Thanks for tuning in. Hamtalk Live will be on
the air shortly. Please stand by. Thanks for
tuning in. Hamtalk Live will be on the air shortly.
Please stand by. This episode of HamTalk Live
is brought to you by Tower Electronics. For connectors,
cables, and more, call 920 -435 -2973 or visit
pl -259 .com. And by ICOM, heard it, worked it,
logged it. Visit www .icomamerica .com slash
amateur for more information about ICOM radios.
Good evening to everyone, it's time for HamTalk
Live. It's episode number 179, Pitcairn Island
De -Expedition, recorded live on Thursday, August
29th, 2019. I'm your host, Neil Rapp, WB9VPG.
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of HamTalk
Live. Tonight we're joined by Dr. Ralph Fedor,
KZeroIR, and Dr. Glenn Johnson, W -0 -G -J, and
we'll take your calls live in just a few minutes.
Last week here on the show was Joe Eisenberg,
K -0 -N -E -B, here to talk about some exciting
new kits. So if you missed that show, you can
listen anytime at HamTalkLive .com or on your
favorite podcast app, or over on YouTube, or
you can catch the rebroadcast on WTWW shortwave,
that's 5080. 5 5 0 8 5 a .m. Saturday evenings
at about 6 30 p .m. Eastern Time. So get your
DXpedition questions ready if you're listening
to us live on Thursday night. You can call us
after the interview is over and I'll go ahead
and give you the number so you can write it down
and have it ready to go. It's 8 1 2 NET That's
812 -638 -4261. You can also tweet us. We're
watching Twitter tonight as we usually do. And
our Twitter handle is at HamTalkLive. So send
us your questions and I'll be back with Ralph
and Glenn right after this word from Tower Electronics
right here on HamTalk Live. Hey honey, have you
seen the PL 259s anywhere? No, I haven't come
on kids. Let's go There's just one place to go
for all of your connector needs a giant warehouse
of connectors and adapters for every occasion
Thousands to choose from in every shape, size,
and color. And they have antennas, soldering
supplies, cables, meters, and more. Where do
you go if you want to buy a connector at a fraction
of retail cost? Tower electronics. Tower electronics.
Tower electronics. And this weekend only, take
advantage of our special liquidation sale. Buy
nine solder -type PL -259s, get the tenth one
for just one penny. They make great Christmas
presents. And what better way to say I love you
than with the gift of a PL 259. Tower Electronics.
Tower Electronics. Tower Electronics. Hi, I'm
Scott Cole, KB9 AMM, president of Tower Electronics.
I like the company so much that I bought it.
Tower Electronics, coming to a hand fest near
you or online at PL -259 .com. And we're in the
yellow pages under amateur radio connectors.
My, wherever did you get that lovely PL -259?
Tower Electronics, PL -259 .com. or call 920
-435 -2973. Do we sell PL259 connectors? Right
now, you could be sitting on a beach, sipping
a drink with an umbrella in it, and enjoying
the good life. But instead, you've decided to
listen to Ham Talk Live. So we thank you. And
now here's Neil Rapp with more of the show. Thanks
to Tower Electronics for sponsoring the show
again tonight to help bring you HamTalk Live.
Scott and Jill are back out on the HamFest Tour.
They'll be in Shelby, North Carolina this weekend.
That's tomorrow and Saturday and Sunday, August
30th. 30th, 31st and September 1st, Shelby, North
Carolina. And then September 8th, Findlay, Ohio.
And then in Peoria, Illinois at the Superfest
on September 14th and 15th. But you can visit
them anytime at PL -259 .com. We have two guests
this evening. Dr. Ralph Fedor, KZeroir, resides
near St. Cloud, Minnesota and has been licensed
since 1962. Ralph's passions have been de -exing,
contesting, and especially de -expeditions. Ralph
has been on several trips including Navassa,
Amsterdam Island, Malpelo, Bhutan, Peter One
and Saba Island just to name a few. Ralph was
one of the organizers of the attempt to activate
Bouvet Island in January and he's talked to us
about that previously. He is a retired doctor
and radiologist and is an extra class operator.
He's operated from 27 different countries and
a member of many radio societies. He's on the
board of the directors the International DX Association
and has been elected to the DX Hall of Fame.
