synopsis_2029112005.gif

T30DX

OH Pacific 2006

Republicof Kiribati

31.12-25.01.2006

 

Veikko, OH1AWW

Veijo, OH6KN

Ari, OH6DX

Jouko, OH1RX

Merja, XYL to OH1RX

1.    the OH PACIFIC 2006 DXPedition

1.1    Destination Kiribati

Country Data

OFFICIAL NAME: Republicof Kiribati 
CAPITAL: Bairiki on Tarawa Atoll 
SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT: Unitary Republic 
AREA: 811 Sq Km (313 Sq Mi) 
ESTIMATED 2000 POPULATION 78,800

Location and Geography

Kiribatiis located in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The country consists of 3 main island groups that extend over 3870 km (2,405 mi) from Banaba in the west to Kiritimati in the east and 2050 km (1,274 mi) from Teraina in the north to Flint in the south. Additionally, the three island groups cover an area of 3 million Sq Km (1.1 million Sq Mi) with the Gilbert Island group consisting of 17 islands or atolls located over the equator, with the Phoenix Island group in the east consisting of 8 islands or atolls while the Line Island group is located to the north and consists of 8 islands or atolls, and contains the largest coral atoll in the world, Christmas Island. All the islands are low-lying coral atolls below 4 metres (13 feet) above sea level, except for Banaba which rises to 87 metres (285 feet). There are no rivers on any of the islands, although most enclose a lagoon. Major Cities (pop. est.); urban Tarawa 25,200 (1990). Land Use; forested 3%, agricultural-cultivated 51%, other 46% (1993).

Climate

Kiribatihas a tropical maritime climate that is uniformly hot and humid, tempered by sea breezes. From March to October the islands experience the NW trade winds and from October to March westerly gales and heavy rains prevail. Average annual precipitation varies from 3,000 mm (118 in) in the northern Line Islands to 1,500 mm (59 in) in the central Gilbert Islands to 700 mm (28 in) in the southern Line Islands. Average daily temperatures range between 28 degrees Celsius (79 degrees Fahrenheit) and 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit).

People

The principal ethnic majority are the I-Kiribati, who are overwhelmingly Micronesian. Other minorities include Europeans and Chinese.

Languages

The national language is I-Kiribati, a Micronesian dialect and the official languages is English..

Modern History – WW II TO 1990

The Gilbert and Ellice Islands were annexed as British Crown Colonies in Nov. 1915. During WWII they were occupied by the Japanese until they were expelled by the Allied Forces. On Oct. 1, 1975 the Ellice Islands separated from the Gilbert Islands to form a separate dependency called Tuvalu. On Jan. 1, 1977 self-government was introduced with full independence granted on July, 12, 1979 as the Republic of Kiribati with Ieremia Tabai as President. In 1983 the United States ratified a Treaty of Friendship with Kiribati. Also in 1983 and 1987 President Tabai was re-elected.

T30DX

The OH Pacific 2006 pedition scope is to activate Tarawa Island T30 (OC017) for the period of Jan 4 – Jan 22 2006 by the team of  Finnish radio amateurs: Veikko Pekola OH1AWW,  Ari Hyvönen OH6DX, Veijo Kontas OH6KN and Jouko Häyrynen OH1RX. T30 is 59th in the most wanted list at DX Magazine 2004 Survey. However, the activities on low bands have been infrequent, so the low band position is much higher, especially from Europe and US east coast. We will focus on special effort for Europe and East Coast US on 160-80-40-30 metres. However, all the HF bands will be served.

QTH:

Our confirmed QTH will be Mary´s Motel, in Bairiki, Tarawa. Ideally by the sea with reasonable space to erect the antennas.

T30DX call sign is preconfirmed by local administration. We would like to thank Mr. Mote Terukaio, T30MT for kind co-operation.

 

1.2    Schedule

The schdule of the trip will be:

Date

Activity

Comment

31.12.2005

Departure from Helsinki.

 

03.01.2006

Arrival at T30

 

04.01.2004

T30DX Operation begins

 

22.01.2004

Operation shut down

 

23.01.2004

Departure from T30

 

25.01.2004

Arrival at Helsinki

 

 

 

2.    Operation

There are two main targets for the operation: operation on the low bands and operation to Europe. The operation will be on SSB, CW, and  RTTY.

QSO targets: total 20k Qsos. 40% on the lowbands 1.8-10 MHz). 30 % to Europe.

 

 

2.1    Operating frequencies

The transmitting frequencies will be as following +- qrm. The rx  frequency will be up 2-8 for CW and UP 5-10 for SSB. Upper limit may be increased, if the pile-up would so requires.

 

Band

CW

SSB

RTTY

1.8 MHz

1.822

1.845

 

3.5 MHz

3.503 / 

3.790

 

7 MHz

7.008

7.050

 

10 MHz

10.108

------

 

14 MHz

14.008

14.190

14.080

18 MHz

18.068

18.145

 

21 MHz

21.008

21.295

21.080

24 MHz

24.898

24.945

 

28 MHz

28.008

28.495

28.070

 

For RTTY and other digital modes, you should find us on typical digital spot frequencies.

 

2.2    Pilot  stations

There will be several pilot stations to collect input from summit, mails, etc. to forward it to the pedition team. List of pilot stations to informed later.

