South Orkney Islands VP8ORK

[W6SDM]

After four days of chasing across three bands and yelling into the microphone until I lost my voice, I managed to work the South Orkney Islands, VP8ORK. This is the DXpedition that's presently down there.

http://dx-world.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/VP8ORK-ops-400x296.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a3/Factory_Cove_-_Signy_Island.jpg/200px-Factory_Cove_-_Signy_Island.jpg

The place looks cold! What made this hard is that they work split with the SSB calling frequency being 14.190 and they receive anywhere between 14.240 to 14.250 - and it changes. You have to constantly be looking for the QSX frequency. I used my FT-450 to help spot the pileups. And seriously, dude, you would not believe the pileups.

I made the contact with my Flex 3000, AL811 and the TH7 that Dieter, Randy, and Paul helped get in the air. This was my 139th country.

[KE7KUS]

Great work, Steve. Congrats on Orkney! That's a good haul from here in AZ. I'd love to hear a recording of the mayhem, if you saved one.

[W6SDM]

Thanks, Curt. It's a real thrill to hear your callsign come back to you out of a pileup of fifty or more people calling on one frequency. Getting these guys doesn't require a big signal - but it does require tactical operation. The trick is to get your call heard between everyone else's versus on top of everyone else (which won't happen unless you have a lot of very well directed power).

Some guys use the brute force approach which is to set their voice keyer to just repeat their callsign over and over and over until they smash the competition. To me, this is rude and requires no skill. Others use tricks like only repeating the last couple of letters of their callsign. Another is to proceed with the signal report as if they had been acknowledged and hope the DX operators respond. IMHO, this is all very poor operating technique and is, at the least, unsportsmanlike.

One of my tricks is to get between other stations. I say my call once phonetically and once alphabetically. I listen to the pileup and try to time my response so that I am heard just after someone else unkeys. If the QSX is on a range of frequencies, I like to get between a couple of big guns. One of the keys to successful DX is listening for weak signals and most operators do this out of habit. So, if I am between a couple of guys running Henry 4ks and I am making any noise at all, I am likely to get some attention.

Anyway, there is still a chance to work the South Orkney Islands. Here is an article on the DXpedition:


South Orkney Islands DXpedition http://www.southgatearc.org/news/january2011/south_orkney_islands.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AmateurRadioNews+%28Southgate +Amateur+Radio+News%29

Members of the Microlight Penguins hit the airwaves as planned on January 27th, from Signy Island (AN-008) around
1730z on 20 meters SSB. Activity by VP8ORK should last until February 8th.

They expect to be on the air with 7 stations on all HF bands 160-10 meters using SSB, CW and RTTY.

As this was being written, the VP8ORK log shows (at 1456z,
Janaury 30th) that they have made 21198 QSOs with 7863 unique callsigns (13321/CW, 7364/SSB and 513/RTTY).
The online log can now be found at:
http://www.clublog.org/charts/?c=vp8ork

If you want a QSL card there are three ways available to receive one:
OQRS direct (on the VP8O Web page), OQRS Bureau (on the VP8O Web page) and direct by mail via VE3XN [w/SASE/Green Stamps/IRC(s)].

For more details and updates, visit the VP8O Web page at: http://www.vp8o.com (http://www.vp8o.com/realtimenews.htm)
By the way, real-time news is now available at:
http://www.vp8o.com/realtimenews.htm

[KT7DAD]

Cool
Good job