Dr. Glenn Johnson, W -0 -G -J grew up near Marshalltown,
Iowa. After studying forestry at Iowa State University,
he received his medical degree from the University
of Iowa. And after an internship in Seattle and
residency in orthopedic surgery at the Mayo Clinic
in Rochester, Minnesota, he spent five years
in the Air Force in Anchorage, Alaska, and then
returned to practice. in Minnesota after 30 some
years. He's come full circle back to Iowa and
working for the Mayo Clinic once again. Glenn's
interest in amateur radio started as a youngster
listening to his grandfather's shortwave radio
and he was licensed at age 15 and within three
months he had worked all 50 states with a homemade
crystal transmitter. He's achieved a number one
honor roll five band DXCC and five band worked
all zones and he is co -led major DXCC expeditions
to places such as DeCetio Island and Navassa
and his first the expedition was to Heard Island
in 2003 Glenn was inducted to the CQ magazine
amateur radio Hall of Fame and in 2012 he was
inducted into the DX Hall of Fame and he's been
the vice president of the North Northern California
DX Foundation and currently serves as its secretary.
And he is also on the ARRL Contest Advisory Committee
representing the Midwest Division. So Ralph and
Glenn, thanks for being on the show. Well, thank
you, Neil. Nice to be back. And we may have lost
Glenn. Are you there, Glenn? Think we lost Clint.
Yeah, we lost him again. I see it just said that
he left So we'll wait for him to call back. Oh
actually now he's calling back right now. So
let's see if we can Add him in here Glenn is
traveling down in Texas right now. So he's had
some Problems getting into the Getting signal
into the cell system, so we'll have to You may
be coming going tonight, so we'll we'll get that
figured out, but Ralph we'll go ahead and start
with you while we try to get Glenn back on the
line here it seems like there's always another
de -expedition on the list and Time for another
big one so tell us about Pitcairn Island its
location and environment and operating conditions
Well, Pitcairn is in the southern Pacific Ocean
in French Polynesia. After the Bouvet experience,
let me euphemize here a little bit, after the
Bouvet experience we needed something that would
spell success and have a little fun at the same
time. uh... i would i'd known about pit cairn
for a long time and the more i uh... looked into
it the more fascinated i became with the island
and its history uh... so i thought it was time
to pay a visit there and then see what this is
all about okay very good will remind everybody
just exactly where that is This is Dr. Glenn
Johnson. Thanks for calling. Please leave a message.
I'll return your call as soon as I can. At the
time, please record your message. Let's see if
we can figure out how to... There we go. Okay.
We'll try to get Glenn back again. You know,
before the show came on, we had quite a roundabout
here. There's something about cow giving birth
in Texas and an orthopedic surgeon needing to
be present at the birth, so I don't know where
we're gonna go tonight, but we'll have fun. Yeah,
when you get a cow that gets a house call to
Texas, that's pretty impressive. Okay, anyway.
Pitcairn is south of the equator. If you drew
a line from the coast of Chile to New Zealand,
Pitcairn is almost exactly one -half way between.
So it's out in the middle of a really big pond,
quite isolated. And the isolation plays into
the history of Pitcairn Island when the mutineers
from the bounty decided to hide out there. They
needed a remote place and they found one. Okay,
very good. Well, what are you expecting for operating
conditions? You know, every de -expedition has
its environmental challenges with hot, cold,
windy, you name it. So what are the challenges
on this one? Well, we're just getting into the
start of the rainy season when we arrive, so
I expect we'll have a mix of sunshine and rain,
but we're prepared for either one. Temperature
-wise, I think it'll be probably in the 70s,
maybe poke into the 80s a little bit once in
a while. It will be quite humid. One of the challenges
we'll have is that Pitcairn is small. It's about
one mile by two miles, but rises to an elevation
of 1 ,100 feet. So there's a lot of up and down
terrain there that we will be traversing. We'll
have two sites to operate from, both of them
excellent locations with good takeoff, but there's
a little trekking going up and down hills to
move between the two. As far as equipment goes,
we will be well prepared. We will have flex radios
on all bands. We will have beam antennas on 10
through 20. We will have a four -square on 40,
quarter wave verticals on 30 and 80, and a 90
-foot vertical on 160. Full legal limit, 24 -7
operation, just like a real de -expedition. We
will be paying close attention to propagation,
particularly as it pertains to Europe, because
it's a challenge for those folks to work into
that part of the Pacific, so we'll be paying
a lot of attention to that. Most of all, we want
this to be fun. You know, fun for the audience,
fun for the team, kind of a Pitcairn Island QSO
party. All right, very good. Well, you know,
we talked a little bit about the software -defined
radio and how that made a change and, you know,
it wasn't long ago we were talking about, you
know, the first The Expedition to go with the
software -defined radios. How do you think that
choice has worked out? Well, so far so good.
