 |
ZD8SIX on Ascension |
|
Thursday 2nd November |
I now had a few formalities to sort out. I went over to the police station to pay my seven pounds fifty sterling landing duty and to show them my ‘fly home’ repatriation insurance. I filled in the form to get my driving license (they didn't ask to see my UK one?). Oh and I forgot, a little bit earlier I left to go and have breakfast in the community ‘mess’, a single-storey building just over the other side of the road next to the police station. Everything is close in Georgetown. After picking up the hire car, a quick drive down the main street brought me to the Cable & Wireless office where Cheryl gave me the details of my Internet and mail account. C&W is such a good company! Lenny told me where the beacon was located so I’m sure I’ll be taking a little information fishing trip to locate it. He did say it was not in a very good condition. Anyway, it’s all-quiet on 6m at the moment. I do hope I will get daytime propagation or this will get very boring radio-wise.
It
gets greener as you go higher!
It's 16:00 hours. Nothing doing so far 6m propagation-wise. Heard the PY0FF beacon at 15:30 but he obviously wasn’t in the shack or very deaf! Well, I’ve done a quick tour of the island in the car. Boy, a place nearer to how Mars must look like I’m sure doesn’t exist. Big mountains of what looks like dirty brown / grey volcanic ash strewn with boulders of all sizes. I took a quick trip up Green Mountain and it is certainly greener up there. Now doubt as to why it got its name! What a road up it is! Zig-zagging straight up the side. I only hoped that I wouldn't meet anyone coming down. Loads of180o turns going straight up the side of the mountain and the average angle of climb seemed to be around 30o. At the top, the turning circle of the car I was driving was too big and I had to reverse and have another go for many turns. What was at the top? A ‘residents only’ sign, so much for encouraging tourism (it turned out that I should have just ignored it)!
The
Devil's Ashpit- don't get too close!
The tour going south took me past the USAF base at Cats Hill where there is a place called the ‘Volcano Bar’ (I must try that later) followed by a quick trip round the south side of Green mountain to a place called Devils Ashpit. This is an extremely deep gully made of what can only be called black ash. The fence stopping you from falling in rotted away years ago so don’t go too close.
There
are actually some flowers on Green Mountain! Hibiscus I think.
Then
back along the road past RAF Travellers Hill, through Two Boats village past the
(closed) petrol station and back into Georgetown along a short one-way road past
Cross Hill so named because there is an illuminated Holy cross on the summit
next to all the antennas. I think
there are now only three other surfaced roads left for me to go on. The views along the NASA
road (named because it was built by NASA before they left the island) are
fabulous. I'm sure I am not going to have enough time to work the radio AND see
all of the sights in detail.
The
lower road up Green Mountain. It got a lot steeper higher up!
I spoke with Jose, EA7KW in the afternoon on 10m and he predicted that I would start hearing Italians at 20:00 that evening and that is exactly what happened. After twiddling my thumbs all day (well, not exactly but in radio terms), my first 6m QSO came with JY9NX at 19:53 with very strong TEP (Transequitorial Propagation) flutter. My last QSO came with Mike, J87AB at 00:39 with over two hundred QSOs in the log. And wow! What a roll call of 6m stations they were too, with many adding "thanks for a new country" to their report. I smiled in satisfaction.
I learnt from Johnny that due to lack of time, his seven-element beam is fixed on Europe so he had not much opportunity to work stations outside of Europe. So what were the notable calls I worked? Many of the ones I need from home! Loads of PYs and LUs, CX1CCC, CX3AN, WP4LUU, CE4WJK, CE3SAD, CE3BFZ, HP3XUG, TI2ALF, TI5DX, ZP5RPO, ZP5PT, YV4YC, KP4EIT, WP4G, PY5CC (of course), LU8MB, 8R/W7XU and ZF1DC. In the middle of the European s9+ pileup I was called by Alan, 3C5I and Graham, 5X1GS. This was just great. Plus loads of southern Europeans! Overall I worked 33 countries in that single pile-up: 3C, 4X, 5B4, 5X, 8R, 9A, 9H, CE, CT, CT3, CX, EH, EH8, F, HB, HP, I, J87, JY, KP4, LU, LZ, OD, OE, PY, SV, SV9, TI, YV, ZD8, ZF, and ZP. Bet I missed many, many more under the crush.
Looking up to the top of Green Mountain from the access road
What a tremendous four-hour pile-up! I had real problems picking calls out of the mush and I’m sure that people were wondering why I didn’t have a higher QSO rate. I spent most of my time split, but this didn’t seem to help much in fact. Even more disappointing, I tried CW but maybe it was just my poor CW or just the very strong TE flutter, but I just could not pick out calls! So I gave up and went back to SSB. What else did I notice? Well, one thing I suppose; the ill-disciplined rabble! Many were just calling continuously over a QSO and this made life very difficult. I am going to have to learn from Joel N6AMG (now passed on) and get these guys under control! Anyway one thing, last night made up for all the hassle getting here and it made me wonder what I had missed the on the two previous night by not being here.
Looking north-west from the
top of Green Mountain
(Contrast the greenness at the top to the volcanic landscape below. The
concrete in the fore-ground is one of the old water-catchment areas that used
to supply water for the whole island)
Thinking about it, the opening consisted not so much of individual propagation paths, but rather it seemed to be open in all directions at the same time. Though it is fair to say that there was a westerly shift later in the opening when the Caribbean came up at about 22:30. All this seems to be very similar to what I experienced in the Falkland Islands last April.
The oldest building on Ascension built around 1815 in Georgetown
Oh, and I mustn’t forget the infamous knock on the door in the early morning from another guesthouse occupant asking me to be quiet. This took me back to my student days when I wiped out Radio Luxembourg while operating on top band. I thought I was the only visitor staying in this particular wing of the Guesthouse and I had all the windows open to get a cool breeze. I hope that shutting these and not shouting excitedly "CQ CQ" at the top of my voice will now keep my neighbour happy (I never had another complaint I’m pleased to say).
