T88WA Team will be active from Koror Island, IOTA OC - 009, Palau, 2 - 14 November 2022.
Team - N7QT, WA7CPA, N7JP, K5EM, N9ADG.
They will operate on 160 - 6m.
QSL via M0URX, LOTW.
T88WA Koror Island Palau News 15 November 2022
We went QRT yesterday afternoon and took advantage of some calm weather to take down antennas and packed through dark. A major storm blew through all night and we were grateful our equipment was down and mostly in covered bins under shelter. We finished the job today and the equipment is currently being loaded and transferred to Palau warehouse by our logistics company to wait for a vessel.
We made over 29,000 contacts even with all the lost days due to all the unforeseen circumstances. We hope you enjoyed following our adventure on our T88WA Twitter page with all the great photos put up by Justin.
The Radiosport headsets were a very valuable addition to our equipment, allowing us to hear over two generators and driving rainstorms. Highly recommend.
Our final log updates may have to wait until we get home, so if you worked us the last day and are not showing up, please be patient, it will get sorted out.
Thank you very very much to all the kind donors!
T88WA Koror Island Palau News 13 November 2022
We're aware that some logs weren't updating realtime overnight. Internet at the site is a cell hotspot and bounces between no connect, 3G, and LTE. If you didn't see your 160m contact in the log realtime last night, don't worry, but please do check tonight before calling again.
T88WA Koror Island Palau New 10 November 2022 Part 2
Last night the whole team got the first full night of rest since we arrived. First thing this morning we organized the dried out gear and started making preparations to return to the operating site, as more storms dumped rain in the area.
Armed with the small 220 volt generator we brought and the 110 volt generator, we got to work reorganizing the power grid and stations to work with the new setup. We finally made it on the air around 5:00 p.m. local time and have been up and running ever since.
We also discovered today that the damage to the 160 m antenna will require us to lower the antenna to fix; however, today the winds were too high to do this work. We will make every effort to get back on 160 meters if the weather allows us to get the antenna fixed.
T88WA Koror Island Palau News 10 November 2022
This morning another big storm blew through but now it is calmer. Three complete stations drying out overnight are being packed into watertight bins. The equipment will be transported up to the operating site with a plan for quickly packing equipment if caught by surprise again. Our hired man has done carpentry to reattach tarps to the picnic shelter. We have not yet heard a report from mechanic on status of the generator. The storm videos were taken AFTER Justin and Jack were holding on for dear life in what former storm chaser Justin estimated 50mph gusts. We cannot emphasize enough the good fortune there were two of them at the time and the van was on site and that the bean to Justin's head by the wood holding up a tarp did not harm him. We are hoping to be on the air in some number of hours today. That said, if we are working a pileup and suddenly disappear it is because another storm has arrived and we are saving equipment.
Thank you for your patience and all your good wishes and donations to this extraordinary adventure.
T88WA
T88WA Koror Island Palau News 9 November 2022
A major squall is blowing through. We lost the tarp walls to our shelter. All equipment is being put in covered bins and put in van. Will update later today.
Update:
K5EM and N7JP just returned to the bungalows wetter than drowned rats. They are unloading bins of our equipment to dry out here. They reported wind gusts of 30-50 miles per hour with sustained winds of 30mph. K5EM got video. We have a hired man staying at the shelter who turned down a ride out of there. He is going to stick it out and probably try to secure as much of our effects as he can.
T88WA Team Koror Island Palau.
T88WA Koror Island Palau News 8 November 2022
We braved mosquitos and trees full of ants, but we managed to put up the DHDL on a nice gentle north facing slope. The only place we could put it was in the jungle, so that's where it is. We'll be listening for you tonight on 160 and 80m
T88WA Koror Island Palau News 6 November 2022 Part 3
This evening we made what we think are the first 60m QSOs ever from T8 and we were able to close a few with NA. The BigIR seems to be doing its job. The bad noise from the first night was gone tonight. We'll be back on 60 over the coming nights as we get RX ants up.
T88WA Koror Island Palau News 6 November 2022 Part 2
The station will shut down sometime for an hour for generator maintenance. The 160m radial field is laid out. Antenna fabrication is in progress. We expect the 160m antenna to go up sometime tomorrow. We are a small group of operators with big goals and we are stretched to get everything done and stay on the air. But are we having fun? Heck yeah!
Team T88WA
T88WA Koror Island Palau News 6 November 2022
We were treated to a beautiful sunrise and then got the first hex beam up on the pole before breakfast. It's only up 6-8 feet but based on 15m this morning it doesn't seem to mind
T88WA Koror Island Palau News 5 November 2022
We love the view over the Pacific Ocean from our outdoor QTH under a summer shelter protecting
us and our equipment with tarps from the daily squalls. The tarps roll up to let in air when the weather
Is calm because it can be stifling. Team members started building the 160 antenna.
We were rested enough to start SSB and CW. Both Hexbeams and one BigIR are up. We now have
The diesel we need. To get this far we have large unexpected expenses, including diesel generator rental, various supplies to set up our unexpected field operation,and some paid local labor.
T88WA Koror Island Palau News 4 November 2022
QRV. Biggest challenge ahead will be the lack of diesel availability on the island. All bands sounding good but very high non-local noise on 60 and 80. 7.056 overnight. All need sleep, finish antennas, and hopefully secure fuel supply. 160m expected to be good when antenna built.
Happy to be working on SteppIR Big IR vertical all through EU and WC NA so far.
73
T88WA
T88WA Koror Island Palau News 3 November 2022
First of all, a big thank you to DX Engineering for its emergency donation and shipping to Palau of an MFJ Ultrasonic RFI device for tracking down RF noise at the Bai near Choll Village where we were going to make our QTH. It was intractable S9 noise across all bands coming from underground cable and telephone wires running all along the island under the power poles.
Our big news after being shown six other sites is that we found a killer site with an expansive view across the ocean to North America. Our proprietor and her husband are very well connected in Palau and Arlene won’t take no for an answer. All business here is transacted based on relationships. Arlene called the Governor and arranged a meeting for Rob N7QT with the governor to explain what we are doing and why we need him to shut down this public site for the duration of our DXpedition. He and Rob are now on first name terms and both are happy with the negotiated price.
The team has taken down the Big IR vertical tested at our resort (worse noise than the Bai) and is removing the Hexbeam at the Bai and packing up our 1500 pounds of gear for transport to our new “Field Day” site. Unlike the Bai we will not have air conditioning but will be operating outdoors in steamy conditions under a summer shelter using mosquito netting to protect us and tarps to protect our equipment from the regular squalls. We will use the 2000w 240V generator we shipped and will be renting or purchasing a 6000w generator likely delivered tomorrow from Koror. So, if all goes well, the team will have three stations to keep running 24 hours per day. We will work out a new commute schedule between QTH and resort. Additional operational and survival logistics are being worked out. We can’t report on every detail of the twists and turns of our continuing attempts to get on the air, but an episode of Survivor was filmed here so we decided to call our adventure episode Ham Radio DXpedition Survivor.
We reasonably expect sometime tomorrow we will get our first station on the air and continue building out the antenna field from there. We know the high bands have been hopping and we are also going to work hard to bring you the low bands, including 60m FT8.
Team T88WA