[W5SFA] Greetings from Kwajalein!

[John Wiley]

Yokwe aolep! (Hello everybody!):

Greetings from beautiful (but primitive) Kwajalein Island, Kwajalein Atoll,
Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), and thanks to Roger Klein for the
email.

I've been on island since January, but it tooks months of work to obtain my
reciprocal license from the RMI government's Ministry of Transportation,
Communications, and Information located on Majuro Island, Majuro Atoll.
During that time, I had to source the materials and equipment to build a
basic station here.

With that license issued (V73JW) and with considerable assistance from
Chuck Dietz (W5PR) in Bellville, I went on-air in July - only to find that,
given our geographical location (RJ39) and the necessarily primitive setup
here, EVERYTHING here is DX and the only stable/reliable/useable mode is
FT-8 (deep decode), and, occasionally, CW - but you've got to be quick due
to the way the bands open briefly and slam shut... no time to rag-chew!

So, that's how I set up: FT-8 to knock out as many QSO's world-wide as I
could with the time I had left on-island.  Who knows when the next OP will
show up here to fill the demand of this relatively rare DX location.

A little about my station:  I sourced a Kenwood TS-450S from a Silent Key's
estate sale.  Old, yes, but in great condition (and an even better price)
and sent that over to Chuck for a once over while I gathered up the other
stuff I would need: an MFJ-969 Deluxe roller inductor tuner, a K1EL WinKey
mini, a TigerTronics SignaLink USB, an MFJ-347 Dipole pipemount (to
interface the tuner to the random-wire), and 60+ feet of silicone coated 18
AWG copper braid terminated to a coconut tree outside my barracks window on
the 3d floor.

Keeping in mind that it takes weeks, even months, for stuff to get here, my
station equipment was in the pipeline and my circa 1970's Vibroplex Deluxe
keyer was getting refurbished at Vibroplex in Knoxville, I had time to
wrestle with the RMI government to get the V73 callsign issued.  As I said,
Kwajalein - beautiful but primitive.  Things here happen in "Island Time",
that is, it happens when it happens... and it did, eventually:  all my
stuff (and the license) got here in July.  Add some time, elbow grease, a
dash of frustrations with a whole lot of re-learning to adapt and overcome,
I landed my first QSO's around mid-July.

Since going live, V73JW has logged over 2k QSO's to LoTW and issued almost
as many QSL cards via eQSL and by mail, including several DXpeditions,
POTA's, and Texas - but none from Austin County, so I've recently embarked
on building a Raspberry Pi communications server.  Once that is complete, I
hope to be able to get into the W5SFA repeater somehow and get some QSL
cards flowing your way.  This is going to take some creativity and some
help from some of the club members, because (and correct me if I'm wrong)
the repeater is NOT EchoLink-enabled, so that leaves... some pathway I'll
need to figure out... once all the parts arrive :-)

In the meantime, for anyone in the club who is an HF enthusiast and is set
up for it please do try to reach me: on 40m FT-8, that's 7.074 mHz and,
using WSJT-X, I'm usually listening between 1492 - 2025 on the waterfall.
Keeping in mind that I'm a day ahead of y'all (UTC +12), I'm usually on the
air, if I'm not on mission, out on a ship, or doing inspections, on 40m
between 0600 and 1000 UTC on week days and on the weekends the following:
40m 1700 - 2100 UTC, 12m 0000 - 0400 UTC, and 40m again from 0600 - 1000 or
until I fall asleep at the key!

If you have a Yagi/Log Periodic/or a variable direction dipole, your best
shot out this was is: short-path azimuth (best): ~281° (WNW) or Long-path
azimuth (backup/rare): ~101° (ESE).

The other HF bands aren't very successful out this way, so I've had limited
contacts on them, same with CW.  However, if any of you want to schedule a
QSO, just let me know and I'll try to accommodate you if the bands will
cooperate.

Thanks again to Roger and Chuck.  I look forward to rotating back to Texas
either just before Christmas or shortly after New Years day (depending on
which plane comes thru) and meeting you all when I get back.  If anybody
has any questions, please feel free to contact me here:
john.wileyf1 at gmail.com which is my email and my WhatsApp.

Kommol elap & 73's,

John F. Wiley, CDS SMS CSHP
Safety Engineer
LOGCAP-V USINDOPACOM
V2X, Inc.
V73JW / K5GDE

[image: V73JW.jpg]
[image: John Station.jpg]
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