In my contesting experience with the SDRs, it's
been very positive. The thing that really makes
this exciting for me is I can get rid of an awful
lot of wires, and I have things talking to each
other, you know, on virtual cables. virtual audio
links. There's a CAT system that controls everything.
So I'm excited about it. Also, the ability to
process signals, hear low signals down on the
noise seems to be impressive to me so far in
my work with the soft SDRs. Well, very good.
Now, a lot of the expeditions you go on are to
uninhabited islands and so you have to take some
fish and wildlife people with you to guard or
that kind of thing. This is a little different
because there's around 50 people living on the
island. How is that going to go and how does
that change the difficulty of the trip? Well,
I think it's really enhanced things. We've been
in contact with several people on the island.
Everyone seems to be excited about us coming.
They've been very helpful giving us a lot of
information about the terrain, the weather, what
we can expect. They're providing housing for
us, the place that we're staying. the owner of
the property looked around and said, you know,
I've got 14 people coming and that's going to
be a little tight. So I'm going to build an addition
on my house so I can house these people. That's
the kind of attitude we've run into. Oh, that's
excellent. So that takes a big strain off of
the team, I'm sure. It does. And you don't have
to spend all that time pitching tents. putting
in tent anchors and arranging sleeping quarters
and all that sort of thing so we can get right
to the expedition operating. And one thing that
just came up, instead of our ship taking us and
our cargo and gear to Pitcairn Island, in one
trip. The ship is actually going by Pitcairn
Island on September 6th and it will be dropping
off all our gear there. So when we arrive, our
gear will be there and we don't have to unpack
it or we'll have to unpack it. We don't have
to get it off the ship. We don't have to transfer
it to boats. We don't have to transfer it from
the boat to the shore. That'll all be done for
us and that will shave hours and hours off our
setup time and get us on the air quicker. That
just sounds like a fabulous timing of events
there. So congratulations on all of that. Now
in reading up on pit care in a little bit, I
heard and read that there was a club station
actually on the island. So tell us a little bit
about that and are you gonna have a chance to
visit that? Is that in the plans? What's going
on with that these days? Neil, we will visit
the remains of the club station. When Tom Christian,
BR6TC, was active from Pitcairn, he maintained
a station at the old shortwave radio site near
the summit of the island. When other things came
along, other means of communication, satellites
and now internet, the need for that kind of disappeared
and also Tom Christian died. So the site fell
into a state of disarray. As far as I know, there
is no club station on Pitcairn. There are several
licensed hams there. Only one is occasionally
active, and she is somewhat handicapped by antenna
problems and old equipment. While we're there,
we hope we can remedy some of those problems
for her and get her on the air again, maybe introduce
her to some of the new modes. But the club station
is gone. The site is still there and we will
be using that site as our second operating site.
It's well positioned on the island, 360 degree
clear takeoff, and lots of room for the big antennas.
So it will probably be our low band setup 160
through 40. Well, very good. And we've got Dr.
Glenn Johnson, W0GJ, back on the line here with
us. as he is uh... dodging cows down in texas
so good evening glenn good evening Neil I tried
dialing in several times a long time of no service
and I heard your intro about uh... my interest
in ham radio started when I was listening to
my grandfather's shortwave radio and one of my
purposes was coming down here I actually found
on ebay uh... a restored radio that my grandfather
like my grandfather had to take that home as
a prize. So that was one of my reasons for coming
down to Texas this time of year. All right, very
good. Well, we've been talking a little bit about
the island and what the setup is going to be.
What are you looking forward to on this trip?
