#IOTA – Page 3 – Swains 2023

1 July 20231 July 2023

W8S antenna building day

Johannes PA5X is reporting the following. The W8S Swains DX-pedition Team conducted a very successful antenna Building and team building day yesterday at the QTH of Evert PA2KW.

Pure dedication was shown by the German team members who had departed in the middle of the night to be in time at the event.

During the day various antennas were set up, such as 10 meter VDA, 20 meter VDA, 30 meter VDA, 40 meter vertical and 80 meter vertical.

Amongst the W8S Team members, tips and tricks were exchanged, antenna building was practiced and Improvements to the design and set up were made. All to be well prepared for a smooth operation when arriving on Swains island in October 2023.

The Team spirit was great and together with the beautiful weather, it turned out to be a very successful and enjoyable day!

12 June 202314 June 2023

31 degrees C. A perfect day to build antennas

Martin PA4WM:
Today was hot. 31 degrees C. A perfect day to build, adjust and test the 40m 2 elements array.
Because of the beach width other then the usual 90 degrees phase shift, I used a 135 degrees shift and a 1/8 wavelength spacing between elements. 5.3m in this case. In basic, similar to a ZL special or HB9CV.

40 radials were used for the entire system.
After some tweaking of the individual elements and previously cut to length coax lines, it yielded an swr of 1.4.
Ready to rock and roll.
As so many other times Monique, my wife assisted me laying radials and setting up the masts.

9 June 202314 June 2023

Of course, we have to look good too!

Of course, a DXpedition is mainly about the final results and good preparation is definitely part of that.
On the technical side, after 3 years the plans have been dusted off again and adjusted to the new situation in terms of operator team and of course the expected better band conditions on the higher bands.
But there is more and that is why a decision was taken today on the uniform, after all, we also need to be able to present ourselves nicely as a team.
Well, that will certainly work with these shirts….