This episode of HamTalk Live is brought to you
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Good evening everyone! It's time for HamTalk
Live! It's episode number 121! The Baker Island
De -Expedition Live, recorded live on Thursday,
June 28th, 2018. I'm your host, Neil Rapp, WB9VPG,
and thanks for tuning in to another episode of
HamTalk Live. Tonight we're joined by Marty Solaway,
KC1CWF, the social media manager for the KH1
Baker Island De -Expedition, and we'll have Don
Greenbaum, N1DG, on a little bit later, and possibly
some other members of the team live from the
island later on in the broadcast, and we'll take
your calls live, as we always do. Last week Bart,
Yankee, W9JJ and David Isker in One RSN were
here to take your field day questions. So if
you missed that and you still want to listen
to that, give it a listen at hamtalklive .com
or the podcast version is available on most podcasting
outlets including Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeart
Podcasts, Google Play, TuneIn, SoundCloud. We're
also over on YouTube if you'd like to listen
to it there. So get your questions ready for
the Baker Island The Expedition. They are on
the air and we'll get the latest news from Marty
and then we'll talk to Don a little bit later
live on the island. And the phone number for
you to call in is 812 -NET -HAM -1. That's 812
-638 -4261. and uh... we'll talk with marty first
but that's the number to keep handy uh... when
it's time to call that's the number you'll want
to call uh... it's not time just yet but eight
one two six three eight four two six one eight
one two net ham one is the number to call once
we get to that point You can tweet us at any
time. You can tweet us now. That's at HamTalk
Live. And then you can also Skype us. We're on
Skype as well. Just look for HamTalk Live on
there. So I'll be back with the chicken and fries
right after this word from Tower Electronics
right here on HamTalk Live. Hey, honey. Have
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PL 259 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 Scott and Jill at Tower
Electronics. They're gonna be at Oak Creek, Wisconsin,
that's South Milwaukee, July 7th. At the Ham
Fest there, and then in August, the 5th, they'll
be in Berryville, Virginia, the 11th, Huntington,
West Virginia, and the 18th and 19th at Huntsville,
Alabama, where you can visit them anytime at
PL -259 .com. Joining me tonight is Marty Sillaway
KC1 Chicken with Fries KC1 CWF he's 16 years
old he became a ham at age 12 in November of
2014 and four months later upgraded to general
and now he's an extra class he enjoys tinkering
rag chewing and contesting he builds his own
antennas and likes to help people get on HF and
mentoring other new hams He is the current and
founding president of the Eastern Massachusetts
Contesting Club, which promotes contesting with
kids in Eastern Massachusetts. He's a past speaker
of the Dayton Hamvention Youth Forum and often
contributes to various ham radio podcasts, as
well as co -hosting the Phasing Line podcast.
But tonight he's here from summer camp where
he's working. To talk to us about the Baker Island
the expedition team. He's the social media manager
for them. So Marty Welcome back Thanks for having
me on you. It is always a pleasure to come on
to Hamtuck live Well, we've got a special one
here tonight because you've been getting the
word out on the Baker Island the expedition even
while you're away working at summer camp and
He's the only person I know that takes his microphone
to summer camp There's no other person here that
has a high up here for a day sitting on their
desk. I can assure you that you know, I I'm sure
But but Marty does because because it's Marty
he does that kind of thing and that's why we
like him because he does this. Well, remind us
a little bit about this DXpedition. We're going
to have Don on the sat phone, hopefully, as long
as everything works, in a little bit, but we're
going to have to keep his time pretty short because
the sat phone thing is pretty expensive. So tell
us about the DXpedition, how it came about, the
website. funding, all that kind of thing, so
that we're not asking Don all that stuff. Sure,
Neil. So Baker Island is currently number five
and probably in the next day or two might drop
a little bit farther down on the most wanted
list. That's, you know, the list of the 300 and
some DXCC, current DXCC entities in the world.
And it's, there's a couple of reasons for that.
