3B7M Saint Brandon DX pedition 2023

[928bolo]

I worked these guys on 10m CW this morning. Working split of course. As high as 10 up. Huge pile up but they are making an effort to work the US when the high bands open. Pile up is big but these are are fantastic CW ops. They are managing the pile ups very well and keep things under control.

Here is a recent post from their home page. http://3b7m.com/

team update #8​

02/03/23 07:00 utc
We started lower bands 160m and 80m. The problem is that every night there are storms and big QRN, which prevents us from receiving on low bands. On RX we have EWE and Beverge 260m.
We have solved the electrical problems, which seem stable now.
Food portions are now regulated. We are not sure if we will last with food so that the guys will have better photos toward the end of the expedition..
Yesterday lovely openings on 10m and 12m, and 15m. In the USA it is the 32nd most wanted. Therefore we will prefer USA and not EU for the opening of the band!!!
Today we made another spiderbeam. In total we have 2x VDA 12,10m, 2xSpiderbeam, 1xvertical 40m, 1`xvertical 30m, 1x vertical 80m, 1xdxcommander
A vast storm flooded our ham shack at night, and we had to sweep the water out of the ham shack. These are combat conditions as we have little space and the only functional building on the island.
So far, everybody is healthy, except for the standard sunburns we have no severe health problems. We have massive pileups on 10,12m. It would be good to have more discipline because the stations are undisciplined and on 28mhz ssb up to 50khz pileup.
New photos here 3b7m.

 

[Blackcat630]

Heard them on 10 ssb Sunday. 5/7 signal at times. I had no luck working them yet. Op was working 25 to as much as 40 up split.. huge pile up. Even when I figured out where he was listening, my 100 w and Imax at 40 ft just didn't cut the mustard unfortunately..

 

[928bolo]

They were very strong to the east coast of the US around 9 am local time. Hope you work them.

 

[928bolo]

I worked them again this morning. 17m, FT8. Customary Frequency on 17m is 18.100. They were at 3000 Hz. Some radios have a standard SSB filter bandwidth of 2800 Hz. You may have to move your frequency up a bit.

They are not using Fox/Hound but MSHV with two or three streams. No need to change anything in WSTJ-X.

 

[928bolo]

 

[928bolo]

https://3b7m.com/​

team update #9​

04/03/2022 05:30 utc
In log 80k QSOs. Yesterday we went fishing with locals and OK6DJ, OM5ZW, OM4AYL. David caught a giant fish. We had a 2m shark near the QTH.
Problems with low bands. After a strong storm, the 80m vertical fallen. We didn’t operate CW due to high SWR but only FT8. It’s fixed now. 160m is still a big disaster. Strong interferences from the aggregates. Again only a few QSOs FT8. The low bands are a problem here. Neither Beverage nor EWE is listening. There’s a mess from the generators. But the priority is the upper bands. 10m is open till 02.00 local times. Incredible pile-ups on 10,12m.
Over the weekend is ARRL SSB. We will be only 17,12 SSB and 10,15 CW.
QRT info
we start packing antennas on Tuesday, and by Wednesday morning, we will be on with only 2xvertical 30,40m and 2xVDA. Wednesday morning QRT.
Still very warm, and the wind starts to blow quite strongly.
The team is in a good mood and has had no significant health problems.

 

[The20poundhammer]

I tried them on phone on couple different bands and occasions could not bust the pile up out of Europe to them.

 

[928bolo]

Adrian, KO8SCA, from the Bouvet DXpedition, gave a zoom presentation to the Northern IL DX Association.



At 35:00 into the video he explains their operating plan and mentioned there were problems with FT8 but "smart people that figured out how to work us". The clock on their computer was off.

I'm not smart but I listened for awhile and figured out how to work them.

 

[The20poundhammer]

I did finally work them on phone while the big contest was going on pretty cool video.

 

[W4KVW]

I worked these guys on 10m CW this morning. Working split of course. As high as 10 up. Huge pile up but they are making an effort to work the US when the high bands open. Pile up is big but these are are fantastic CW ops. They are managing the pile ups very well and keep things under control.

Here is a recent post from their home page. http://3b7m.com/

team update #8​

02/03/23 07:00 utc
We started lower bands 160m and 80m. The problem is that every night there are storms and big QRN, which prevents us from receiving on low bands. On RX we have EWE and Beverge 260m.
We have solved the electrical problems, which seem stable now.
Food portions are now regulated. We are not sure if we will last with food so that the guys will have better photos toward the end of the expedition..
Yesterday lovely openings on 10m and 12m, and 15m. In the USA it is the 32nd most wanted. Therefore we will prefer USA and not EU for the opening of the band!!!
Today we made another spiderbeam. In total we have 2x VDA 12,10m, 2xSpiderbeam, 1xvertical 40m, 1`xvertical 30m, 1x vertical 80m, 1xdxcommander
A vast storm flooded our ham shack at night, and we had to sweep the water out of the ham shack. These are combat conditions as we have little space and the only functional building on the island.
So far, everybody is healthy, except for the standard sunburns we have no severe health problems. We have massive pileups on 10,12m. It would be good to have more discipline because the stations are undisciplined and on 28mhz ssb up to 50khz pileup.
New photos here 3b7m.

I worked them on 17 & 10 meter Phone. it took me about 15 minutes on 17 meters & maybe 5 minutes on 10 meters. It was a New entity for me so I'm pleased.

SIX-SHOOTER
W4KVW
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