Well, you know, Pipkirn has a fascinating history
with the Mutiny of the Bounty. And I've read
about a dozen books and just kind of reliving
and seeing some of the history and the place
is fascinating. But also just, it's always fun
on the expedition to make as many contacts as
you can. And it's kind of a new era with FTH
and some of the weak signal modes that we have
today that we didn't have even two or three years
ago. And even in spite of the bottom of the sunspot
cycle, we're going to be able to utilize some
of the upper bands with some of the backscatter
frequency propagation modes that will enable
some weak signal communication. So we're looking
forward to that. That's one of the things I'm
looking forward to is see how well we can do
in the upper bands at the bottom of the sunspot
cycle with these weak signal modes. Yeah, and
while we're talking about modes, that was exactly
my next question. Can you run down All the modes
that you have planned Well the usual sideband
CW and Really will probably be there a little
bit, but we'll probably use Ft8 simply because
with the Fox and hound mode now we can work you
know two or three people at a time and Probably
I have You know because it still counts as a
digit really and Ft8 count as digital context
and we can probably run a higher rate with FTH
on some modes. That'll be fun to try ready too.
That's a good old standby mode. And EME will
be fun. EME using some of the JT65 modes for
EME on six meters. Okay, very good. Well, it
sounds like people have plenty of different ways
to get a hold of you in different bands and hopefully
We can get a whole bunch of people in the log
from Pitcairn Island. So I'll tell you what,
we're gonna take a break right now and when we
come back, we're going to take your questions.
You can tweet us at HamTalk Live. If you're on
Spreaker, you can type it into the comments there
and I'll pick that up. And you can call us at
812 -638 -4261. We'll give you that number again.
in just a little bit when we come back with Ralph
and Glenn right after this word from ICOM right
here on HamTalk Live. Heard it, worked it, logged
it. It's time to get the transceiver that's best
suited for your lifestyle. ICOM offers a variety
of high performance and innovative products.
Make the most out of contest season with one
of these ICOMs today. The IC7610 is the SDR every
ham wants. This high -performance SDR has the
ability to pick out the faintest of signals even
in the presence of stronger adjacent ones. The
IC7610 by ICOM is a direct sampling software
-defined radio that will change the world's definition
of an SDR transceiver. It has RF direct sampling,
110 RMDR, independent dual receiver, and dual
digicel. The IC7300 is changing the way entry
-level HF is designed. This high -performance,
innovative HF transceiver with a compact design
will far exceed your expectations. With RF direct
sampling, 15 discrete bandpass filters, a large
4 .3 -inch color touchscreen, real -time spectrum
scope, and SD memory card slot, and of course
the IC7851 keeps your competitive contesting
edge with faster processors, higher input gain,
higher display resolution, and a cleaner signal.
ICOM's IC7851 is the pinnacle of HF perfection.
It has dual receivers, digital IF filters, memory
keyer, digital voice recorder, high resolution
spectrum waterfall display, enhanced PC connectivity,
and an SD memory card slot. For more information
on ICOM radios, be sure to visit Join the conversation.
Give us a call at 812 -NET -HAM -1. That's 812
-638 -4261. Now, here's more HamTalk Live. A
clean house is a sign of a broken radio. You're
listening to HamTalk Live with Neil Rapp. Thanks
to icon of America for bringing ham talk live
your way once again this week check them out
at icon America comm slash amateur and Ham talk
live is on the air every Thursday night at 9
p .m. Eastern time right here on ham talk live
calm and be sure to check us out on Facebook
Twitter and Instagram and it's time for your
questions now So, if you want to call in, give
us a call. It's 812 -638 -4261, 812 -NET -HAM
-1. Or you can tweet us. It's at HamTalk Live.
And if you're on Spreaker, you can type into
the comments. And if you're listening to us on
the podcast edition or on WTWW 5085 AM, we're
not here. This was Thursday night, so you won't
be able to... call in tonight but we do have
a couple of questions that have come in and so
we'll go ahead and start with those and if you
want to give us a call eight one two six three
eight four two six one so uh... ralph i think
you've been delegated for this one so uh... michael
brydak wants to know does andy's pizza in pitcairn
deliver well i i think andy will deliver just
about anything for a price For the audience,
Andy is our host on Pittman Island. We'll be
sleeping at his place. It has an excellent location.