One, to go there, we needed to get a SUP, a special
use permit. from the US Department of Fish and
Wildlife and It's also quite expensive to go
to it's a six -day sale from American Samoa actually
our team left pago pago American Samoa and had
to sail on a Chartered yacht another item of
great expense for six days. We can get back to
that in a moment, but Baker Island is a Hard
place to get to obviously and that that's one
of the reasons that's another you know another
reason why it's so hard to get onto the air and
why it's not activated so often. It's, as I said,
a six day sail from American Samoa or Fiji, not
far from Tuvalu or all those islands. So it's
a very interesting radio location because you
can work Japan and the west coast and even the
east coast pretty easily as well as, you know,
VKZL, but it's a very, very hard path to work
Europeans. So we have a 12 man T, excuse me.
uh yeah uh there is a 14 man team and uh all
very experienced uh the expeditioners our team
leader uh who we will be hearing from in a moment
or in a little bit is uh n1dg don grebe bomb
a local to me and the other team leader on island
is uh kevin K6 TD now off island unfortunately
due to some health issues He wasn't able to come
on the team to the island, but Tom Harrell and
for XP was extremely involved in the selection
pride in the planning process now as with any
of these Island D expeditions it is extremely
expensive to go on one of these ship trips our
Our final budget is almost on the order of half
a million dollars. With each team member putting
up over $15 ,000 themselves, our goal is that
the Expedition community can help with a portion
of our expenses. Now, we were very grateful to
receive an extremely generous contribution from
the Northern California DX Foundation. NCDXF
was extremely, extremely generous. in supporting
our effort. Without them, this would not be possible.
And we were able to secure one of the larger
donations ever received from them. Island attempt
earlier in the year Received a little bit more
funding, but we were very very very grateful
for all we received and we had a lot of other
great sponsors from Ella Craft who provided with
us with k3 radios and KPA 500 as well as KPA
1500 to stepper Who provided us with a big IR
and small IR? antennas to take to our island
as well as a DX engineer who is a terrific supporter,
Heil Sound, provided our great headsets, and
we're just so proud. Rigexper, give us an antenna
-lizer. There's so many different people who
have an organization to have contributed to make
this happen, and without them and their deep
trust in what we're doing, it would not be possible.
So the team left their homes now, some over...
over two weeks ago now. With the boat departed
American Samoa on June 20th, we chartered the
Naya based out of Fiji. Our advanced team flew
to Fiji where a lot of our gear was shipped and
it was loaded onto the Naya. And the Naya, which
is a 120 foot diving expedition ship, which was
outfitted especially for our expedition. sailed
a few days to American Samoa where the team boarded
to sail six days to Baker Island. Now, this ship
is a key part of our expedition with three boats,
skiffs, on board to handle landing as well as
a chef and terrific cabins, terrific able seabed
onboard to make sure that our voyage was safe
and we arrived ahead of schedule. and fewer than
six days to Baker. And now we're at the point
where we're getting on the air. So it took about
a day and a half to set up all our stations with
moving all our gear from the boat to the shore.
We do not have the ability to anchor. One of
our conditions of our special use permit is we
cannot anchor on Baker. We cannot drop anchor
around the... around Baker Island, so the boat's
actually transiting in a circle around the island
as our operators are on land. And we were able
to slowly deploy and bring everything to the
land, but our temperatures have been in excess
of 100 degrees, with very little shade, which
makes work extremely difficult. So two nights
ago, we had just a torrential, torrential storm,
which was very unexpected and very out of season,
and it destroyed one of the antennas. at the
water line and also flooded our digital tent.
At the time, we had some issues regarding our
network between tents and some other technical
issues, but we're slowly working out those bugs.
So from the beginning, we were very grateful
for our donors. We're always still trying to
secure our money to cover our expenses. But we
started about a year and a half ago. I first
talked to the team leaders in before last July,
almost a year ago, to June 20th when the boat
departed Pago Pago, to the 26th when we were
already on Baker Island. And now we've been QRV
for over 24 hours, so it's been a long journey.
