In August 2016, RAC Ontario South Director, Phil McBride, VA3QR/VA3KPJ, was part of a team of 11 operators who embarked on a DXpedition to St. Paul Island (IOTA NA-094). Phil is currently a member of a team of eight operators for a return to St. Paul Island from July 31 to August 8.
Phil will be providing regular updates here on the RAC website and on social media via our Twitter and Facebook accounts. All images are used with his permission. You can find out more about Phil and follow his journey via his blog and Twitter account and also on the CY9C St Paul Island DXpedition website.
CY9C II – Day 1: In transit and from St Paul Island
Sorry this took so long to post everyone – it’s been a very long day, but we’re here and we’re operating!
Day 1 started at about 7:10 am ADT getting Connor out of bed and getting showered and packed up – cleaning up our AirBnB and getting to the Markland for one last breakfast. We then met everyone at a local church before going up to the LZ/staging area. I will admit to cranking the A/C full-blast to enjoy this last creature comfort for a while 😉
Pat took Barry, Lee, WW2DX, and a local helper named Greg to the island to scope out the island LZ and get things going. Connor and I were next – it was our job to start getting the tents up and figure out where we were going to place everything.
During this time, Pat started running supplies and equipment from the mainland to the island. One by one operators, and radios, and antennas began to show up.
Will, AA4NC, got the 20m station setup as soon as the first operating tent went up. He and Lee strung up an OCF dipole and got on the air at 1:38 pm ADT (1638z) and it hasn’t stopped ever since.
We got all of the tents up, and the mess tent is stocked with our food (and a lot of coffee) and water. At time of writing, everyone is pretty much getting ready for bed. It was an unusually hot day here today and we’re all a little sun-kissed.
Along with the OCF, we re-created the 160m beast – using the left-over radial system of the old MW naval beacon and running a 1/4~ 160m wire from that base to the top of the lighthouse.
I’m looking forward to spending some time on 160m SSB tomorrow night. We are planning to live-log to ClubLog, but we’re not there yet – hopefully we’ll get that setup tomorrow, and I’ll dump the logs we have, and then the rest will go live beyond that. I will post here as soon as that happens. Please be patient – we still have a lot of setup to get through tomorrow, and all of the equipment isn’t over here yet.
Lee, WW2DX, is working to get 2m/6m EME setup. Keep an eye on his Twitter for updates on these modes.
I will attempt to post tomorrow sometime in the late afternoon. In the meantime, CY9C is QRV 🙂 For now, I need to go to bed. My everything hurts 🙂
– 73, Phil McBride, VA3QR/CY9