VP8PJ team will be operational as ZL1NA/MM from the Braveheart. QSL will be available after the team return home.ZL1NA/MM OQRS
Update February 29th 12:00z: “We have all your comments to the pilots and a summary of the groups.io reflector.
After a storm blew through we’re currently experiencing the weather conditions we expected. The antennas are staying up, with only some challenges with the larger verticals. The WeatherPort buildings have performed as expected, even with occasional wind gusts that we estimate at 75 – 80 kph, or higher. We have reports of missing FT8 QSOs, we can not fix that on the island, Tim M0URX will handle the missing contacts once he has all the FT8 files.
Schedule:
We must depart the island by the afternoon of Thursday, March 6th.
Depending on the weather, we expect to begin tearing down the camp on Weds, March 4th.
We estimate (with reasonable weather) March 4 – 5 for the tear down, load the ship and be ready to sail on Thursday.
Estimated time at sea is 5 full days, and arrive at the entrance to the harbor on the evening of March 11th.
We will unload the ship on March 13 and turn to equipment over to our Customs Broker.
Braveheart will leave Punta Arenas on March 15th. 73, VP8PJ Team”
Update February 28th 18:00z: Log uploaded Last QSO in the log: 28 Feb 2020 12:24 UTC
Update February 27th 18:00z: Unable to go back to boat today, snow storm and very cold wind. Maybe tomorrow for log upload.
Update February 27th RR73, but not in log? KNOWN ISSUE FOLLOW OUR ADVICE
Do not send log check request email!
If you are not in log, work again or wait until this function will be enabled.
Update February 25th 21:00z Log uploaded: In a message from the Braveheart, K5GS Gene reports. “We are having spotty success getting an adequate signal from the satellite, even from the ship. We’ve been in contact with the service provider and we all agree that the problem is the terrain and the satellite’s low angle in the sky.
That said, we’re here to work DX and will deal with the usual challenges all DX-peditions to the Southern Ocean tend to experience. One of the ship’s crew asked “they make a contact on the radio and need to Internet to confirm they made the contact?”. Interesting observation from a fellow that knows little about ham radio.
We ask that people do not send us or the pilots e-mails asking about logs, if we can get uploads done, we will. If not you’ll have to do your best to get a contact. This is an experienced DX-pedition and Contest team, if you hear them repeat your call you’re in the log.
The pileups have been what we expected, always energetic, sometimes chaotic but no surprises. The team is working under very cold and windy weather conditions, with snow at night. Doing any work outside is challenging anytime and can not be done at night.”
Update February 23rd 14:00z “We are unable to find a solid satellite connection on the island. We are waiting to change to a different satellite, but it’s not clear there will be any difference. We know it is not a hardware problem because we have 3 satellite terminals of this model and one of another model. If we can not find a solid connection we will try to upload logs from the ship every day, and even that path to the satellite is very poor. They are are continuing to install additional antennas today. It’s cold and difficult to use hand tools in the wind.”
It is clear that a satellite connection at high latitude at South Orkney will not be able to sustain a sufficient solid connection to enable 24/7 uploading.
NB # Please continue to be patient while the team work through the options of log uploading.
Please do not email / phone about busted calls or logs. The log WILL be uploaded as soon as possible. The situation above remains unchanged! When the log is consolidated at the end of the DXpedition the “NOT IN LOG?” form will be enabled.