Okay, so now that they're there, and we do need
to keep it moving here, when can we, how long
can we expect to hear them on the air? So this
the team landed on Baker on the 26th and the
plan is as of now to be QRV until the 6th of
July So that's a nice nice big window For everybody
work at more than 10 days QRV is the goal here
Okay, and What's the best way for people to get
updates while they're there on the island? Well,
there's two big ways we've been posting information.
I'm in daily communication with the team, as
well as our chief pilot, Don Mikes, AA1V. And
we talk to the team several times a day, both
by BGAN and Iridium communications, as well as
DLRM in -reaches. So we can track the team and
we can also exchange messages. So we are in constant
communication with the team. And then we broadcast
the information to the outside world, both through
our Facebook group, KH1 -KH7Z Baker Islands,
I believe we get to look up on Facebook, as well
as our news and press website, KH7Z .net. We
also have another website, Baker2018 .net, that
has more information, but our actual live updates
are being posted on KH7Z .net. Okay, so how did
the landing go and then how are they dealing
with that heat? So the landing was rough there
was some surf to encounter When the team made
their attempts to land at the island, but we
have an extremely experienced Vessel crew and
an extremely talented and experienced and prepared
The expedition team as we were able to successfully
land on the island with a little bit of difficulty
and a couple of wet pelican cases, but everybody
was unscathed. But temperatures have just been
extreme and work for more than half an hour outside
in the heat is nearly impossible. And it's very
difficult to erect tents and generators and antennas
especially. So that has certainly set us back
in time, but we were able to be QRV almost 24
hours before expected. So that's just terrific.
Okay, and one question that's come in from DD5LP
over in Germany and from K0MD, they want to know
how are the conditions because they're seeing
an awful lot of FT8 and we thought that FT8 was
going to be kind of a backup plan, but there's
an awful lot of FT8 going on. So is that, you
know, due to conditions or are the conditions
pretty bad? So we have been doing a lot of FTA
quite successfully. The key to working outside
FTA, if anybody wants to work outside FTA, is
please, please, please go to breaker2018 .net
and if you go to the FAQ section on our website
or the latest news section on our website or
the home page, I believe, and you browse around,
you will find the very important information
on how to set up your WSJT software. It has to
be the 1 .91 release, I believe, into the Expedition
mode, because remember, this is not standard
FT8. We are working several people at once, and
if you do not read the instructions, bad things
will happen. to do that, but we've been trying
to deploy as many modes and bands as we can most
effectively to meet the demands, and we're trying
as hard as we can to get as many stations on
the air and working as quickly as we can. At
this time, well, three of our big antennas are
up and we continue to erect more, and six of
our eight stations are set up. And we have not
done an initial satellite club log upload yet,
but we expect that to happen before 0300 Zulu
tonight. Okay, well we're gonna take a break
here and we're gonna try to get all this satellite
phone stuff worked out so we can join Don live
on the island here in just a few minutes. So
I'll be back with Marty and hopefully N1DG right
after this word from the National Voice of America
Museum of Broadcasting right here on HamTalk
Live. The National Voice of America Museum of
Broadcasting, located in Westchester, Ohio, just
north of Cincinnati, is only two minutes off
I -75. The museum is the former home of the Voice
of America Bethany Relay Station. Tours are now
available every Saturday and Sunday from 1 to
4 p .m. Eastern Time. You can see the control
room. a 200 ,000 watt transmitter, and the most
comprehensive collection of inventions by the
iconic Powell -Crosley Jr. Also on display is
a huge antique radio exhibit and R .L. Drake's
personal collection of most every Drake amateur
rig ever made. This is a unique opportunity to
see amateur radio in action and have a chance
to get on the air from WC8VOA. Admission is only
$5 a person. The museum is located close to historic
WLWAM and tons of shopping and restaurants. Take
a trip to the VOA museum or visit us online at
voamuseum .org. Welcome back to HamTalk Live
as you can probably tell we're having some difficulties
getting the connection made over there to the
island so we're gonna work on that here and hopefully
we'll get the technical problems worked out.