We'll have some stations there. Andy does have
some culinary skills. He's pretty good in the
kitchen and he likes to make pizza. I'm sure
we'll be eating some pizza. As far as delivery
goes, if he's going to make a delivery he has
to get into the longboat and maybe go about Oh,
200 miles or so to the nearest island, and that
one doesn't have any people on it. So his delivery
business is kind of in the tank right now. The
will is there, but the resources are just not
there. I'm sorry. All right, and Glenn will give
you this one. This is from Brett wy7bg and He
wants us to ask in these times of low solar activity
What bands and modes do you expect to work the
best for them and at what times of day? But 30
meters will be open now, hopefully 20 to 22 hours
a day. So 30 meters is a pretty good band to
be on Tw ft8 ready modes and 40 we should be
good at night the lower bands are certainly favored
this time of the solar cycle and I have noticed
the propagation the indices this last week and
I don't ever recall seeing the solar flux down
to 66 before, but it's been that the last few
days. And that, of course, certainly favors 160
meters, you know, the low bends, 160 and 80 meters.
And FTA, even though everything sounds like it's
been dead on 20 meters, FTA 14074 has been just
really active all over the world. almost simultaneously
the last few days. So, you know, the upper bands,
you know, 18 megahertz, 21 megahertz, that's
going to be a little iffy. Those times from the
U .S. are going to best be probably in the late
afternoon and early evening. So we expect more
activity in low bands and hopefully a lot of
activity on 20 and 30 meters, especially almost
all day long. Okay, so Brett, there you have
it, and good luck with contacting the team down
at Pitcairn Island. Lynn Johnson, WZeroGJ, and
Ralph Fedor KZeroIR are our guests tonight. And
if you have a question, give us a call at 812
-638 -4261. That's 812 -net -ham1 or tweet us
at HamTalk Live, and we'll keep checking that
throughout the night. Now a question for both
of you here, let's talk a little bit about this
160 meter antenna that you mentioned quickly.
There's a little story behind that, so fill us
in on the back story on this 160 antenna. Well,
no dear, EY8MM is our 160 meter cheerleader enthusiast
guru. When we were going to Bouvet, we paid a
visit to DX Engineering and Nodir said, I would
like a really good antenna for 160 meters. And
DX Engineering responded by building a 90 -foot
guide vertical for 160 meters with a base matching
unit. It should be a real killer antenna as far
as de -expedition antennas go. So we should be
loud on 160 and I think anybody that needs us
on 160 should be able to work us there. The location
will be up on the hill at the old radio station
site where we will probably have other low band
antennas and we'll spend a lot of nights up there.
So I think this antenna should play very, very
well on 160. Hopefully, we'll be on CW and FT.
I'm not sure exactly how we'll divvy up the modes.
But one thing with FT8, on most of the bands,
80 meters and above, and maybe on 80, we will
not use the Fox and Hound mode. The Fox and Hound
mode on the upper bands can work two or three,
even maybe four stations at once. But if you
have, let's say, 100 watts, if you're working
three people, your power is distributed to each
of the three people you respond to, to maybe
25 watts. It's not exactly an equal distribution
of power, but it's cut down quite a bit. And
on 160, of course, because it's such a difficult
band with hard paths, we will not be using the
Fox and Hound mode on... 160 meters and possibly
on 80. It depends on the propagation on 80. If
you contact us using Fox -to -Hound mode on the
upper bands, it will not work on 160 meters.
Let me throw in just one other idea here. I've
been playing around with FT4 a little bit and
it's faster than FTA. I'm not quite sure how
it would play on 160 with the shorter sequences
and so forth, but that may be another option
to up the rate a bit. I think that'd be an exciting
thing to try, because I don't think anybody has
really used it on the de -expedition before.
It's not as critical with the time -sinking either.
It might even prove more productive than FTH.
We'll just have to see something to experiment
with and report back on later Yeah, I think it's
worth a try Neil Okay, very good. Well there
there you go. You've got some experimenting to
do and Always up for for trying out something
new so That sounds like a great idea and and
we'll have to keep an eye out for Maybe some
FT for from down there who knows so if you have
a question give us a call Go ahead Glenn. I think
the best thing be to update our web website with
how we're doing on the modes and You know so
frequently visiting our website We'll kind of
fill you in and keep you up to date on how we're
doing and how we're operating different modes
And while we're on that, let's go ahead and give
out that web address. It is Pitcairn. Oh, go
ahead. Yeah, it is PitcairnDX .com. Okay, and
that's P -I -T -C -A -R -I -N, Pitcairn Island
DX. Very good. Yeah, just PitcairnDX .com. PitcairnDX
.com. All right, very good. All right, so you
can check that out and see what they're up to
once they get down there and try some of these
things and see what's working and what's not
working so well and give it a try. So, okay,
we've got another question here and I had something
kind of on the back burner here to try and...
