m. Due to the low signal levels we are concentrating on CW for NA. Please bear with us however as signals are very weak and often only at the same level as the tropical QRN noise and static here.
We also frequently ask the strongest stations to stand by as we try calling in other less easy to work regions such as South America, Oceania and Africa. We ask that those stations in other regions respect our wishes and standby accordingly as we really are trying to give VK9C to as many stations as possible who need VK9C as an ATNO (All time new one).
Please keep trying from your end, and we will continue to do our best from VK9CI for you. We guessed there must have been a reason VK9C was so high on the NA most wanted lists and now we know, It really isn’t an easy path! The following charts from VOACAP will hopefully help identify bearings and times for you!
We are QRV on 160M every day at our sunset and our sunrise and most of the hours in between.
Yesterday was our best 160M run. We worked a few US East coast stations. Signals were received as S4 to S6 at our sunrise.”
From Adrian VK9CI Team (KO8SCA)
The team is now fully established on the island although their Internet communications are very limited. When you do hear us please spot us as we cant easily let people know when and where we are on otherwise.
Lee and Adrian have managed to send the following photos and notes today to give you an idea of the arrangements and the station out on Cocos Keeling Island.
We landed on Cocos Keeling Island on Tuesday having flown from Christmas Island that afternoon. The first thing we have noticed is that its windy…a constant 20-30 knot wind from the south east – 25 hours a day so far….
On the ground we were met by Peter Robinson who was keen to sit for his amateur radio licence. After dinner the first night, Lee VK3GK set off with him to his home where he conducted a remote assessment with Ron VK2DQ via Skype. After a few internet issues, we now have a new resident ham on Cocos Keeling Island. Keep a look out for Peter VK9FCKI in the near future!
This is our residence on Cocos Keeling Island. You can see the 2 x Yagi for 20/15/10 and 17/12/30 plus the 160M vertical (inverted L on a 18M long fiber glass pole) and 10 to 80M vertical in the yard. The house is locally known as “pizza house” but the official name is “My Island Home”.
Getting the 200kg of baggage to the house was an exercise itself! Once there we managed to initially erect the 80-10m vertical using a convenient “Hills Hoist” clothesline (very familiar to many in VK at least).
To get the beam antennas in the air, we then needed a couple of suitable lengths of pipe. The locals on the island suggested we take a trip to the local “transfer station” which they said should have everything we needed – a bit like the local “Bunnings” hardware store island style! (Australian’s will be familiar with those stores – equivalents would be Lowes or Home Depot in the USA).
With the necessary pipe in hand, the team set about completing the antenna systems. You can see below Tony and Adrian assembling the 2 element Rippletech Yagi for 20/15/10m.
We are very happy with the results, with a lower noise floor than when on Christmas Island and pileups such as this one on 17m up to 5kHz wide, as seen on our Icom IC7300 radios kindly loaned to us by Icom America.
We are now looking forward to Chris VK3FY and Peter VK3FN joining us this weekend for the Oceania DX CW Contest! Still plenty of time to get VK9CI in the log so hope to see you on the air, and again please spot us if you hear us as our other communication avenues off the island are limited.
Charles M0OXO also reports that the first round of logs have arrived from the team on OC-003. They are now being uploaded to Clublog plus M0OXO OQRS and Logsearch.
https://secure.clublog.org/logsearch/VK9CI
73 from the team on Cocos (Keeling) Island de VK9CI QRV 160-10m!
The team has arrived safely on Cocos (Keeling) Island yesterday and we had the 40-10m vertical running within a couple of hours. Today we have got the 160m inverted L erected and expect to be on 160m tonight (CKI time).
The 2 element 20/15/10m Rippletech lightweight DXpedition Yagi has been going gangbusters.
Conditions are up and down. Plenty of JA’s and always strong, have worked several VK’s now we have open paths 360 degrees, unlike Christmas Island. The team has been active and has been heard on 20/17 and 15m CW today in VK5 with plenty of spots from other parts of the world.
Dont forget to look for us also during the Oceania DX CW Contest this weekend!
Cliff VK9VKL will be continuing to operate VK9XI on FT8 as well from Christmas Island through until the 17th of October, so if you missed out working the team up until now there is still time on FT8 and potentially other modes. Operation will be sporadic until Saturday afternoon (Island Time) and then he can throw all his time Sunday and Monday into it.
The team has established their first station on 20m and are currently running CW. They are being heard in VK as well as the USA.
The following is a sample from N0UN’s DX Blog again who made contact with VK9CI this morning.
They were also worked by a number of VK and ZLs. The word from the team was that the remaining stations were under construction so stay tuned as more bands are opened.
Here is a video of the typical tropical noise experienced at Christmas Island on 160 m over night. The receiving antenna is a beverage. Noise received on the inverted L transmitting antenna is far worse.
The SPE 1.3kfa linear amplifiers are doing sterling service at VK9XI according to Luke VK3HJ
We just got the AS-SAL30-MK2 RX array tuned and performing well. As the video shows, from an S9 to S0-S1 signal flipping the arrays direction 180 degrees. We could hear many W’s calling on our Sunrise this morning but just too deep in the noise to get them, hopefully this will make the difference. Listen around 22:30z….. But the opening is very short to East coast USA….. Maybe just only several minutes….
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