HamTalk Live is on the air every Thursday night
at 9 p .m. Eastern Time right here at HamTalkLive
.com and be sure to check us out on Facebook,
Twitter, and Instagram and we'll We'll see how
this is going to go. We're going to try playing
C here and hopefully be able to get to these
guys. You got to dial 27 numbers to reach Baker
Island. So it takes a little while and we couldn't
get through our normal way here. So we'll figure
it out and we'll get the team on here. How are
we doing, Marty? Stand by. Standing by. Okay,
we've reached the Baker Island Bar and Grill.
We got it. Don around? The Baker Island Bar and
Grill. Hello? Oh, hey Kevin, how are you? It's
Marty. Little hot, little sweaty, little tired.
Little hot? Dirty. Okay, is Don around? Or do
I have you? Hello, you're on the air. Hi Don
Tell a tell how you're you're on live on ham
talk live here, and I hope the audience can hear
you Okay, thanks for taking a second today. It's
a break in here. How are things on Baker? for
a sideband area and two in the digital area.
We have all but one station up and running. The
first night we had one of the, well the second
night, we had a very bad squall come through
that... if we're gonna get some rain again tonight.
We don't need to be out working and if the winds
are not too bad it won't affect us. Hey Don,
we've had some some people right in asking about
FT8 with the conditions there. How are the conditions
and is that what's driving so much FT8 right
now? There are all kinds of problems around the
boat. Zillions of birds on the island. I mean,
I've never seen from any birds and they never
shut up. All night long. That's amazing Don and
you guys have been doing just a fantastic job.
How has the pile -ups been? Pile -ups Yeah, well
you guys have been doing just a great job with
an a of six and a K of two and no sunspots So
you guys are killing her? Marty could we ask
what can we ask dawn about that? It was was the
ft8 driven by those yes Yes, I can hear Neil,
but you can't Neil asked how what has been causing
you guys to go to ft8? Not being able to get
rate on phone Why have you used it as is as using
Ft8 due to the challenges of phone? Yes, because
what has been happening is the signals are right
at the noise level and Ft8 is a low power low
signal mode So by using as little as 30 watts
We're able to work stations that don't hear us
when we're running five or six hundred watts
Let's see if we lost him. Yeah, sounds like we
lost him. We lost him. That was Don Greenbaum,
N1 DG. Don, ladies and gentlemen, and now let's
find out what frequency he's on and we'll go
work him. We'll see if we can finish it up. Can
we try to get him back? I'll see if he calls
back in a second. Yeah, we'll see if we can get
him back. But they're currently QRV on 15 and
17 and where else? Looks like 15 and 17 for sure.
But as you can tell from hearing them, it's extremely
heating and it's extremely difficult work. 15
and CW too. But it's really hard and they're
doing an awesome job. They are, so we'll... We'll
let you try to get them back. Do you need me
to type numbers to you? No, I can do that. Okay.
No, we're not going to be able to get them back.
We're not going to be able to get them back.
No. All right. Well, are there any calls? Okay.
Well, let's, let's find out. Uh, eight one two
net ham one. 812 -638 -4261 is the phone number
to call. And if you have a question, we'll get
an answer here. Marty's familiar with most of
what's going on over there. And then we'll see
if we happen to find a way to get Don back here.
But at least we did get one question more or
less taken care of. If you had to recommend a
way to get Baker Island in the log What what
are your suggestions on how to go about that?
My suggestion number one is to listen my suggestion
number two is to listen my suggestion to number
three is less listen My suggestion number four
is listen listen listen listen listen only call
like my Elmer Because he always said it shouldn't
be the push to talk button. It should be the
released listen button exactly Only call us when
you can comfortably copy the operator if the
operator cop copies you and you can't copy him
that creates a problem So, please make sure you're
doing that if you have a low power station FT.
It might be the mode for you Know that we're
always operating split and the operator is always
announcing the split So on code, you might be
hearing somebody send up or on phone often listening
5 to 10 up or listening 210 or something like
that. So listen to what the operator is saying
because the operator is giving out instructions
that are very important to get you in his log.
