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pl -259 .com. Good evening, everyone. It's HamTalk
Live, episode number 88. It's the KH1 Baker Island
D Expedition, recorded live on Thursday, November
2nd, 2017. I'm your host, Neil Rapp, WB9VPG.
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of HamTalk
Live. Tonight, we're joined by Don Greenbaum,
N1DG, and we'll take your calls live in just
a few minutes. Last week here on The Big Show,
Ward Silver N0AX was here to talk about the new
2018 ARRL handbook. And so if you missed that,
you can check it out at HamTalkLive .com. Or
if you have one of those podcast apps, you can
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so from those. So check out your favorite podcasting
app and you'll find us there. And we're also
over on YouTube so you can check us out there.
So be thinking of some questions here for Don
on the expedition to Baker Island. And let me
go ahead and give you the phone number. We're
not ready for your calls just yet, but we will
be after we talk to Don for a little bit. But
the phone number that you're going to want to
call is 812 -NET -HAM -1. four two six one uh...
you can also call us on skype or hamtalklive
on skype and we're also hamtalklive on twitter
so if you want to tweet to us you can tweet as
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uh... the listener are uh... interacting with
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on here this evening and uh... you can catch
the show every thursday night at nine pm eastern
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can find some stuff about the show there as well.
Well, our guest tonight is Don Greenbaum, N1DG.
He was licensed in 1962. He's operated from several
remote locations and has been the pilot webmaster
and QSL manager for several DXpeditions. He's
a member of ARRL, DDXA, and YCCC, and he's the
treasurer of the NCDXF, the Northern California
DX Foundation, and one of the founders of CWO.
And Don resides in Duxbury, Massachusetts and
is a 2006 inductee into the CQDX Hall of Fame.
So Don, welcome to HamTalk Live this evening.
Well, thank you very much, Neil, and it's an
honor to be on your show. Well, thanks. We're
always excited about these DXpeditions. Getting
those in the logbook. So we want to learn all
we can about those and So tell us a little bit
about yours. The latest one on your plate is
Baker Island so tell us about the island where
it is and a little bit about it and When you're
looking to go and activate the island Okay, well
Baker Island is part of the Fish and Wildlife
Service refuge It's pretty close to the equator.
It's only at four degrees north, and it's practically
on the dateline out in the Pacific. It's the
last place you can go on for today, Midway, of
course, being on the other side of it. We're
going in June. Pongo Pongo, around the 22nd of
June of 2018. It's a three -day sail, well, powerboat.
We will get there in approximately three days,
depending on the waves and the weather. We should
be on the island and operating around the 25th
of the month. We're allowed at the refuge for
14 days, one day set up, 12 days operating. One
day teardown and it should all wrap up around
the 10th of July You know if we get there late
we operate late if we get there early we go home
early Baker Island is tropical. It's equatorial.
So there's very little rain The average temperature
during the day is about 125 degrees. So we'll
bring lots of water. Oh, I would hope Yeah, that's
that's That's hot. So, do you have any kind of
cover on the island to help with that? Or is
it just pretty much wide open? There are no trees
on the island. There's some low scrub. We're
putting up tents. We'll have tarps below the
tents on the coral, which we'll only be able
to flatten out. The tents, of course, will have
sides that roll up during the day or will bake
in the in the tents. And we'll try to build little
berms to somehow keep out the crabs, which are
notorious on Baker Refuge. So we'll have we'll
have shelter from the sun, which is constant.
OK, very good. And I was digging around a little
bit. There's an old abandoned lighthouse on the
island, is that right? Yeah, it's only about
24 feet tall. Back in the 1930s, they tried to
colonize it. The island was discovered by Captain
Folger of Nantucket. He was on a whaling ship,
and it had been visited several times by whalers,
including a Captain Baker who decided to name
it after himself, which was sort of interesting.
So like most of the islands out there in the
1800s, they established some guano mining operations.
And then in the 1930s, somebody actually tried
to colonize it. That's when the lighthouse was
built during the war, of course. They built a
landing strip and all that's falling apart and
can't be used. Okay. Well, sounds like out in
the middle of nowhere as we were discussing before
the show. Um, so, um, who's going to be going
on, uh, the, the expedition with you. So we're
allowed 11 people on the Island plus a fish and
wildlife monitor. Um, and I'm going, uh, nine
V one Y C James Brooks, who's been on an awful
lot of the expeditions. and is famous for his
movies about the expeditions. Kevin Rowitt, who
is on Midway with me. John Miller, who's been
to Navassa and Wake. Our doctor is Arnie Schatz.
