VU7RG - VU7MY January 2007 DXpedition
Agatti, Bangaram and Minicoy parts by W0GJ, WA6UVF, VU2JOS, edited by DL4KQ
After a successful Andaman Island (VU4) Hamfest and DXpedition, which actually was a test run, NIAR (National Institute of Amateur Radio, Hyderabad) stepped up their efforts for an international operation from Lakshadweep Islands, the #2 Most Wanted. An exclusive NIAR VU7 operation would have been not a big problem but it was NIAR´s aspiration to include foreign Hams to serve the Ham DXCC needs in best way and to use the opportunity to promote Hamradio at India.
In early 2006 an International Advisory Committee (IAC) was appointed by NIAR to include not only NIAR staff, but hams from each ITU region. Frank DL4KQ, Mio JR3MVF and Glenn W0GJ met in New Delhi, India, in August 2006. We met for almost a week with various government agencies and officials who subsequently gave conditional promises in connection with severe restrictions but related costly consequences. A 50 member foreigner team was condition and all public benefit should go towards India and NIAR. Problematically was an immediate firm financial promise only on a conditional promise and absence of reliable travel dates and final cost calculations. Who would join for VU7 on base of so sketchy details, even to bear the financial risk with us? The IAC realized the vital necessity of an immediate financial bail and due to the appreciable and brave financial backup from Mio, her Japanese friends and the German DX Foundation, which actively had aimed for this activation since 2 years and once again had the guts for much-needed support at this early stage, and the plan was put into action. A #2 operation always attracts operators but many badly matched the conditions since VU7 neither could be a gratuitous holiday operation nor an opportunity for self-portrayal. Subsequently all interested operators had to agree with the general framework of a Memorandum of Understanding and we tried to square the circle and to put up a team. All members needed reciprocal licenses and tilted at windmills of Indian red tape. A plethora of paperwork followed with fussy refusals and lost documents so that many frustrated and quitted. But due to the incredible efforts of NIAR chairman S. Suri VU2MY all administrative barriers were surmounted while Bharathi VU2RBI finally railroaded the reciprocal license applications.
A Hamfest was the key for the Special Permission, granted by late November 2006, and we were permitted to operate even from 3 islands now. At the precise moment and utmost discretion NIAR successfully applied for the difficult 30 m permit, the first ever granted for a VU7 operation. To crown it all even our concealed Minicoy application, only known to NIAR and myself, was successful. Asia`s #1 Most Wanted IOTA which was not activated for 47 years! For better IOTA hunter identification the VU7MY callsign was chosen for Minicoy, as tribute to the efforts of S.Suri VU2MY, while the other sites signed with VU7RG to honor VU2RG, Rajiv Gandhi (SK), previous prime minister of India.
After several months of intensive planning for January 2007, rescheduling several times, vague travel dates, since the Indian Port Authority publish ship schedules only 2 weeks in advance, the team lineup changed until last minute. Meanwhile I was the buffer between the foreign participants and NIAR, to interprete the relative situation and calm the teams since I had the best understanding how things work at India. Even when the teams departed to India our ship tickets had not been confirmed yet, a minor matter which I “forgot” to tell them - no risk no fun! Finally 29 optimistic operators arrived in early January at Kochin and last minute all tickets were issued and 4 teams departed to their islands on different ships.
VU7 HAMFEST
The Hamfest took place at Kadmat on January 15-17 and was inaugurated by the Lakshadweep MP Dr. P. Pookunhi and originally all island sites, even the distant ones, should have attended somehow. For the complete Kadmat Team and some 50 Indian Hams this was not a problem but Minicoy was too far away. At least Mio JR3MVF -Bangaram- and finally Steve VE7CT -Agatti- joined although they had to undertake a terrible journey on a fisher boat which was a 6 m nutshell - 80 km high sea, each way 8 h, no shelter - a remarkable heroism! The first Hamfest day was filled with presentations and speeches, typical Indian hamfest style, the evening with official gatherings since all involved Indian ministries had sent delegates. On the second day the operation sites were visited by the officials and Indian Hams, practical demonstrations had to be given and even Indian hams operated now our stations. Today it is reasonable to say that the event has positive effects for the Indian Hamradio situation and we appreciate that we were jointly responsible for this.
AGATTI STORY
Agatti is one of the bigger islands with a length of 10 km and there is the only airport within the islands. Due to the short runway only small aircrafts can land and passengers are restricted to 10 km baggage.
