TJ3SP & TJ3FR

Cameroon - October 2004

News

Tuesday, Oct 26, 2004

Our Online Log Search is updated and now includes all PSK31 and SSTV QSO's.

Thursday, Oct 21, 2004

The group arrived well back home (in cold DL)! We know that the PSK31 QSO's are listed as RTTY in the Online Log. We'll fix it ASAP. Thanks for the comments in the Guestbook! Who has not yet signed? Please go ahead! Thanks!

Wednesday, Oct 20, 2004

TJ3FR and TJ3SP went QRT today at 12:58 UTC after some 34,500 QSO! The crew is on the way back to DL. We hope you got a new DXCC country, a new mode or band. We are looking forward to hear from our audience! Please check also thethe updated Pictures Page. More news later at this place!

73 from the TJ3FR and TJ3SP.

Monday, Oct 18, 2004

We have reached 30,000 QSO's now! Again a very heavy tropical thunderstorm this afternoon so we had to take a break. The storm came very close and power was cut off again. Otherwise no big news. 160m runs very well, however the band does not open before 03 or 04 UTC from here.

Sigi, DL7DF in the pileup on 17m. More pictures here.

Sunday, Oct 17, 2004

There were pretty bad conditions today. In fact only 15 meters was open in the morning and at noon. The other bands opened in the afternoon. We still fight with the power cut-offs, the number increased. But no QSOs are lost on our computers. However there might be a small handful of QSO's missing in the Online Log Search but only there. We'll fix that on Thusrday.

Friday, Oct 15, 2004

23,000 QSOs are in the log on Friday evening plus the first 20 SSTV QSOs! We do more SSTV tomorrow (Saturday). There is WAG (Worked All Germany Contest) this weekend and the JA RTTY Contest. We'll take part in both. In WAG you may work only DL stations but we will accept all callers!

A note to 80, 40 und 30m. We have a permanent QRN on the lower bands, especially on 80m. So please send your call more than once when calling us! This helps us!

The power cut-offs are getting less. The generator is running again too. Another note: the bands close here before 1800 UTC every evening. An hour later we had a 10m opening into North America, even SSB is possible.We'll begin our 160m activity tonight.

Left to right: DL7UFR - DL4WK - DL7DF - DK1BT - DL7KL - SP3DOI

Thursday, Oct 14, 2004

We'll start SSTV tomorrow (Oct 15) at 1600 UTC on 21.340 MHz. As in the previous years we'll take a list in SSB first and then work down this list. We would like to ask everyone not to call us directly on SSTV but SSB first. Otherwise traffic is not efficient and takes too long.

Our trip was rather wet today. A rain shower surprised us in the middle of a boat trip to the pygmy village. We now have seen most of the interesting spots after a visit of a private museum of a professor from Yaounde and the visit of a waterfall. At 1500 UTC we were back on the bands.

Again 80m brought a lot of QSOs into the log last night.

Wednesday, Oct 13, 2004

Monday was holiday here and we had just one power cut-off - the fuses of the hotel broke. Were we too hard-working? Tuesday began as usual with power failures. Same today. We've had a real thunderstorm last night. We had to fight against the QRN on the low bands. Then we had to take breaks because of the close thunderstorm. We have not yet seen something like this! Yesterday evening it began and today at sunrise all was over.

Radio activity runs very well. Tomorrow we go on a trip that could be prevented by bad weather but we'll be back in the afternoon anyway.

We have 1900 UTC and the online log search is up-to-date. Now, is this service?

Radios need antennas. We see DL7DF DL7KL SP3DOI DK1BT assembling them!
Our hotel - the New Coco Beach Hotel as seen from the sea

Sunday, Oct 10, 2004 - 20:30 UTC

Yesterday afternoon we received one of the two missing bags with equipment. The other one shall arrive today. One VSWR-meter was damaged and custom controls in DL have brought the entire content out of order...

We immediately began to build the Hexbeam. The coax plugs have to be soldered again and everything that was taken apart needs to be reassembled in order to become fully QRV.

Just the power problem causes us great headaches. The starter battery of the emergency power generator still is empty. And we had again no power since 05.00 UTC. Like yesterday. Power returned at 11.30. Let's see what we can do.

Last evening at 18.00 UTC suddenly all signals on all bands disappeared. We first thought our receivers are broken. Evene Pactor wasn't working anymore. An hour later the silence was over. All OK again. Even 10m was open to W until after midnight. 80m was much worse than on the first day. Signals were there but also more noise. Some 800 QSO's are in the 80m log now.

The third missing bag arrived today at 13.00 UTC. Now finally everything is complete! We just need to arrange the antenna problems in the limited room to get all 4 stations running and to coordinate the best frequency and mode combinations.

There is still no solution for the power problem. Power fails frequently. The starter battery is meanwhile charged. Everything went well the day over except for the enforced breaks.

There are elections in Cameroon tomorrow. However everything seems to be decided already according to the locals.

73 from the crew!

Saturday, Oct 9, 2004 - 10:00 UTC

Sigi called from TJ via phone and said there is currently no power in the entire country and the power generators failed as well. Everybody is sitting at the pool and is frustrated! It is not known how long this siruation will continue.

The missing two boxes with important equipment hasn't arrived yet and noone can tell where they are...

We have an online log search now available for TJ3FR and TJ3SP.

Thursday, Oct 7, 2004

The team arrived well in Cameroon, however two important pieces of the luggage got lost. In fact, these pieces were not loaded into the airplane in Berlin...

The most important parts of the equipment are therefore missing. TJ3SP and TJ3FR will come on the air today at 1600 UTC with a minimum equipment.