> > > IC 706MKIIG barefoot > 10-15-20 Rotateable Dipole at about 25 feet > 135 Foot wire dipole - fed with window line at about 50 feet -- wiht LDG > AT200 Pro tuner for 10 - 80 (160 is miserable) > 3 Ele Cushcraft Yagi on 6 at about 30 feet >
> > I want to try to make contact with Descheo island this february, as well as > improve my over all DXing. Right now in this economy, hardware upgrades are > not much of an option -- so im looking for techniques and the like. > You'll have no problem, in my opinion, if you stick to your guns and call cleverly. KP5 is a chipshot from NA... as easy to work as KP4 if you didn't have the massive pileups. Your signal strength is no problem, you're going to be an easy 59+10dB in KP5. You'll just have to find the pattern in the pileups and drop your call at the right place. CW helps, in my opinion, but SSB should be possible. I got a contact with N3KS/KP5 in their brief stay on Desecheo on 30m with a station worse than yours. I was living in an apartment at the time, running a barefoot FT857D into a 100 foot magnet wire doublet via a remote tuner. My antenna was only up 25 - 30 feet vs. the 50 foot high doublet you have. The night before they left the island, I snagged them on 30m CW.... they were a small operation in great demand and only stayed a couple days. And whatever you do, do NOT be afraid to call on the first day. Don't wait it out to wait for the pileups to get smaller. Get in there every day until you get them even if you feel like you're up against a wall of kilowatts. You *can* get through with good timing, even in the first couple of days. It'll be a real bummer if they have to go home early. And pay close attention to their operating pattern and published frequencies. My barefoot + big vertical station got VP6DX QSO #1 because I got frustrated in some 80m CW pileup and decided to check VP6DX's pre-published CQ frequencies. Lo and behold, I get to 7002 and hear "CQ CQ de VP6DX up 25," with not a soul on 7027. Right place, right time, and you don't even have to fight a pileup at all, and for KP5 that means it's as easy to work as KP4 ! But with these big DXpeditions with excellent ops, you can even fight your way through the piles. I got several QSOs with TX5C in the first few days of the operation, again, still barefoot... I've got somewhat better antennas now than I did in my apartment days, but certainly not more than a few dB absolute maximum over what you've got except on 160m and possibly 80m in DX land , though probably not. 73 Dan ----------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe or subscribe to this list. Please send a message to imail...@njdxa.org In the message body put either unsubscribe dx-chat or subscribe dx-chat This is the DX-CHAT reflector sponsored by the NJDXA http://njdxa.org -----------------------------------------------------------