He wants to get you in his log as much as you
want to get him in your log. So that's very important.
And make sure you're using FTA correctly if you're
trying to use FTA. And similarly, just know that
The first couple days, it's tough if you're not
so loud. But you will get in our log. We will
work you. And we appreciate you trying. And it's
going to be a great next more than a week. If
you haven't worked us yet, no worries. There's
going to be plenty of time too. We're putting
in a big genuine effort. If you want to figure
out where we are, we're always spotted. Just
listen, listen, listen, and listen again. You
have two ears and one mouth. You should be talking
far less than you're listening. Okay, some good
suggestions there. And if you have a question,
give us a call. It's 812 -638 -4261. Or you can
tweet us. We're at HamTalk Live on Twitter. And
I'll go over here and check that again. See if
we have anything on Twitter. Totally. On phone.
On phone. For that. Or you can Skype us and let
us know. So once you do get... Oh, we've got
some... Folks on the chat here And Carl KD9 HQ
T says the birds have killed the call it's it's
You know, they're on the other side of the globe
sitting on a rock on the side of a you know in
the 110 degree Sun using a handheld satellite
phone Things happen Let's see, Bill KJ4ORX says,
considering Baker's proximity to Howland Island,
do you anticipate gathering any propagation data
that might provide insight on Amelia Earhart's
navigational challenges? for communications.
We're not doing any particular research besides
the fact that we do have a resource monitor with
us for Fish and Wildlife and she'll be doing
a little bit of biology work on the island. But
this is of course a commemorative the expedition
and we are commemorating what which is now the
81st anniversary of her disappearance on July
2, 1937 where we will be on we will be on island
during her Disappearance so certainly we do honor
her and respect that Okay, one two six three
eight four two six one and what I was getting
ready to ask It once you do get The Baker Island
call sign in your log and then it's timed for
QSL in what methods can you use and how can people
get that all -important? confirmation? Well,
most importantly, OQRS by ClubLog is the best
way to do it. So you can send us a direct or
a request to direct your bureau card via OQRS.
I like QSL request service, which of course is
graciously provided by ClubLog. So if you're
an existing ClubLog user, you do not need to
fill in the details of the QSL yourself. Clublog
will do that for you automatically from the KH1
log. That also reduces errors. So after the expedition
is over, OQRS will be posted on our website.
You can also go to clublog .org and click the
expedition button to see if you've made it in
our log. But please know that there is a delay
in the time we enter your QSO until the time
that it's uploaded. 24 36 hours it could be we
have not done an additional upload yet Now so
so just be wary of that. I just got a notification
from Don That seems like I can call back. So
I don't want to give that a try. Yeah, let's
let's give it a try We'll see if we can getting
back here. We have a few minutes So yeah, go
ahead and try it. Do we have a call? I haven't
seen any calls or tweets yet. So we've got a
couple of comments on the comments on the Spreaker
site and then we had a couple of those that came
in earlier about FT8 so We'll keep watching for
those. So if you have a question, you can give
us a call. It's 812 -NET -HAM -1, 812 -638 -4261.
Or you can tweet us. We're at HamTalk Live on
Twitter. If you're on Spreaker, of course, you
can type a comment and that'll pop up on the
screen here. And you can also Skype us. We're
just HamTalk Live on Skype. So we'll try to get...
get Don back on here and see if we can get a
few more minutes with him on the island. And
we'd like to to take a call if we could, but
we'll see how that goes here. So we got Don back.
We got Don back. We got Don back. All right.
We're back. Can you stick around for another
minute or two? It's the power of satellite telephony
that happens. Thanks for coming back. Okay. So
maybe if we can have another minute or two of
your time, tell us about living conditions on
the island. How is that? at lunch and we have
How are the temperatures at night? Oh, it gets
quite cool. I bet it gets down about 100 degrees.
Oh. Oh, wow. Nice and chilly. Nice and chilly.
