dxer ham radio dx news: J88PI Story and Pictures

Thursday, February 1, 2018

J88PI Story and Pictures

J88PI Palm Island NA-025 by Brian GW4DVB

Hi dear DxCoffee readers,

Just a bit of an update on my mini DXpedition

Conditions this year not as good as others but I’ve still been able to work over 600 stations on 7, 14, 18 & 21.

I’ve been using my Ft-991A into a 10 vertical wire fixed to a SOTA Beam fibre glass pole on the beach tuned via a 9:1 UnUn.

I also have two radials for each band fitted.

The antenna is fixed to the railings of the villa which is less than 10m from the water!!

We had high winds on the first two days that put the SOTA Beam fibre glass pole to the test – it sustained a sizeable crack in one of the tubes but so far has not come down.

Using fibre cheap glass fishing rods has proven more economical and more robust in the past given this is its 2nd only airing!!

Sadly, like last year the FT-991A auto atu has not performed well but a well positioned hit on the rig casing has managed to get it back tuning!!

I think next time I’ll be bringing a separate auto atu with me.

Quite a few people have contacted me regarding putting the station on Ft65 / FT8

What are the readers thoughts on this ?

Thanks for all the great publicity and web site

73,