Eleven Agatti operators from seven countries arrived almost simultaneously in Kochin, India, on January 9. The original ferry to the Islands was scheduled for January 11 but just before the departures from home the ferry was rescheduled to January 12 with arrival on Agatti in the afternoon of January 13. The Agatti team traveled together with the Bangaram and parts of the Kadmat team members on the same ship but felt a bit uncomfortable due to local passengers although most had own cabins while Kadmat members traveled cattle class.
450 kg of antennas, coax, wires and radios had been shipped as unaccompanied baggage but attracted the Indian customs. The title of the shipping manifest had a typo and the technicalities of customs in India demanded everything to perfectly match. The team ended up paying several hundred dollars for duty and handling fees, getting the equipment literally hours before the departure to the islands. After a 24 h ship trip they arrived at Agatti where they stayed at the Agatti Island Beach Resort and the room situation turned out to be ideal. Nice and cool rooms located adjacent to one another and just aside a meeting hall which became the operation headquarters. The resort was located on the southwestern tip of the island where the island was only 70-100 m wide, unobstructed shots to Europe and NA and a few palm trees towards Asia and Japan. After agreements with other staying, and paying, tourists all antennas were set up at the beach and close to the water front. The resort staff was helpful and even the restaurant changed their meal times to match the shift changes. The food was wonderful and all gained weight.
5 stations were set up and manned all the time and operation shifts were scheduled for 3 hours. On the higher bands the yagis, set up at 10 m height, and the SVDA`s (vertical dipole arrays) worked flawless. One station, using a single element vertical, was dedicated to 30m which as open up to 20 h per day. On 40 m a 4-square, brought by Arno OE9AMJ, had incredible directivity. 80 m consisted of 2 phased and top-loaded verticals while on 160m a top-loaded vertical was used. Fortunately the lowbands had not to suffer from any interference.
Agattis exclusive emphasis was on the hard to get North and South America stations and subsequently less European and Asians were worked.
Agatti finished with a total of 40.846 contacts and an excellent 14% NA result.
Agatti TeamA61M
Mohammad / DK5WL
Joe / DL9GFB
Franz / JH4RHF
Jun / K4UEE
Bob / OE9AMJ
Arno
W0GJ
Glenn / W5MJ
Madison / W8AEF
Paul / VA7DX
Neil / VE7CT
Steve
Agatti Equipment
ICOM
IC-756-PROIII / SteppIR
2ele
20-10m / Force12
SVDA
20/17/15m / 4-square
40m / Vert.
30m / 2 ele
Vert.
80m / Vert.
160m
BANGARAM STORY
Bangaram, located close to Agatti, is a small island paradise with no local inhabitants. Its luxury resort is privately managed and the only place on Lakshadweep where alcohol is permitted.
Bangaram Site was planned to host a dozen operators but the team finally decreased to 4, mostly Japanese, operators. In early November 2006 Mio JR3MVF and her husband Jiro JA3UB already stored equipments at NIAR HQ and explored Bangaram. More freight were shipped but immediately caused serious problems with Indian Customs. Further items, like coax cables, were locally ordered and delivered with NIAR help.
On January 12 the team departed from Cochin, arrived next morning at Agatti and crossed over to Bangaram. 2 stations with yagi and wire antennas were set up.
The operations started on schedule. Due to interference situation only one station was manned all the time. According to the VU7RG frequency agreements Bangaram did not operate on all bands and modes and focused on JA and Asia.
Very remarkable was Jiro´s JA3UB because he still suffered seriously from medical cancer treatment - what a great dx spirit to participate despite of this!
Bangaram finished with a total of 4183 contacts.
Bangaram TeamJA3NHL
Tak / JA3UB
Jiro / JR3MVF
YL Mio / WA6UVF
YL Ellen
Bangaram Equipment
IC-756PRO / Force12 C-3S / 40m Dipole
KADMAT STORY
Kadmat, with a length of 8 km and 500 m wide at the broadest point, has a population of 6000 inhabitants which all are muslims and make up their living on fishing and copra processing. 2 resorts are located at the southern part with a separation of 3.5 km.
To avoid problems with the Indian Customs we decided to transport all equipments in our bags and to order further needed items like coax cables and masts for local delivery. The island hosted 14 operators and one resort was planned for CW and the second for SSB/Digi operations. The team strategy was to serve Europe but in addition to pay attention to the US West Coast.
