Friday 26 September 2008

Visit to VP9

My Bermuda licence arrived before I left for VP9, thanks to the Departmet of Telecommunications.

Operating from hotels is always a bit of a lottery. My room, at the Rosemont Appartments was lovely, as it opened into the pool area, but not much good for radio. I put up a wire antenna and was able to hear stations on the US east coast on 40 and 30 but could not get them to hear me. I did not hear a thing from Europe. Can anyone suggest a compact antenna, suitable for use in a hotel room, that will give a low radiation angle?

The local repeater, VP9AX/R was easy to access and I put out several calls. Unfortunately these did not produce any replies. The repeater is an Echolink gateway and on Wednesday evening I heard ZL2ADR call in. I am not a big fan of Internet linking, but as Andy had taken the trouble to call in from New Zealand I gave him a call back. I was just on my way out to meet some people for dinner so could not chat for as long as I would have liked. I was then called by ZL4CZ/M andso had a quick chat with Steve before I had to dash out.

From the radio point of view, my visit to VP9 was disapointing. This was partly because of the poor location of my room and also I was busy with work so did not have much time to improve the antenna. There was very little activity on the local repeater but I might take a small hand-held with me next time I go back there.

Dave

Tuesday 16 September 2008

Visit to VP9

I will be in Bermuda from 21-25 September hope to take my FT-817 along for the ride.

The main purpose of the trip is business, and I won't have much time to operate, but hope to get on the air in the evenings on 40m or 30m CW.

Listen out for M0BGR/VP9 - I will be a weak signal as I will only be running 5 Watts and will be using a wire antenna.

Dave