V5/M1EBV/P

Amateur Radio in Namibia

I (Andy) decided to take Amateur Radio equipment as I knew that Namibia would be a reasonably desirable DX location, and it would be nice to work a pile-up or two, apart from the obvious attraction of talking to friends at home in Bristol.

Planning

Band Choice

Given the location's distance from concentrations of hams and the current stage of the solar cycle, 20 metres seem the obvious band choice. This ought to give a reasonable prospect of working Europe (~8,000 km and almost all over land) and a possibilty of North America (12000 km, but almost all sea).

Licencing

Namibia is not a CEPT member but will arrange a guest licence on application and payment of a fee for UK full licencees. The licence issued is for V5/<home call>. It is essential to apply well in advance, as communications are quite slow.

The application form for a guest licence requires a Namibian address which I would not have, so I phoned the Namibian Communications Commission and managed to speak to the chief executive, Jan Kruger. He was very helpful. In the end I sent the licence fee of N$60 (~£4.50) in cash, as my bank wanted to charge £27 for the transfer. I got a receipt in return but no licence.

Other constraints

The station itself posed more of a problem. I could not depend on buying anything in Namibia, so the entire station had to fit into my airline baggage and weight allowance. Namibia is remarkably short on trees, even the parts in the north designated as "woodland" have very few things taller than 3 metres. Most of the country has nothing at all that could be pressed into service as an aerial support, so the usual "throw some wire into a tree" approach was not going to work.

The only power supply I could depend on having would be a 12 volt vehicle battery - we planned to hire a 4x4 for our tour. With these constraints in mind I came up with :-

The TRX

Pam bought me a secondhand Yaesu FT857D for my birthday (thanks, Pam, 88). This is a small rig, about the size of a car radio and has 100W output on HF from a 12 volt supply. I decided not to take a headset and footswitch. I did have a pair of 'phones for my i-pod, which were used.

The Aerial

I initially assumed that, wanting a good signal at a low angle, a vertical antenna would be my best choice, but modelling with W7EL's EZNEC software showed me otherwise. I was surprised that a simple inverted-V outperformed an elevated quarter-wave vertical, with four conterpoises, at all elevation angles.

Operation

It was winter in Namibia and it was dark by 18:00. The camp had to be set up and food cooked over a wood fire. Not every campsite had room to erect aerials and time was often too short to allow operations. It was very cold after about 7pm, especially in the south. I didn’t operate as often as I had hoped.

Bagatelle

My first operation, at Bagatelle, near Mariental, (left) in the western Kalahari, was very disappointing. Band noise was very high - S6-S7 - and almost no stations could be heard. A prolonged set of 'CQ’ calls resulted in no responses. None of the few stations I heard calling could hear me.

The Skeleton Coast

I operated from Mile 108 campsite on the Skeleton Coast (JG68VN) on the 16th. of August. Conditions were much better and I worked 6 calling stations at various times during the day.

I started calling at about 18:45 and was spotted on the DX cluster by Dave, N3II. Then the fun began! A wall of noise came up and it was very hard to pick out two consecutive letters from call signs. In the next hour I worked 61 contacts in 22 countries.

Aussicht

I operated from the Aussicht camp of Marius Stein, (JH61UH), about 45 km south of Opuwo, on the 19th. and 20th. August.

Again conditions were good and I made 39 and 38 QSOs in about an hour on each day.

On the 19th. I had a great chat with Colin, G3YHV, Robin, G3TKF and Roger, G4WBV. Everyone was 5-8 to 9 with me, and I got similar reports.

Here is V5/M1EBV/P, an editied recording of my signal, kindly provided by Colin,G3YHV.

Rustig

Final operations were from Rustig, (JH70KO) about 25 km north of Kamanjab, to the south of the western end of the Etosha National Park.

Conditions were poor again, I managed to work a German station with 5 and 2 (really more like 3 by 2) reports both ways. I had a sked with Dave, G3YNH, at the Norman Lockyer Observatory in Devon so I persisted and 'sort of’ worked him with 2 and 2 despite his beam and full legal power.

Results

• 151 QSOs
• 30 countries worked
• 13 DX cluster spots

As this was primarily a holiday and not a DXpedition, I was quite pleased to have the experience of working a pile-up. As soon as I was spotted on the cluster, the apparent band noise rose from S2 to around S7 and it became difficult to pick out two consecutive letters of a call sign from the babel. There were one or two persistant callers, who never quite got heard ;-), but on the whole behaviour was very patient.

Log

A complete log is available here. I actually used a paper log, sometimes by the light of a head torch, in the dark and cold, so I apologise for any errors. QSL via M1EBV, please.

Countries worked

Dx Cluster Spots

N3II      14185.0 V5/M1EBV    CQ                            1856 16 Aug 2007
W2QO      14185.0 V5/M1EBV    SSB                           1906 16 Aug 2007
N8ZI-@    14185.0 V5/M1EBV/P  LOUD IN MICH                  1919 16 Aug 2007
N8ZI-@    14185.0 V5/M1EBV    TNX ANDY GL                   1924 16 Aug 2007
IS0YTG    14185.0 V5/M1EBV    59 namibia                    1930 16 Aug 2007
N4WMB     14185.0 V5/M1EBV                                  1933 16 Aug 2007
W4HX-@    14185.0 V5/M1EBV    59 georgia                    1934 16 Aug 2007
PR7AE     14185.0 V5/M1EBV    5/7 in pr7                    1935 16 Aug 2007
G4RGK     14185.0 V5/M1EBV/P                                1618 19 Aug 2007
G0VQO     14180.1 V5/M1EBV/P                                1902 19 Aug 2007
W2QO      14180.0 V5/M1EBV/P  SSB                           1906 19 Aug 2007
EC8ADS    14185.1 V5/M1EBV/P  cq cq 5/7                     1819 20 Aug 2007
S51Z      14185.0 V5/M1EBV/P  tnx                           1824 20 Aug 2007