VP9/WA4PGM

July 9 – 19, 2004

What started out to be a 10 day expedition in Bermuda turned out to be a bust in the IARU and NAQP RTTY Contest. Upon my arrival on Bermuda on July 9 I was met by my host VP9GE at the airport. Once we had my bags packed Ed drove me to the Market Place a local grocery  for my food supplies. We returned to one of Ed’s apartment and I quickly unpacked everything and we installed the 6 meter yagi. Nothing elaborate, a 5 element Cushcraft at 10 feet but it worked very well from his location. I had about a 180 degree view of the ocean from my apartment towards the East to West and I was located about 150 yards off the Atlantic Ocean. I started operating on 6 meter and in no time was making contacts up and down the East Coast of North America.

I prepared for the IARU Contest as Single-Op Low Power the following day. IARU turned out to be a very frustrating event as the first 3 hours only netted 40 contacts. Why? What's wrong I asked myself, good power output (100w), good SWR but most of the loud stations wasn’t responding to my calls. Could it be the unfriendly propagation gods eating my signal for lunch? I took a break to inspect the antennas and found them to be in the air and in good shape, what could be wrong? I found nothing wrong with the setup inside or out but still couldn’t manage to get any kind of run going. After struggling for a couple more hours and had a total of 71 contacts I was let down at this point. I finally said the heck with this and went site seeing and came back to start operations on 6 meters.

On Sunday the 11^th the magic band opened for contacts all over the USA and Canada with N4MM being my first contact on 6 meters from VP9. I worked all US call areas plus VE1, 2, and 3 with almost 150 contacts the first hour. Needless to say I was very pleased, the next hour produced another 130-140 Q’s and my logbook was well on its way. With E-Skip being so good I put most of my efforts the following days on 6 meters. Unfortunately I never experience another opening like that during my stay but the band did produce contacts with the USA and Canada from about 1200z to 1700z each day. I worked numerous mobiles, people running verticals, 20 meter yagis, and even dipoles with good results. Each day I listened for Europe but heard nothing, occasional TV Video but that was it; KP4EIT was the only DX worked.

While I wasn’t operating 6 meters I prepared for the following contest weekend to participate in the NAQP RTTY. Again Murphy brought trouble for me as my interface wouldn't key the rig properly FSK or AFSK. I worked on this for several days before giving up. I want to thank everyone on the RTTY Reflector that offered suggestions. These ops gave me hope even when my spirits were down. I finally had to give up on operating NAQP and took another let down for the second time. With the CQ VHF Contest being the same weekend I looked forward to working 6 meters as a Single-Op entry.

Well guess what? Yep! Strike three would soon be a reality for me. Of all days 6 meters didn’t open that weekend was the worst. Having only 29 contacts the entire VHF Contest. One contact was with N4HB FM17 via meteors and that took awhile to complete but I had hopes of more but nothing panned out.

But with all by let downs I still had a great time and I highly recommend going. The people of Bermuda are wonderful, its very easy to get around, I purchased a 7 day bus pass for $45 and saw the entire island. The temperatures ranged from 75 to 88 during my stay with very little rain. Ed was a most gracious host and I really enjoyed talking with him each day, in fact I’m looking forward to a return trip.  Be sure to check out his web site for more information about his rentals. http://www.qsl.net/vp9ge/

73, Kyle

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