100 Pound DXpedition NE1RD For Sandy, who can light a room with her smile. 1 2 Contents Welcome 19 A quick glance back 19 What is IOTA? 20 Scuttlebutt 20 Georges Island NA-148 21 Planning the big one 21 Georges Island NA-148 QRV 22 Safety 23 DXpeditioning Basics 23 The logo 23 Weight. The Final Frontier. 24 Field Day Eve 25 Field Day retrospective 26 Team Vertical web site 26 Reading material for my trip 27 Flooding damage in New York 27 Nifty Manuals 29 Researching an Island 29 Antennas for travel: MP-1 31 Antennas for travel: Buddistick 32 Quick wrap-up on small verticals 33 Antennas for travel: Buddipole 34 Buddipole wrap-up 36 Antennas for travel: Force-12 Sigma-5 36 3 Mount Washington Portable 38 Georges Island and RSGB IOTA contest 39 The DX Magazine 40 Boxboro announcement 40 Pelican cases 40 QSL cards 41 A little at a time 42 Hill-topping 43 Verizon letdown + Power to the People 44 VooDudes and Kure presentations 44 Weza first impressions 45 Off to Florida 46 Leaving that familiar item at home 46 Glimpse at Cay Sal Bank weather tonight 47 Doing my homework the night before 47 Doing my search the "old fashioned way" 47 Miami trip wrap-up 48 A boat! 49 Business cards and more 50 Georges Island IOTA contest QTH 50 Gear plan for Saturday 51 Packing for IOTA contest on NA-148 51 RSGB IOTA contest effort on NA-148 52 Quick contest primer 53 QSL card design complete 54 Log now on RSGB logs received page with picture 54 4 The art of QSL card design 55 eQSL 55 St. John DXpedition ~ 2006 ARRL DX SSB results 56 LoTW for NA-148 DXpedition 57 Return to Georges 58 Power Poles 59 Where's Waldo? 60 A bit banged up 61 Giving out a new one 61 Polishing the presentation 62 Going public: NA-103 DXpedition 62 Carry on 63 Return to Deer Isle NA-055 64 SLA battery goof-up 64 Establishing relationships with the locals 65 Miscellany and spam 66 Where's Waldo today? 66 Where's Waldo now?! 66 Nada Chair 67 Waldo arrives! 67 99 Hobbies and Joe in Montenegro 68 Force 12 Sigma-5 first impressions 69 Sigma-5 performs and Monserrat update 69 Daily DX 70 Montserrat Press Release 70 K1P call sign approved for 2007 72 5 Restating my purpose 72 Boxboro Day One 73 Boxboro Day Two 73 Boxboro wrap up 74 IC-7000 and LDG tuner 74 Status report 75 Model release and general agreement 76 Soufriere Hills Volcano activity 76 Summer reading: Common Mode Chokes 77 IC-7000 first impressions 78 RTFM 79 New Element 79 Publishing online logs 80 That great QSL card design 81 Time flies 82 NA-148 Georges Island Again 82 Importance of computer logging 83 Two small features are big 84 Five years after 85 License materials mailed 85 Whatt? 86 Group think on logging 87 Antennas for travel: fishing poles 87 Century mark 88 Feather-weight power supply 89 Tattoo? 90 6 Club Show-and-Tell 90 Satellites 91 Montserrat trip planning update 92 Contesting from your 100 pound DXpedition 93 Iceland 94 Pretty as a picture 94 Laptop robustness 95 Presentation tomorrow 95 Balance 96 A respite 96 IOTA cards and island names 97 What's with the /1? 97 A little change of plans 98 Practice makes perfect 98 Debug methodically 101 Last trip to Georges Island this year 102 Last day on Georges 2006 102 NA-148 slide show 103 It did work! 104 RSGB 2006 IOTA Contest results are in 105 New G5RV 105 Solar technology 106 G5RV tested 108 Are you still up working on that computer? 108 Cleaning the shack 109 Nice map 110 7 Parallels and Win98 up-and-running 110 Relevance 111 Plans for CQ WW SSB 112 Propagation book 113 Corrected NA-148 QSL cards on their way 113 Montserrat activity heating up 113 CQWW nearly half done 114 CQWW SSB 2006 now in the can 115 QSLing honorably 116 Montserrat flight reservations 116 Montserrat team finalized 117 Montserrat trip planning moving to next phase 117 CQ WW DX SSB 2006 analysis 118 Paradise (licensing applications) Lost 120 RIGtalk work-in-progress 120 T-shirts ordered 121 The plane! The plane! 122 HamMac 122 Weekly status Nov 12 123 Licensing - part deux 123 HamMac test drive 124 Conference call 125 Thinking vertically 126 10 pound DXpedition? 127 Our man on Montserrat 127 First conference call 127 8 Kerguelen video at local club 128 Cleaning out the old mail box 129 The reappearance of our applications? 129 Audio capture with TuneTalk 130 Video and a lazy day 131 Concall and spreadsheets 131 Licenses have arrived! 