- [NEWS UPDATE] –
For the CQWW CW contest this year (November 29-30) team consisting G0CKV, KX7M, 4O3A and others will again be active from Mauritius as 3B8M (Category: M/M). See below for details on last year’s trip including antenna set-up / pictures.
- [NOVEMBER 20, 2024] – by Olof, G0CKV
We have had pleasant and stable November weather so far with nice tradewinds. But, of course, this week, the week leading up to CQWWCW, mother nature decided to play a game with us.
A depression developed into a tropical storm, was named Bheki, continued to build into a violent cyclone and has been aiming for us ever since. As of Tuesday evening there’s a cyclone warning class I in force for 3B8. As a precaution, we have taken down our antennas, secured the house with shutters, and secured outdoor furniture. We have also ensured that we have food supplies and emergency water to hunker down for a couple of days. Our QTH is very exposed to the wrath of the Indian Ocean. We are right in the water on an exposed low tiny islet. With a strong violent cyclone we would need to evacuate. With a less violent cyclone we will lock down here but our road to land would be dangerous.
We do hope that come Friday the danger will be over and we can get our antennas back up. We have a great competent crew here so we should then be on the air on HF bands including 40 as the contest starts. The low bands may have to wait until Saturday.
More time has been spent in the last couple of days trying to interpret different weather forecasts than worrying about the ionosphere.
- [NOVEMBER 18] –
Team member Ranko, 4O3A reports that the 3B8M in-band station was completed and ready today. Unfortunately, a strong cyclone has been announced for next week, which could put the team in a very hard situation, says Ranko. They hope for a bit of good luck. Look for various 3B8/homecalls before the contest.
Antenna assembly (credit: 4O3A)
Ranko, 4O3A
- [NOVEMBER 12] –
3B8M will again be active M/M in CQWWCW 2024. Team in 2024 will include G0CKV (3B8HA), KX7M, 4O3A, 3B8GL, E70A, SM0CXU, YL3JA, YL2KL, YT1HA, YT7KM, YU6DX & YU9DX.
2024 advance team arriving MRU airport (Nov 13).
This is a field-day style operation. All antennas and stations have to be erected and assembled and then taken down in a few days around the contest weekend. Antennas at 3B8M are all vertical wires on Spiderbeam poles and next to the Indian Ocean with an unobstructed take-off in most directions. On 160 a toploaded vertical (umbrella) is used, on 80 an inverted-L and on 40 a vertical dipole. The 40m antenna is out in the lagoon on a rock. For 20, 15 and 10 VDAs are used and also omni vertical dipoles. Our VDAs are typically 2-element vertical dipole arrays (vertical yagis). In 2023 we also played with pairs of ‘stacked’ VDAs. We used stackmatch and control boxes from Jan at qro.cz . This allowed the operators on 20, 15 and 10 to select VDA 1, VDA 2, both VDAs or the omni vertical dipole. In 2024 we might add aluminium vertical yagis to the mix.
Noise is high on the LF bands in the tropics. Our location has low noise locally but propagated noise level is high when the bands are open. We have little space for receive antennas but as an experiment we have built a K9AY which we hope to put some 50m out on a rock in the lagoon. A receive triplexer makes the K9AY usable on 160-80-40. The K9AY setup also uses hardware from qro.cz .
In 2024 we will use a mix of K3, FTdx10 and Flex radios with SPE, Juma and PGXL amplifiers running 800W and will try some inband QSOs too.
[Header picture of 3B8M team holding DX-World flag is from 2022]
