C5DL

The Gambia - April 2019

News

Monday, July 1, 2019

The Deutsche Post has increased the letter postage on 1.7.2019. A letter in Germany costs 80 euros cents, a letter outside Germany costs 1.10 euros.

Wednesday, May 29, 2019

We got the QSL cards from the print shop. We will start shipping the QSL cards in the next few days. We currently have about 1500 QSL requests, about half of which are direct QSLs. Even if we promptly ship all the cards the delivery will take some time. Please refrain from asking: "Where are my QSL cards?". We will inform when the shipment is completed. We hope the QSL card will please everyone.

Monday, April 15, 2019

We went QRT at 07:02 UTC with 32759 QSOs and uploaded the last log. That's the preliminary result. We thank everyone calling us and hope to have everyone happy.

  160m 80m 60m 40m 30m 20m 17m 15m 12m 10m Total
EU 51.6% 60.5% 78.8% 59.7% 63.1% 82.3% 81.7% 86.1% 83.6% 90.1% 72.5%
AS 0.4% 1.5% 0,4% 7.0% 14.1% 3.3% 2.8% 1.1% 1.6% 2.6% 4.9%
AF 1.0% 0.7% 1.1% 0.6% 0.7% 1.2% 1.3% 1.6% 2.9% 4.6% 1.1%
NA 46.1% 36.2% 18.6% 30.8% 20.6% 11.3% 12.1% 6.9% 6.6% 0.8% 19.5%
SA 0.8% 0.9% 1.0% 1.5% 1.1% 1.8% 2.0% 4.3% 5.0% 1.8% 1.9%
OC 0.0% 0.2% 0.0% 0.4% 0.4% 0.1% 0.0% 0.1% 0.3% 0.0% 0.2%

With the sunrise, we hurried to dismantle the antennas and to pack to escape the strong sunlight. The antennas are packed, the stations follow. In the meantime, we had another power outage even on our last day. Hopefully we'll be in Berlin tomorrow afternoon.

Back home we are going to check the log and fix busted calls. Please use our C5DL OQRS to request QSLs. Once the QSL cards are printed, we are going to announce that here on this page when we begin to send the cards. Please refrain from asking in the meantime, the QSL process takes some time.

Sunday, April 14, 2019

Last full day and last full night. We are going to take down the station and antennas tomorrow morning, pack everything and plan to leave the house at noon. Flight departure to Brussels is scheduled at 19:25.

Thursday, April 11, 2019

Unfortunately, not much has happened today: power outage from 10:30 till 17:40... We hope that gets better.

C5DL Team Photo: SP3CYY DH7KU DL7DF DK1BT DL6SAK DL7UFR

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Still frequent and long power outages. We have modified our 160m antenna yesterday with a wire top load. It seems to work better now indeed.

We have been at PURA (Public Utilities Regulatory Authority) on Monday:

Meeting The Gambia PURA, the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority

Second left is Mrs. Suun Faye, technical officer. She has issued us the C5DL license. Third left is Annette, DL6SAK. Frank, DL7UFR, in the middle. Sixth from left is Mr. Rodine Renner, deputy director ICT. And Jan, SP3CYY on the right.

We provided PURA with a current edition of the ARRL exam questions as a pattern for a training directive. The PURA will possibly take the ideas out of the conversation to promote the benefits of amateur radio for their own country.

Tuesday, April 9, 2019

Power failures again and again. Sometimes 20 minutes, sometimes for hours. No fun, we didn't expect that.

Sunday, April 7, 2019

16.500 QSOs in the log. The FT8 Fox/Hound problems should be solved now. We are doing more FT8. We are on 160m. Hardly any signals could be heard last night. A mystery. We are probably going to change the 160m antenna.

We still do have power blackouts often, sometimes longer than two hours.

Friday, April 5, 2019

Yesterday we had eight power outages that make radio life difficult for us. First C5DL DXpedition pictures uploaded.

Thursday, April 4, 2019

All antennas are built. We have:

Still need to optimize everything.

Wednesday, April 3, 2019

Started yesterday with the antenna construction. Spiderbeam, loop for 30, loop for 17, 160m / 80m vertical are ready. Had to eliminate a few shipping damages, but everything is working. The journey is still deep in our bones. The team is doing well.

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

We were finally late everywhere, in Casablanca and in Banjul. The luggage was extensively inspected by customs but all OK. With the luggage we were in the house at 5 o'clock UTC and met Csaba and Annette. All were well over 24 hours on the road and too exhausted to build anything. We will build the stations and antennas today.

Monday, April 1, 2019

The DXpedition starts delayed. The flight from Berlin to Brussels was two hours late. No connection in Brussels. We were rebooked via Vienna and Casablanca. Expected arrival in Banjul at 0110 on Tueday.

Monday, March 4, 2019

Today we received the license certificate. Thank you for the support to André, ON7YK and C5YK.

Friday, January 18, 2019

The licenses are applied, the accommodation is booked.