3.    Equipment

The equipment will consist of the following three stations:

Station

Tranceiver

Linear amplifier

HF 1

ICOM IC756 Pro2

ACOM 1000 (1KW)

HF 2

Yaesu FT-847

FinnFet (500W)

HF 3

Yaesu FT-847

FinnFet (500W)

 

One station will be operational 24 hours a day and the sedond/third ones will be running during the high QSO times, propagation critical sunset/sunrise times and on RTTY.

The  antennas on high bands will be multiband spiderbeam yagis and a vertical and on low bands vertical systems. The antenna locations will be close to the seashore (saltwater) to maximize the performance of the verticals. The antennas used will be as follows:

 

 

Band

Antenna

1.8 MHz

23 m high toploaded vertical with elevated radials

3.5 MHz

Two phased ¼lverticals with elevated radials.

7 / 10 MHz

Two phased dualband 1/4lverticals with elevated radials

14, 21, 28 MHz

3/4 element yagi

18, 24 MHz

3/4 element yagi

14 MHz – 28 MHz

Multiband vertical

 

4.    Operators

OH6KN Veijo Kontas

Born 1959, licensed 1969. Active in the 70s in DX and contesting fronts. The 1980s and early 1990s was low activity time. Comeback in 1996 mainly focusing on chasing DX and band/mode points: today about 2200 band/mode points. The current contest station, Radio Arkala, can be seen on the web at www.radioarkala.com.. Currently Veijo is working at Nokia as a development manager of integrated circuits. Veijo is also the vice president at the Finnish DX foundation (OHDXF).

OH1AWW Veikko Pekola

Born 1946, licensed 1976. Veikko is the technical guru of the team. His main activities have been on the higher bands. He is the president of OH1AA, which is a very famous multi-multi contest station. Currently Veikko is working as laboratory foreman at the University of Åboakademi in Turku.

 

OH6DX / OH6LNI Ari Hyvönen

Born 1966, licenced 1991, main activities have been in HF contesting and chasing DX and band/mode points: currently about 2280 band/mode points. One of the founding members of the OH7AAC/OH7M contest team, which currently has an contest station at Leppävirta in eastern Finland. Currently Ari is working at Honeywell as software engineer in R&D.

 

OH1RX Jouko Häyrynen

Born 1957, licensed 1978, B.Sc. radio engineering and MBA. Jouko has carried several DX call signs like 9V1YB, 9M6JO, 9M8JH, VR2MJ, VU3NYN. He is also the founding member of the South China Sea DX Team that made the first succesful Dxpedition to Sptratly in 1991 as 9M0S. Other SCS DX Team expeditions recorded: A61AF, DU9F, TF3IRA,XX9X, XZ1N, BS7H, OJ0/N4GN. Jouko is a seasoned all round operator and has worked in the past as a professional maritime radio operator, too. Please find more about Jouko, a wireless professional in www.mjus.fi .

 

Previous Pacific operations

OH6KN, OH3JR and OH1AWW were the OH PACIFIC 2002 pedition team to Samoa as 5W0VK and Tonga as A35VK in Dec 2001-Jan 2002. The QSO results were 15k qsos (one station running), 40% on low bands. Total Eu percentage was 20% and 10% on the low bands.

OH6KN, OH1AWW, OH1RX activated Tubuai FO/A with call FO/OH6KN in January 2004. The results were 16k QSOs with 3600 Qs on the lowbands. The Eu percentage was 11% of total Qs and 16% of lowband Qs.http://personal.inet.fi/private/pcf2004/index.htm

Jouko, his XYL Merja and Veijo OH6KN were members of the organizing committee of the WRTC2002 held in Finlandhttp://www.wrtc2002.org/ .

 

5.    QSL

5.1    QSL policy

The QSLs will be promptly printed and sent after the pedition. Direct QSLs will be replied first. The remaining QSLs will be sent via buro to those countries, that have incoming QSL service. Special arrangements can be done with QSLs going to those countries, that have dx foundations sponsoring the pedition. Those QSLs can be mailed as a one package to the incoming QSL buro or to the dx foundation.

 

5.2    QSL manager

QSL manager is Ari Hyvönen OH6DX

Address:

Viklonkuja 4 F 18

FI-78880 Kuvansi

Finland

 

 

6.    Budget

The tentative budget for the trip is as follows:

Item

Cost

Flights (per person)

$3500

Accommodation (per person)

              $1250

Total travel costl per person

$5000

Antennas, licenses, etc.

$1500

Insurance

 $800

QSL

$1000

Freight cost of the equipment

$1800

Total for 5 people

5*5000$ + 4200$

$29800

 

The bulk of the costs will be paid by the operators. There will be no other source of income, than the possible contributions by DX foundations and clubs. The logos of the sponsors will be displayed on the web pages and mentioned on the QSL cards.

7.    publicity

7.1    Publicity

The publicity will be through the following channels: WEB pages, DX bulletins and after the pedition multiple presentations on different venues and articles in different internationally recognized radio amateur magazines.

7.2    Pedition WEB pages

The WEB page will be http://ohpacificdx.com  The QSL logs will be available online and updated every few days provided that, there will be internet connection on the island.

7.3    DX bulletins

The pedtion will be communicated via the key dx-bulletins: Daily dx, 425 etc. as soon as the basic parameters are in place (e.g. call signs, and final team members).

7.4    Presentations and articles

We would be happy to provide articles, films and presentations after the expedition to entertain the information needs of the amateur radio community.

8.    SPONSORSHIP

We would be greatful for all the donations to support our budget. For monetary support, please contact Jouko, OH1RX jouko.hayrynen@kolumbus.fi .