And if you look at most the expeditions, including
the upcoming Bouvier, Dr. Arnie is there taking
care of us. Ned Stearns, who Last year was on
the South Sandwich South Georgia operations and
has been all over the world. That's a a seven
a George Waller and Tom Pekarek They are a duo
of low band experts that have been all over the
Pacific including Navassa Tom Berson who most
recently was president of NC DXF and was on South
Orkney Island and Midway with me back about 10
years ago. So lastly, we have Dave Farnsworth,
WJ2O, who's currently on a boat about a day out
from being on Melish Reef. The common thread
is we've all been all over the Pacific, the South
Atlantic. We know the hazards and dangers and
the care we must take in this protected refuge.
And we've all been somewhere together. So one
member I left out from Japan is Ken Tanuma, JN1THL,
and he was with me in Mozambique four years ago.
So again, we've all been all over the world together,
and we're all very experienced de -expeditioners.
Sounds great. Well, what... bands and modes are
you going to attempt while you're there and What
all can we expect to hear from you? The Will
be on all bands will be the first operation from
Baker to also be on 60 meters So we'll cover
six meters right up through 160 CW sideband data
modes and we are currently working with K1JT
on a de -expedition mode of FT8 and if we can
pull this off a lot of the 6 meters, 10 meter
paths that people think are closed might result
in some quesos on what used to be known as dead
band. So we're quite excited about this new mode
that we'll be activating with a new version of
FT8. Oh, wow. And FT8 is spreading like wildfire
right now. So that's exciting. Given that Sean
was pushing for satellite operation. I have to
ask this any any satellite operation? Absolutely,
we're taking a Vertically polarized six meter
beam We are only allowed vertical antennas We're
doing some engineering. So we have vertical beams
on most bands And we will be aiming up at the
moon although i predict given that it's june
and he sees in the end of june will probably
have a lot of west coast six meter contacts just
on the skip and of course will be in asia and
japan. The skip so it should be a lot of fun.
No right well. Let's talk a little bit about
supporting this because these the expeditions
are never cheap so how can people support this
and what what methods can they use to do that
and How's the fundraising coming along? So any
large Far away place requires a lot of money
because it's a long sail from anywhere. All your
equipment has to be frozen, has to be purchased
new. We are not taking any chances of bringing
any invasive species or bugs, new bugs onto the
refuge. The boat, by its nature, had to be approved
by Fish and Wildlife. It needs to be scrubbed.
All this drives up the costs and as people say
they're rare for a reason and this one's going
to cost about $430 ,000 to put on the air. The
11 team members are each putting in about $20
,000. So $220 ,000 or roughly half of the cost
of this is coming from the team members and that
doesn't even include the cost of flying to pongo
pongo and home and buying all new clothes. So
it leaves about two hundred and ten thousand
dollars that we have to raise from the ham radio
community. And we're doing that by public media
like the Facebook page. We're doing that with
mailings to every DX club. We've applied to foundations.
We hope to make lots of cues. So when people
work us and request a QSL card, they put in a
little tip for our good efforts. And we have
just started the fundraising because we only
got permission to go a couple of months ago.
And then we had to negotiate with the Fish and
Wildlife Service on the actual operating conditions
and finding a boat. We've already Put down two
deposits on the boat already. So we're about
seventy five thousand dollars committed to our
vessel, which is the Naya it's based in Fiji
so it has to sail three or four days to pongo
pongo where It has all the scrubbing And the
charter for the boat doesn't even include the
scrubbing costs That the Fish and Wildlife Service
requires So if you're hearing this go to our
webpage Baker 2018 net click on the PayPal button
and Help us bring you this new one Baker Island
is currently number four on the wanted list and
It's going to be number three on the wanted list
after the folks going to be they get done. So
They don't get much rarer than this Okay. Well,
yeah, make sure you check out the website with
all the information there and and donate to it
because it's gonna be be quite a trip and quite
an expense and and while we're speaking of of
sponsorships and and expenses and things I know
you let me know just this afternoon that You've
got a big announcement to make about the trip.
So Once you go ahead and do that We've applied
to the Northern California DX Foundation for
support, and they let us know this morning, of
all things, that we will be receiving a grant
of $75 ,000, and to put that into perspective,
it's the second largest grant ever given by NC
DXF, the biggest one being $100 ,000 to the upcoming
Bouvée. We're honored. They, uh, had so much
faith in this group that, uh, the wallets were
opened and, and quite a substantial way. And
so show your support for NC DXF cause that's
what makes these happen. Absolutely. NC DXF has
done so many, uh, many great things and, uh,
no, they, uh, They've been sponsoring my students
to go to Contest University and those kinds of
things and these de -expeditions especially.
