This off the VHF reflector this morning. Certainly of interest to satellite operators and 6m operators.
James W8ISS =====
On Sat, 2008-12-13 at 17:18 -0500, N7BHC wrote:
The following message came from Dan HB9CRQ this morning. The January DXpedition to Namibia will focus on VHF and UHF exclusively. Modes will include EME, tropo, meteor scatter, LEO satellites, etc. Here is Dab's posting.
Dave N7BHC
Dear friends
I am happy to officially announce our Namibia DXpedition! The reservations and flight tickets are confirmed and we are in the final stage of preparations. Many thanks especially to Hal, Pine, Dick and Dave for their huge effort preparing everything!
NAMIBIA DXpedition January 2009
This information will be updated as more details are available! Please check www.hb9q.ch and www.mmmvhf.de for updates!
Dates of operation will be from moonrise on 7th to moonset on 16th January 2009. QTH will be in Luderitz Namibia, grid locator JG73NI. See the GoogleEarth Pin (V5 DXpedition JG73ni.kmz)!
We have applied for a special call for our DXpedition. As soon as we get it confirmed we will announce it.
Our main target is to activate Namibia on 50, 144, 432 and 1296 MHz EME. At the same time we will be QRV for transatlantic Tropo on 144 and 432 and on satellite (AO-7, FO-29 and AO-51).
EME operation: We intend to operate 144 and 432 all our moon-windows, 50 and 1296 will have limited activity times. We will announce them when on site. We will be QRV in JT65 on all bands and will do some CW on 144 and 432. The details of activity will be announced later. As soon as we arrive in Luderitz we will check-out the QRM situation and announce our frequencies on www.hb9q.ch and/or www.mmmvhf.de
Equipment: For 50 MHz we will be using 1 x 6M7JHV and Acom 1000 (400W). For 144 MHz we will be using 4 x M2 2M9SSB yagis mounted on the trailer with az/el rotators. We will have 400W and ARR preamp. For 432 MHz we will be using 8 x M2 432EME-12 yagis on a low tower manually rotated. We have a TE Systems 180 watt and ARR preamp. For 1296 MHz we will be using 1x59el yagi (21wl) and 80W (Transverter and PA by DJ9YW), no preamp. For the 144 MHz the cross-Atlantic tropo attempt we will take an M2 2M19XXX long yagi and will have 180 & 300 watt amplifiers available. For Satellite operations we will be using M2 crossed Yagis for 144 & 432 MHz with az/el rotator as the primary array with M2 Eggbeaters available for backup.
The operators will be ZS6WB Hal, ZS6OB Pine, ZS6BUN Dick, ZS6AC Sarel, N7BHC Dave, HB9CRQ Dan.
We hope to have (limited) internet access from our QTH. If we can we will update once a day the stations worked at www.hb9q.ch
We would like to get as many contacts as possible in the log and all contacts will be confirmed.
vy 73
Dan, HB9CRQ/KT6Q head of HB9Q
www.hb9q.ch
Beginning of second message:
On Sat, 2008-12-13 at 17:25 -0500, N7BHC wrote:
In the email I just forwarded from Dan HB9CRQ, he mentions that we will will also be doing some tropo ducting tests across the South Atlantic ocean. I am joining the expedition to focus on the trans- oceanic ducting research and attempts to cross the South Atlantic on 2m and 70cm. Here are a couple more web pages to look at for additional data.
Expedition overview (not an official expedition web page). This page has many links to additional data on Luderitz Bay where the expedition will take place. http://sites.google.com/site/n7bhcvhf/trans-oceantic-ducting/south-atlantic-...
Tropo Ducting from Namibia in January. http://sites.google.com/site/n7bhcvhf/trans-oceantic-ducting/south-atlantic-...
73, Dave - N7BHC
Email: [email protected]
N7BHC/B beacon FM15PA 144.291 MHz CW 50 W - 16 element horizontal pol. reports by email or phone +1 (704) 225-3928 ===========================================