news

Dear OMs, here you can find some news from The Gambia 2010 DXpedition. We will try to update it daily also from Gambia, dependent on our internet connection. See you in pileups...de OM0C Contest Crew.

• December 1st - Landed in Brussels and boarded the plane to Prague where we are at about 8:30 AM. What a shock. It's minus 10 centigrade in Prague and snow is everywhere. Over 40 degrees temperature difference in couple of hours. Hope we survive it. All our stuff arrived OK. We load it in a van as fast as possible in a freezy parking lot. Last hand shake. Some guys especially from OM still have to travel to their homes a couple of hundred kilometers by cars. A lousy drive in this weather.    
• November 30th - Packing up. Trying to pack  the PAs especially carefully so they don't get damaged as on the way here. In the afternoon we say good bye to Benny and Conny from Radio SYD where we spent almost 2 weeks and left for the airport. They gave us an excelent service and support. Really big thank to both. After minor problems due to overweight of our cabin baggage we finally boarded and took off for Brussells.
• November 29th - It's over.  Despite of all problems and poor propagation we achieved a good result. Almost 16000 QSOs and 43.7 millions points. We are so tired that we don't celebrate much. After a short supper all go to bed. In the morning we start putting all antennas down and packing up all our stuff together. The time is short. We have to be at the airport the next day at 5PM. When dismantling the 20m 4-square we found a burned connector at one dipol. It's interesting; the antenna still worked OK, only SWR was a bit worse when it was switched to one direction.   
• November 28th - We're working on all bands and the score is pleasingly growing. The hardest bands are 40, 80 and 160m. Huge pile-ups, a lot of QRM and mosquitos. In addition someone is burning garbage near our QTH. The wind blows the stench directly toward us. As the contest is getting to its end we're chasing some multipliers. We managed to get all 40 zones on 20m.  We checked the RX antenna box once again. We found another "eaten" connection. Now the box is working OK, but its too late. If the RX antenna worked as before the contest the resullt on 160 and 80m would be much better. Apology to all we did not hear. Unfortunately the propagation on higher bands is even worse then the first day. No opening on 15m in the evening.
• November 27th - The CQ WW has started. Big pile-ups especially on 80, 40 and 20m. Unfortunately the propagation was getting worse since we've arrived.  10m closed, 15m very poor. OK1RI is struggling to get some JAs through the long path on 15m. It's a hard work as it's exactly the direction where the jam comes from. The crew on 160 and 80 complains about worse performance of the "wonder" RX antennas. We go out  to check them, but there's a heavy wind and the sea gets very rough. A large part of the beach is flooded by big waves, also our RX antennas. It seems that the salt water got into the central box of the 4-square. No chance to do anything at night on the flooded beach. The new day brings opening on 15 and 10.  The sea calmed and we check the central box. The salt water and DC had literally eaten thin wires inside. We repaired it as good as it got. Otherwise all rig is working without any problem. It turned out in the evening that the repair of the box brought only partial improvement. It still doesn't work as before.
• November 25th - 26th The tests showed that the HA7RY RX antennas don't work for some unclear reason. On the other hand the "wonder" 4-square consisting of short verticals performed very good. We put the HA7RY down and used the spare coax cable  for moving the  "wonder" close to the sea and far from the jam source. It works amazingly on 160 and 80. We're getting ready for the contest; decided the crews on the bands and basic schedule. 
• November 23rd - 24th We're testing our rig and fighting the jam coming from south-west. ECC1 arrived and is installed on 15m band, where it's worst. It helps a bit, but it's still there.  The staff of the power company visited us and promised to check the possible jam source. We negotiated a short power outage and hoped they found it. Although they worked hard, no success. We decided then to move 20m 4-square as far as possible from the jam source and closer to the sea. In the meantime we work on the bands as much as possible, but most of us are either busy or tired.
• November 22nd 2010 - 09:58 UTC. The first black out. We hoped we wouldn't experience this here again as the power infrastructure improved significantly in Gambia since 2007. Our apology to all who were waiting in the pile ups. We hope the outage won't last long.
• November 21st 2010 - Doing RX antennas HA7RY for 80 and 160. It's an experiment. We could not test them at home as this type requires a good ground basically available only at the sea.  We also erected the Spider Beam for WARC bands. We feel we need some rest; so we went for a lunch to the town. At night we start testing the 40 and 80. The pile-ups are amazing. Unfortunately, the undiscipline of some stations is amazing, too.
• November 20th 2010 - working on WARC beam and verticals for 80m and 160. Very hot weather, 38 centigrade in the shade, maybe 50 on the sun...we can work only mornings and late afternoons.
• We hope to update our log as soon as possible. Big pileups on 20m, 15m and 10m..Unfortunately, we can't go to the Bijol Island. The ornitologist Clive Barlow (the contact person) is in UK because of his mother death...sad :-(
• November 19th 2010 - Another big antenna in the air, 5 over 5 on 10m !!!!  We finished the 4-square on 40m, but no time to finish all cables...maybe tmw
• November 18th 2010 - Another system in the air, 4-square on 20m. We spent a lot of time with resolving power problems. In the end we had to build up a new independent power installation in the entire QTH of the Radio Syd. The original one was too poor for all our equipment.
• November 17th 2010 - We start to build antennas, first antenna 5 over 5 on 15m...this is a big one...We also have to repair our PAs, due to a lot of damages during the transport through the airports in Prague, Brussels and Banjul...The technical group is working hard and after two days are all amplifiers in the air!
• November 16th 2010 - We arrived to Gambia!
• November 15th 2010 - The team is on the way Prague-Brussels-Banjul
• November 14th 2010 - Just one day to go...the team is really nervous :-)
• November 13th 2010 - Logsearch created on the web. TNX Chris DL5NAM
• November 8th 2010 - Just one week to go...the team is becoming nervous :-)
• November 1st 2010 - Most of the setup is carefully packed and prepared for transport, we have about 800kg of luggage!
• July 2010 - Starting building up the setup
• July 2010 - Just received an letter about the granted licences renewal of C50C and C52C callsigns and a new license C5A for CW CQWW contest
• May 2010 - web site created
• May 2010 - we put together 9 operators
• April 2010 - application form for the licence has been sent to Banjul, Gambia. We are trying to renew our last C52C and C50C licences from 2007 and also get an additional callsign for the contest.
• January 2010 - first meeting of the crew in a wine cellar in South Moravia 
• November 2009 - basic idea created and we start putting our team together, first operators come from the previous Gambia 2007 DXpedition, Rich OK8WW/OM2TW, Joe OM5AW, Norbert OM6NM and OK1RI as a team leader of OL4A multi team