Craig, VK5CE will be active from North Island, Sir Edward Pellew Islands, IOTA OC - 198, 12 - 16 November 2017 as VK5CE/8.
He will operate on HF Bands.
QSL via home call, OQRS.
Final Press Release for OC-198 VK5CE/8 DXpedition 21 September 2017
In a couple of weeks I’ll be leaving home on the journey north to outback Australia for the activation of North Island OC-198 (claimed by 11.1% of IOTA chasers). The boat operator was recently in Darwin where I had a great phone conversation with him to confirm the dates and that I’ll be able to bring a large array of vertical and beam antennas and spare generator on the small boat to take us to the island.
I’ve purchased a new wire kit from Spiderbeam for the DXpedition to use as a 20m-17m-15m tribander with 3 elements on each band. I tested this over the past couple of weeks and it worked well with low SWR and it was very encouraging to see the bands starting to open on the short path to Europe on 15m in our late afternoon and 20m in our late evening. Up in VK8 in October these high bands will be very good despite the current band conditions.
I’ll have no access to phones or internet and so people won’t be able to email me and I can’t spot myself on the cluster. I’ve done my final analysis of band conditions and I’ve put together a schedule of where I’ll be on the bands.
Most of the time I’ll be on SSB and so this schedule will show you where to look for me. When the Scandinavian Activity Contest is on at 1200 UTC Saturday to Sunday 1200 UTC I’m likely to be on 40m for North America or 17m for Europe in my local evening to avoid the contest. On the last couple of days I’ll start to do a little PSK on 30m at night and 15m during the day if SSB pile ups slow down.
73s de Craig VK5CE
VK5CE/8 OC-198 News 8 July 2017
The VK5CE/8 DXpedition to Australia’s 3rd most wanted IOTA of OC-198 is now only a few months away. The website has been significantly updated at https://oc198.wordpress.com/ Thanks to Stu K6TU who has come on board as a DXpedition supporter with his fantastic K6TU Propagation service. So please visit the DXpedition propagation page to learn how to improve your chances of getting in the log. 73’s Craig
VK5CE/8. North Island. IOTA Expedition. Logo.