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Dominic Smith

This content is archived. It is kept for historical reference only. It was last modified in March 2019. It will not be updated.

VP2MUW
DXpedition to Montserrat — November 2018

Information

We were active from 17-23 November 2018 on all HF bands from 80m to 10m, SSB and CW. (Why we didn't use FT8)

We used Elecraft K3s on all three stations. One station had a Juma amp and another station had a KPA500. The other station was barefoot.

Montserrat counts as NA-103 for IOTA.

Read the full blog post about the trip.

QSL information

Logs were uploaded to Club Log and LotW regularly throughout the trip. If you need a paper QSL, you can use Clublog OQRS to request a direct or bureau card. Please do not send us your card.

To use OQRS, start by searching for your callsign:

If your QSO isn't found in the search, email me to check for a busted call.

Operators

The operators on this trip all live in Cambridge, England and are all former students of Cambridge University. They are members of both Cambridge University Wireless Society (G6UW/M4A) and Camb-Hams (G3PYE).

Between them, they have been to many DX locations around the world, including ZD9, ZD8, FP, VP9, VK9 and JW.


Rob, M0VFC / @rmc47
Robert Chipperfield works as a DevOps engineer for a software company called Redgate. Originally from Kent in south-east England, he has been licensed since 1995.

Dom, M0BLF / @dnas2
Dominic Smith works as Scrum Master in the software team at the Royal Society of Chemistry. He grew up in the south-west of England and has been licensed since 1996.

Dan, M0WUT / @m0wut
Daniel McGraw graduated from the University this year and has recently started work at Cambridge Consultants. He comes from the north of England and got his callsign in 2007.

Media

Antennas

1) Mosley C33-M tribander; 2) 20m vertical; 3) 17m vertical; 4) 80m dipole; 5) 40m dipole; 6) 30m dipole

Photo taken looking roughly NW, the sea path to the US

QTH

Montserrat is a British Overseas Territory in the eastern Caribbean, having a population of about 5000. It is perhaps best-known for the volcano eruption of 1997, which destroyed the capital, Plymouth, causing a mass evacuation of the residents. The southern half of the island is still an exclusion zone.

We operated from Gingerbread Hill, in the north-west of the island. This villa, which comes complete with antenna tower and station, is well-known among radio amateurs for the excellent takeoff to North America and Europe.

Latest DX Spots

An archive of all DX spots for the activation is available.

Updates

Updates during the trip were posted on Twitter.

Propagation

Select the nearest location to you for the best bands to work us on:

Times shown are local time for the selected place. Predictions from VOACAP. Remember: these are only forecasts, and reality may be different. Listening and watching the cluster is always best!

Background Photo by Leonora (Ellie) Enking on Flickr. Licensed under CC-BY-NC 2.0
Operator photos © Mark Hickford.

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