Hello fellow radio ops,
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We are now at sea about 150NM off the east coast of Greenland on a heading of 230degrees. At leaving Isafjordur (TF) yesterday at 1900hrs GMT.
Unfortunately, although the WX in Isafjordur was sunny and warm (14c) the radio conditions were extremely difficult due to the proximity of mountains surrounding the port. So no radio contacts and very few stations heard.
However, the WX conditions allowed us to get the bikes out go for a 25mile ride along the coast, superb scenery, amazing vistas of snow covered peaks.
Today and tomorrow we are at sea on the way to our next port of Qaqortoq (OX).
The weather today is particularly unpleasant driving rain, thick mist and the temperature hovering round 8c. Not ideal for operating on the open deck.
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After saying we would be on 18Mhz we consequently found that the loading coil for 18Mhz has gone off song, we think it is due the ingress of water. In the short term this will stop our access to 18Mhz.
Annoyingly we use both the 14Mhz and the 18Mhz coils in series to resonate our antenna on 10Mhz………So we are experimenting with some different combinations of coils and lengths of elements trying a resonate the G-whip on 10Mhz.
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All this requires spending time out in the open on deck 12 and at present the current WX precludes this.
As a result, we now only have access to 10,12,15 and 20m.
This morning we only managed a couple of contacts on 20m one in CW to DL and second in SSB to G-land. Before the WX drove to shelter inside.
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We will keep you appraised as to progress but the bands appear to very unstable with extremes of QSB……….Therefore no fixed skeds yet.
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WX update:
We are now in very thick fog and outside temperature has dropped to 6c
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73 es gud dx from the North Atlantic de Tony es Suzanne
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