CY9C Part II – July 31 – Aug 8, 2019

CY9C Part II – July 31 – Aug 8, 2019

Coming down to the wire now, just weeks away and the first week of August will be here and I will be back on “The graveyard of the Gulf (Saint Lawrence)”.

If you have not seen the CY9C website, check it out now for the latest info on the expedition. Also check out the last CY9C Dxpedition from 2016.

I have been spending a lot of time preparing for the trip. Making progress but there is still a lot of testing to do. In addition to 2m EME and Satellite operations, I will also be attempting 6m EME as well. To be honest, I am a little nervous as this is new territory for me and the antenna is considerably bigger and requires a larger tripod in order to allow for elevation of the 43′ boom 6M8GJ antenna.

Backyard assembly and testing of the 6m and 2m EME arrays.

Icom America is sponsoring the radios on this expedition (Thank you Icom!) They have sent us four IC-7300’s and one fresh off the press IC-9700.

New IC-9700 Testing for CY9C

I will be using the IC-9700 for 2M EME and my Elecraft K3 #464 for 6M. The four 7300’s will be on the air dedicated to the HF bands during the expedition.

6m Setup:

Rig – Elecraft K3 + PR6
Amp – Tajfun (typhoon) 1KW SSPA + ARR Preamp

Antenna – M2 6M8GJ
PC – Apple MacBook Pro + WSJT-X

2m Setup:

Rig – Icom IC-9700
Amp – ItaliaLabs 1KW SSPA
Antenna – Pair DUAL 12 element Yagi’s
PC – Apple Macbook Air + WSJT-X

Satellite Setup:

Rig – Yeasu FT-847
Antenna – Arrow Alaskan
PortableRatation rotor
PC – Apple Macbook Air + MacLoggerDX + MacDoppler

Power will be supplied by a pair of Champion 220V/15amp gasoline generators. The plan is to transmit both 6 & 2 Meters simultaneously on the same sequence while on the moon. This will be to reduce noise.

EME Operating Procedure:

6M EME is a completely different animal compared to 2M so I will be following the same EME expedition procedure on 6M as Lance W7GJ. For detailed instruction see this PDF from Lance’s website. On 2m there will be no special procedure, if I decode you I will work you.

Once we arrive on the island the plan will be to build the 6M EME station first, the 2M EME station then the satellite station. Goal is to be QRV on 6M as soon as possible once we arrive as optimum moon conditions are best the first few days on the island. 2m is far more forgiving than 6m moonbounce and I suspect that we will be able to work just about everyone we can decode on 2m over the week while we are there. Satellite operation will be attempted while the moon is set or during slow moon times.

Stay connected with CY9C and general DXing!

I will do my best to post upcoming passes to twitter @ww2d as well as in #Slack. Click this link to get your invite! This is a public slack team called RadioDXers.slack.com which is open to any amateur operator. You will find this method of instant communication much more efficient and feature rich compared to the existing archaic web chat sites. This tool is very valuable to post realtime information about general DX as well as direct contact with future DXpeditions.

What can you do with #slack?

Post images/movies/links directly in the channel.
Real Time updates
@<person> to get someones direct attention.
You can chat privately with other users
Lot of history
Built in audio for VOIP calls
Many other modern useful features
It’s Free!

More to come!

We are about 60 days out, I will post more updates here and in the slack channel as we get closer.

One thought on “CY9C Part II – July 31 – Aug 8, 2019

  1. Hi,
    Great to see some pictures of St. Paul Island. I have looking for some pictures to use on my lighthouse website….would it be possible for me to use some shots you have of the lighthouse?

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