133 Hard drive failure and log processing tools 134 Recovering from the disk crash 135 Mixer has arrived 135 Mast repaired 136 Online log with sample data available 137 Flares, solar rotation, and licenses 138 Status report 6 December 2006 138 An excellent idea! 141 Solar events and legalese 141 3Y0X DXpedition video and con-call agenda 142 Band pass filters 144 ICE filters 145 Filters ordered... maybe 146 Loop repaired 146 Thursday, December 14, 2006 147 QSL manager: me 148 Sandy pokes a little fun 149 Looking for more volunteers in the group 150 Watching sky and Earth 150 9 Assembling the station 151 Monday, December 18, 2006 152 Cards and Cars 152 Group signing up for LoTW 153 Island tours 155 5A7A video 155 DXpedition announcements 156 QSLpro announcement 157 QSL route databases and a lazy day 158 We leave this month! 158 Goals and packing 159 Orange Juice 161 Watching all the little things 161 Volcano and C programs 162 Food 163 Wiring simplified 165 RF suppression 166 I'm a Nervous Nilly(tm) 167 Joe vs. the volcano 168 Redonda Island is NA-100 169 Safety first discussion 170 Weight, emergency info, and NEC2GO 171 Equipment inventory -- not done, but close 172 Bag sharing 175 Spare radio and fuses 176 Antenna plan for the Heavenly Suite 177 10 Testing filters 178 Morse Runner and those little things 178 Small update 180 Audio and some visuals 180 Aleve 181 Back on the mend, time running short 181 Last minute checklists 182 A Loss 183 Packed 184 MHT to MCO 184 We have arrived 185 Setting up 185 News from VP2M 186 Sorting things out 187 QSOs are flying into the log 188 6m a bust? But 160m a possibility. Exercises in extremes. 189 There are numbers... 190 1000 191 Cross mode QSO and more fun 191 Final hours 192 Online logs nearly complete 193 Flight home 193 Recalling Montserrat 194 NE1RD is back and blogging again 196 Logging accuracy and diligence 197 Lodging set for St. Kitts 198 11 Replenishing parts and a Buddi-beam 199 Finishing strong 200 Statistics 200 St. Kitts license materials sent 201 Interview on 99 Hobbies now available 202 QSL cards ordered 202 RIGtalk on MacOS X 202 RIGtalk procedure published for MacOS X 203 Heading West next week 203 Yet another Montserrat DXpedition wrapping up 204 Progress on the RIGtalk 205 eDX 205 ARRL DX in the bag 205 Long flights and learning 206 Other people's DXpeditions 207 Leave the radio at home 208 In search of the featherweight tribander 209 Visiting childhood friends and high SWR 210 NE1RD/W7 is now QRT 210 Ours go to 102 211 Featherweight tribander (continued) 211 Analyzers considered 212 Visalia on my mind 213 DXLab suite 214 NCDXF 215 1:1 baluns 215 12 WPX and statistics 216 TZ-900S 217 Off-topic: Kathy Sierra 217 Mosley mini beam ordered 218 Nice to be thanked 218 AntennaSmith first impressions 219 VP2M Cards -- worth the wait 220 Problem solving with the AntennaSmith 220 I don't fit 221 QSL cards enroute 222 A score and the joy of hands-on do-it-yourself 222 More power Mr. Scott! 223 A couple of quick notes 224 No K1P or Deer Isle this year 225 QSLing in-progress 225 QSL cards ready for the Post Office 226 IRCs 226 Other QSLs now caught up, too 227 NEQP results in 227 Declare your QSL routine on the air 228 Slow news day 229 Show and tell this week 229 Solar panel ordered 230 Thoughts on logging 231 New mitt-full of QSL card requests has arrived 233 Farewell, Kurt 233 13 Fun with anagrams 234 Buddi-beams 234 48 Watt Solar Panel Arrives 235 3B7C 235 Scarborough Reef and things closer to home 236 K3... oh my! 237 SLAs and K3s 237 A message from Elecraft 238 Scarborough ... aghast 239 How not to QSL 240 Making lists 241 Preliminary thinking and planning for St. Kitts 242 What's the Frequency, Kenneth? 244 Noise 245 Your operating position 246 300 248 BURO cards for Montserrat have arrived 249 Generate some buzz, and the YCCC at 30 249 RF ground and the answer to "how many?" 250 This is why we practice 251 Shameless plug department 253 Dayton retrospective 254 Stay in the seat 255 Sleep 256 Propagation planning 257 What the Prefix, Kenneth? 259 14 DXpedition contesting class 260 Build a kit 261 XP on Parallels 262 My to do list 263 My first piece of HF gear 264 SO2R 264 Finances 266 Field Day planning set 267 Youtube video 267 40m vertical 268 In Tampa 269 Buddistick radials 269 Field Day retrospective 270 Try some antennas 271 Toolbox Talk: Dipoles 272 What I'm reading: Kon-Tiki 273 The To Do list 273 Just a couple of kits 274 QSLing and a trip to NA-148 for a look-see 275 Rethinking 275 Thank you 276 Phantom QSOs 276 Wednesday, July 18, 2007 277 Prepping for Lovells 278 CQ VHF Contest 279 CQ WW VHF contest wrap-up 279 15 I love when a plan comes together 281 A thoughtful gift 281 Weather and St.