It's your crater. There isn't much difference
except no heat of the sun during the night. Understood,
Don. Well, thank you so much for taking the time
to talk to us tonight. Don, thanks, and hope
to get you in my log. Very much so, Don. Very
much so. One second, Neil, I'm going to step
off for a second. All right. Well, that's Don
Greenbaum in one DG live from Baker Island, and
so we hope that you are able to hear them. And
again, they will be adding more stations as the
days go on here. But it looks like you have until
July 6th to get them in your log if you want
to do that. So hopefully they'll get some breeze
and kind of cool things off a little bit. But
we're having heat indices up in the 100. range
here in the Midwest, I know, but when the ambient
temperature is 100 degrees and then a heat index
on top of that, it's that much worse. Can't imagine
what they're having to go through to try to sleep
through that and work through that and get these
stations all up and running. Sounds like they're
off to a good start and a little extra time,
a little bonus time. So that's always nice too
that we get an extra day or so of opportunities
to get them in the log. So we appreciate Don
and the team for doing all this and we appreciate
Marty for... Going for plan C here on on the
phone connection and getting everything Working
and answering a lot of these questions. So We've
got just a couple of things left to take care
of but Marty are you back? Oh He is not back.
Okay. I'm back. Oh he is back. Okay All right.
So any any last things here before we take off
that the people need to know? Sure. Basically,
we should see a log upload in the next two hours.
All of our FTA queues may not make it fully in,
but you are in our logs. If you got a double
R and a 73 from us on FTA, do not fear. You are
actually in our log. There's no doubt of that.
So don't lose oversleep on that. Any oversleep,
any sleep on that. And we'll hear from you real
soon from King Henry one stroke, King Henry seven
Zulu. And just so you know, We've made over 10
,000 queues, the majority of them in the last
18 hours. So it's been very good. Obviously the
hundred to 110, 110 degree temps for weather
has been difficult. Okay. And the updates will
be coming once a day. Is that right? Once or
twice a day, kinghenry7zulu .net. Okay. Very
good. So. You can check those out and make sure
that you're there in in their log and We've got
all kinds of stuff going on there. So hopefully
we'll have plenty of chances for you to Get in
there and get it in the log. So Marty, thank
you for coming on It's my pleasure All right,
that's Marty Solaway KC one chicken with fries
Coming to you live from summer camp. So We appreciate
him doing that for us here tonight. Well, a couple
of things I wanted to mention this summer. We've
got a lot of giveaways that we're going to have
take place that some of my just kind of got sprung
on me here a couple of days ago. But Radio Waves
has a 40 meter bazooka that we'll be giving away
later on in the summer and also got a nice bag
full of stuff from Heil Sound this week. So we'll
be giving up some of that as the summer goes
on so make sure you tune in live over the summer
and who knows you may you may win something and
thanks to radio waves and thanks so much to to
Hile Sound for providing those things and getting
that out to our listeners so just wanted to mention
that before we go and we've also got a new sponsor
coming on soon so we'll talk more about that
here in a couple of weeks So we appreciate that
as well, so we'll fill you in on that a little
bit later. But right now we're going to wrap
things up and thank Marty again, KC1CWF and Don
in 1DG over on Baker Island and everybody out
there in cyberspace for listening and calling
in. uh... writing in and we invite you back next
thursday night at nine p m eastern time korey
sickles w a three uvv will be here to talk about
system fusion and uh... a programming note uh...
the show on july twelfth will be at a special
time so don't miss it it's going to be at eight
a m eastern time not nine p m eastern time eight
a m Eastern time and that's because Ed Durant
DD5 LP will be setting up some audio for us from
WRTC and he will be there on hand so we can talk
to some of the participants at WRTC right before
the opening ceremony. We appreciate Ed facilitating
all of that for us. And again, we'll be on the
air at 8 a .m. on July 12th instead of our usual
time because of the time difference over there
in Germany. So if you want to check out our upcoming
guests, just go to HamTalkLive .com, click on
the show schedule button, and you can see who's
coming up over the next few weeks. So for now,
this is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, saying 73, 75. I hope
you can get Baker Island in your log. And as
always, may the good DX be yours.