I don't know why all of these questions are revolving
around food and drink, but here we go. First
of all, Carl, KD9HQT, wants to know, will you
find any 807s on the island? I can address that.
Okay. The answer is yes. Now, while we're on
the subject of beverages and not the antennas,
you had a rather sizable donation that came in
that was very unique. Tell us about it. Well,
a good friend of mine, and Glenn's also, Jim,
K0JUH, a local ham who lives nearby, and he's
not local, but he lives in the metro area, is
a former employee of the Coca -Cola company.
So he got in touch with Coca -Cola New Zealand
and said, hey Coke New Zealand, could you cut
these guys a deal on Coke products? So, I polled
the team and I said, okay, what do you like to
drink that's a Coke product? And you know, we've
got so many Sprites and so many Diet Cokes and
so many Coke Zeroes and so many Fantas and so
forth. Put on a spreadsheet and I sent it to
Jim and I said, this is our dietary requirements
for beverages. Jim got in touch with Coke New
Zealand. They delivered the product to the Braveheart.
It is now at sea on its way to Pitcairn Island.
and uh... uh... you know jim negotiated a a nice
price with coca -cola and the generous uh...
gentleman that he is jim also uh... provided
a very generous donation to the pitcairn island
the expedition so we will be well endowed with
coke products thanks to k zero j u h alright
well let's see now you know i just had an idea
and this may be one of my air -brained ideas
You know you could you could bring me back a
coke zero and and then you could like Sell coke
zeros that have been to pick Karen Island to
raise money for the team You think that would
work We could write the QSL information on the
can oh there you go Don't know I don't know that
maybe that maybe that won't work, but but it's
a great donation and I'm sure you all will enjoy
it and need all of the Refreshing beverages that
you can get a hold of while you're on Pitcairn
Island. So Very good. Well, let's let's check
one more time for questions If you have one give
us call 812 -638 -4261 or tweet or comment on
Spreaker And we'll check all of those here one
last time. See if we have any more questions.
You know, the question that came to mind for
me was, is there internet on the island? There
is internet on the island. The bandwidth is probably
not what we're used to here. But thanks to internet,
we have been able to communicate with people
like Andy on Pitcairn. the police and immigration
officer who happens to be Andy's mother, Brenda,
on Pitcairn, and a few other people in need of
some tools and so forth that they needed. And,
you know, Glenn might address this a little bit.
The Pitcairn Islanders needed some things and
we kind of stepped up to the plate for them.
Somehow they found out that I do some woodworking
and they... One of their main sources of income
is selling curios or things they make to the
tourists and yachters that drop by. Sometimes
there's a cruise ship that drops by and sometimes
some of the crew people go ashore. Many times
the pictures will go out onto the boat. set up
little tables and sell their wares. They make
a lot of little wooden objects, little mementos
to remember to care and buy. And looking at a
couple pictures, they're little workshops where
they make this. They have piles and piles of
sawdust, but they were in need of some bandsaw
parts where they make these things. And we have
a few thousand dollars worth of bandsaws and
bandsaw parts. to help keep them in business
with their handicrafts. So that's in some of
our containers, a lot of equipment to help just
help them do things like that. We have some lawnmower
parts and other things that they need to find
very difficult to get. So we're trying to help
them and keep them going. Oh, that's great. I
love it. And you'll be able to To help out with
the ham radio operator there and get her antennas
fixed hopefully We hope so and you know among
the other Among the other needful things on Pitcairn
Island. We have sent marshmallow fluff peanut
butter two cases of baby Ruth candy bars and
100 bags of original Fritos corn chips Oh, there
we go. Well, this is making for an interesting
story because normally, you know, you have to
pick up every single last thing, you know, that
you brought and, you know, you don't leave anything
behind and there's no one to leave it behind
for. And this time you have a chance to help
out some of the natives there. So that's really
cool. Well, I don't see any more questions tonight,
so we're going to finish things up. But Ralph,
let's give you a chance here. Anything else that
you want to talk about? And then we need to talk
about the website and donating to the cause before
we go. OK, well, I guess my parting shot, Neil,
would be that there are so many interesting and
fascinating things about Pitcairn to spawn questions
and discussions of, you know, in ladies aid groups
or ham radio clubs or whatever. And one of the
things that we've hoped to do with this is to
stimulate some public interest in this de -expedition
and Pitcairn Island. Whether that's a fifth grade
class, a graduate student in genetics, a history
buff or someone interested in the history of
navigation or sociology or whatever, it would
be great if we could involve those people in
the de -expedition because there are so many
things that Pitcairn offers besides the ham radio
aspect of it. So if we could get the public more
involved in this, and enrich the public a little
bit with what we're doing, that would be really
great. And I would love to have someone step
up to the plate and say, hey, I've got this frisky
class who could, you know, could we have a video
conference with the kids on Pitcairn Island?
