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).
In just a few weeks, Phil will be 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.
Phil provided the following announcement:
Well, we’re doing it again! Most of the operators of CY9C in 2016 are embarking on another trip to St. Paul Island in less than a couple of weeks. We plan to be QRV from July 31 through August 8 from 160m-6m, SSB, CW and Digital, along with EME and AMSAT.
We’ll be operating from the North-East Point only, and since that part of the island has reliable cellular access, we plan to be live-logging to Clublog. Stay tuned here and at the CY9C Website and Facebook Page for details as the event unfolds. I plan to post at least once a day from the island.
This is a special trip for me because my eldest son, Connor, will be coming along for the trip. He’s been practising his phonetic alphabet and FT8 in preparation for operating on the island.
It’ll be a two-day trip there and then two days back again. Once again, we’ll be ferried to and from the island by Pat, N2IEN. Without him, this expedition would look a lot different that it does right now. The North-East Point is the best place, RF-wise, on the island, but is only accessible via helicopter. Pat will also be taking point on all the satellite ops.
Lee, WW2DX, is going back to make another run and EME. He had a great first night in 2016, but then gale-force winds knocked down and destroyed his EME array. This time, we’re going to use concrete anchors and tether this stuff right to the rock – if it gets knocked over then, the rest of us will probably be in the ocean 🙂
There are eight of us in total. We’ll be running 4 x IC-7300 transceivers on CW, SSB and Digital – and yes, that means FT8. FT8 frequencies are published on the CY9C website here. I’m hoping the weather is as good this time around as it was in 2016.
More to come later – stay tuned here for updates.
– Phil McBride, VA3QR/VA3KPJ
Note: for more information on the 2016 CY9C DXpedition please visit the following webpage but read the article from the bottom up: https://wp.rac.ca/rac-director-on-cy9c-dxpedition/