The team had to depart in 3 batches from Kochin with planned arrival dates on January 09, 13 and 14 early morning. Theoretically enough time to finish the setups in time. The ship journey was a small adventure since most ships are old but at least the aircon works; day and night. Local travelers dress up by night with ski caps, bubble hats even arctic tested sleeping bags enjoy great popularity. Since the aircon obviously lacked of a breaker the first travel batch slept on deck and outside of the cold store.
At dawn of January 09 the first group arrived at the island and crossed over to Kadmat where we immediately explored the resorts. Quickly qualifying shack and antenna locations were identified but Murphy reached the claws for us and did not leave us anymore. A gym at the “SSB resort” and a gazebo at the “CW resort” were chosen. Since all things work slow at India we needed 6 hours for the resort management agreement. We twiddled our thumbs again because the ordered coax showed up not until late evening and finally had the fund to re-solder all cables again by night! At dawn of next morning we started with the setups until the ordered 35 bamboo poles arrived by noon at the jetty where we cracked up. The ordered strong12 m poles turned out to be thin sticks of 5-6 m length, unsuitable to carry yagis or for the planned lowband vertical constructions. Finally we managed to use them for the 30 and 40 m vertical arrays but could not find good alternative solutions for the planned yagis. All contact tries to our mates at home or on the mainland failed. The resort internet failed, the ordered phone line was not installed yet, which of course later never worked too, and a simcard purchase “not permitted for foreigners”. Finally the resort manager loaned me a card, of course it needed to get recharged first, and we bought Kadmat`s last and only recharge card. Guess what happened! Yip, that card was expired and unusable! Way behind schedule and having no needed materials we started to enjoy the tropical life and yeamed for a cool Kingfisher beer. But Kadmat has prohibition and ironically the label of the bottled water there had the same name. Sigh!
The second operator batch, scheduled for dawn of January 13, did not show up. We twiddled our thumbs again and eye-balled the bustle at the resorts. All over new lamps were installed, even at the beach, dozens of energy saving bulbs and strip lights, and we augured ill. Finally, after sunset our mates arrived. At dawn of the next day, even 18 h prior to the operation, all started with the setups expecting that the last group would arrive latest in 3 h. What a misjudgment! 160 m and 80 m systems were erected and a first yagi on a metal pipe. With help of a loaned ladder we erected another yagi on a watertank at 7 m height. This ladder, extended with a bamboo pole, later on carried a third CW yagi at 6 m height. Necessity is the mother of invention; all worked!
But time elapsed and, once again after sunset, the last team members and all Indian Hamfest participants arrived - 6 h prior to operation! Hell was let loose and all worked like horses now but to make the matters worse we had to break because of first official gatherings - however, some of us always sneaked away. 80 m, 40 m vertical and 2 yagis still were erected at the SSB site although not at efficient heights. The remaining setups were finished during the next days despite of compulsory Hamfest attendance and Indian “radioholics”. Agatti and Bangaram had left us to hold the baby.
The operations started on the tick according our shift plan, 4 h shift - 4 h free - 4 h shift - 8 h free time. But it turned out on the spot that we had serious lowband problems, terrible noise levels on 160 and 80 but even on 40 and 30m. We made out the reason that once the resort lights were switched on the noise level increased from S3 to S9+, no chance to work weak stations, and switched off as much lights as possible which helped on 40 m and 30 m but not on the lowbands. During next days antennas were moved back and forth, even from CW to SSB site where the situation was slightly better, beverages and other RX antennas were tested but nothing solved the problem. Annoying was the resort managements request to dismantle some RX antennas on days when the regular cruise ship disbarked packs of 1.200 tourists; frustrated we ceased serious 160m and 80m efforts from both sites. The SSB site severely suffered due to the low yagi heights - laung-haul signals were extremely weak. The CW resort was in a bit better situation because yagis there were erected slightly higher but to my horror soon accompanied by a typical Indian inverted Vee dipole. Indian Hamfest participants did build up an own station and occupied one band, next day one of our antennas too and finally a complete station - high qso rates “bye-bye”. But to be honest we finally appreciated these operations when we saw that YL Nisha VU2NIS operated in slow but good CW and had a lot of fun when using one of our stations. Day 5 and 6 the shocked the CW site with the dead loss of two final stages, another one started with band problems and interference. Subsequently most CW stations had to be operated on low power from now on and we could not serve all bands anymore. Depending on time and open bands we only could operate with 2 CW stations and even after 3 am local time only the 40 m station was running since 30 m had closed and 80 m was unusable due to the high noise level.