Something like that would really, really be great.
A lot of interesting stuff there. There's something
for everybody. The more people we can involve,
the richer the experience for everybody. Very
good. And Glenn? the same for you anything we've
left off here that you want to get in tonight
I'm not sure exactly what was covered but you
know the Braveheart is going to deliver most
of our stuff in the next week or so so and things
have been moved up to our operating site and
so that's going to save a couple days getting
everything organized and getting us on the air
and then some of our stuff is going to be packed
up and put on the Braveheart and go to another
de -expedition in the Antarctic. And then on
the way back, our personal stuff will be picked
up and taken back to New Zealand and shipped
to us. So it's kind of a two -for -one for a
couple de -expeditions. So we're looking forward
to working with people at the Braveheart, people
at Pitcairn Island, and the South Arctic de -expeditions
coming up this fall. Okay, very good. And Ralph,
again, Let's give out the website again and any
other social media, maybe that's out there and
then how you can donate to help defray the expenses
of this trip. Okay. Well, once again, the, the
website address is pitcarondx .com all one word
pitcarondx .com. Uh, we have a Facebook site
and, um, I think if you just go to Facebook and
look up Pitcairn Island, the expedition, you
should be able to find it. We've got over a thousand
followers on that now. And there's a lot of interesting
stories that pop up there that you may not find
on the website. So check that out too. Do both
places. And I think you'll find some fun and
interesting things there. Contributions wise,
we realize we're not a top 10 entity and we're
not gonna command a huge amount of money coming
from the ham population. We're getting some,
we appreciate it greatly. If anybody would like
to help us with this, we'd appreciate that. On
the website you will find buttons that say donate
on there and if you do that, great. Be sure you
work us whether you donate or not. That's immaterial
work us. Have fun Enjoy learn a little bit about
pit care and say hello to us while we're there
And hopefully during this bottom of the sunspot
cycle will be some activity that you can enjoy
him radio with Well said and and we'll leave
it right there have some fun with it and Hopefully
get pit Karen in the log so guys thanks so much
for taking the time to come on and and Glenn
for for for dodging the cows and and and and
the cell towers and everything so Actually before
we go we've got to talk about the cows for a
minute. We'll tell tell tell everybody what's
going on with the cows because Everybody didn't
hear that. I grew up with, you know, raising
Angus cattle, and I've always had an interest
in that. One of my friends down here has a herd
on his ranch, and it's calving time, so we just
came down to kind of watch and help out if we
could. So far, things went very well. And a bunch
of new little calves. Oh, they're so cute. If
you've never seen a newborn little calf, they're
so innocent, you go up and cuddle with and hug.
It's it's there's nothing like it Well, we wish
you the best on the rest of your trip down there
in Texas and Thanks so much for calling in and
trying keep trying to get back with us and we're
glad that you did Hopefully we'll have better
propagation from pit Karen And Ralph, thanks
as always. We appreciate you coming on and telling
us about all of these and we hope to hear you
from Pitcairn soon. Okay. Thank you, Neil. My
pleasure. Well, that is, oh, thanks. That is
a wrap for this week's edition of HamTalk Live.
Thanks to my guests, Dr. Ralph Fedor, KZYR, and
Dr. Glenn Johnson, W0GJ, and everybody out there
in cyberspace for listening and typing in and
invite you all back next Thursday night at 9
p .m. Eastern Time when Howard Bernstein, WB2UZE,
will be here to talk about the Long Island CW
Club. And for a list of all of our upcoming guests,
visit HamTalkLive .com and if you like the show
please leave us a review that helps others find
us a little bit faster so for now this is Neil
Rapp WB9VPG saying 7 3 7 5 and may the good DX
be yours