After a few months 'off air' Michael PA5M has been in Chad for his work for the UN WFP.
He arrived on the 1st of March 2005 was in Chad for about 2 months. In spare time he was signing TT8M on both SSB and CW from 80m till 6m.
Michael was not alone this time. Also TT8AMO,his collegue was at the same qth in Abeche, about 100km from the border with Sudan. They tried to activate all bands from 160m to 6m . All depended on the possibility's to build antenna's and the local qrm. QRM was very low at the beginning of their mission. Most of the locals don't have any electricity, and that means no electronic equipment making QRM.
| Map of Chad with Abéche just right of the middle, some 100 km from the Sudan border. |  |
They had set up the multiband vertical for 30m and up and an invertet V double dipole for 40m and 80m.
| 10 to 30m multiband
vertical |
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Vertical with inverted V wires for 40/80m, although difficult to see |
On 11/03/05 they built a 160m antenna just for the weekend. Due to limites space the had to put one leg of the antenna outside of the fence of the guesthouse with the risk the wire would get stolen by locals. They had to take it down on sunday to clear the road and the neighbours garden again.
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Michael's operating room / bedroom. Not too comfortable to operate from as you can see. The only available table is in the TT8AMO shack ....hi |
The signals from the bands they've been on were very good.....with especially 59+ reports on 30 and 40m and good openings into JA and USA. QRM and QRN was VERY low on all bands, so also weak signals were very good readable.
Michael has been running a beacon on 50.100 signing "'vvv de tt8m tt8m kk03 kk " in a 45 seconds cycle. Output power 30W into a vertical .
The workload in Chad is quite heavy sometimes, so it's difficult to be qrv on a daily basis, not even thinking about skeds ( useless the ask for any ).
Michael returned back to Chad on the 17th of june after a one month break. He did bring a 5el for 6m sponsored by the UKSMG. Almost immiediately when he started running a beacon again his signal were heard in europe. So just the right time to be on 6m from Chad ( KK03JT) ,the middle of the Es season. During the last month of his stay in Chad he was able to make 804 6m qso's ( CW and SSB) in 36 dxcc country's. Amazing how much opening there were into europe...almost dayly.
Michael could NOT become qrv digital. He tried to change his licence.....but the licensing officer was out of town for 2 weeks. To change the licence he had to fly to N'Ddjamena from Abeche ,a distcance of some 500km. So that's for some other time maybe.
The weatherconditions have changed a little. From very warm and dry to very heavy tropical thundershowers and sandstorms and that's didn't make things as simple as it might look.
photo's s , made during a sandstorm on 24-06-2005. Clicking on the photo will show you a short movie made during the sandstorm. On a slow internet connection it might take some time to load the movie.
After waiting for the antenne to arrive it finnaly went up the small tower.
6M ANTENNA UP IN THE TOWER AND THE VIEW TOWARDS EUROPE
Some very nice audiorecordings of TT8M operating on 6m can be found in the AUDIO section of this page
Michael was able to make 7429 QSO's on 80m till 6m in SSB and CW.
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BAND SSB CW
TOTAL |
BAND SUMMARY FOR TT8M
Some more photo's have been made and are in the 'pictures' section.
If you want your qso confirmed, pse read the QSL rules . Off course there will be a nice qsl card for you collection if you want. ( and have made at least one qso )
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