So thanks for sharing your big announcement with
us tonight that 75 ,000 has been promised from
NC DXF for the trip and I know you'll be sending
out some information about that in probably just
a few hours or so. So thanks for... But you,
but you heard it here first. Exactly. Live local
and light breaking. There we go. So thanks for,
uh, for getting that in there. We appreciate
it. And, um, We appreciate all that you've done
to get this trip going and get all the equipment
together and all the negotiations and everything
and so we'll talk a little bit more about that
and give you a chance to call in with some questions.
We've already got Several on Twitter, so we'll
get to as many of those as we can and we'll take
your phone calls next with Don right after this
word from Tower Electronics here on HamTalk Live.
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-638 -4261. Now, here's more HamTalk Live. Hey,
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you heard it on HamTalk Live and it's time for
your calls now so if you have a question for
Don why give us a call that phone number is 812
-NET -HAM -1 812 -638 four two six one or you
can Skype us at ham talk live or you can tweet
us at ham talk live as well and Dr. Scott right
k0md has already loaded up my inbox on Twitter
With some questions, so we'll we'll try to get
as many of these in as we can But we want to
give everybody a chance here but the first question
Scott asks is what will be the toughest? propagation
path For you out there on Baker Probably Western
Europe, it's almost an antipode We expect most
of those Q so's will be on 17 20 and 30 meters
We don't see any propagation forecast covering
160, 80, or 10 and 12 meters to Western Europe.
The rest of the world, especially North America,
even though it's June, should see pretty much
12, 15, and even some 160 activity, even to the
East Coast, according to the propagation. Okay,
so we'll see how that goes. And again, if you
want to give us a call, you can do that. The
phone number is 812 -NET -HAM1, 812 -638 -4261.
Go ahead and give us a call here and we'll take
your call as we're going through some of these
questions and some of the things I've got here
to discuss. Another thing that dr. Scott right
key zero MD asks is are you going to sacrifice
ready for? Ft8 mode is that going to be an either
or is that going to be both? Absolutely, not
FTA is being viewed as a poor propagation mode
Assist I don't think we plan on Ft8 on 20 meters
30 meters 17 Just because if if we do FT 8 and
really they'll just be two people trying to log
two different data modes on the same band and
The purpose of this trip is all time new ones.
So we'd rather give everybody one cue Than half
as many people 20 cues. So FT 8 will not be used
on any band as ready Um, and mostly it will be
used on the, uh, six meters, uh, 10 meter, uh,
bands. Okay. Very good. And, um, any chance at
getting over to Howland while you're going? Our
permit is specifically for Baker. Um, it's the
same DXCC entity and, uh, um, Howland is off
limits. We actually applied to go to Howland
instead of Baker, but they didn't want any human
activity there at this time. Okay, very good.
Well, 812 -638 -4261 is the phone number or you
can tweet us or Skype us if you like. And we'll
take as many questions as we can squeeze in here
tonight from you. So give us a call or a tweet.
or Skype. Some more questions here. Scott has,
how much power will you be able to run on 60?
We're not planning high power on 60. It'll probably
be the 200 watts that we'll be using. Simple
as that. Okay, very good. And he says, any chance
at getting the Uber frugal Europeans to donate?
We're always begging for money. Interestingly
enough, and on past expeditions, they're frugal
up front, but if you work them, they generally
donate their fair share after a queue. Yeah,
Scott, it's, it's hard to get the money upfront.
Yeah, it is. It's always nice to get that card,
but, uh, you gotta, you gotta pay for that to
get there. So, yeah, we would, uh, we would appreciate,
uh, you considering a donation, uh, to, to help
these guys out and, uh, and get there. Let's
see. Well, we may get all of these in here, Scott.
We're working down the list here. Given the recent
successes of the 3C0L and 3C1L two -man team,
is a team approach now outmoded and too expensive
for the worldwide DX community? Should we be
supporting smaller and more efficient operations?
That's a tough one. Two of our members, Tommy
and George, are famous for their two -man operations.
That's AA7, JV, and HA7 mental block. And RY,
there we go. And so there's a place for every
expedition. But two people can't afford to put
on a four hundred thousand dollar expedition
two people can't put up a large array of Antennas,
I mean the manpower and when you're going to
a place on the equator, that's a hundred and
twenty five degrees without commercial power
there's a lot of housekeeping to keep the generators
fueled and to repair what happens when a bird
takes down one of your radials or guy wires.
So, yes, there's a place for two manned expeditions,
but rarely do you see a number three expedition
to a rare island put on the air successfully
by anything less than 10 or 12 or 15 people.
Okay, good answer well Carl kd9hqt has Dropped
into the chat room here and says how do you deal
with speaking of birds? Taking down your radials.
How do you deal with so many booby birds flying
or? taking Number two all over the place around
while you operate you checked out the pictures
the island seemed to be attracted to the island
Well, it's a mating area It was mined for guano
Birds are part of the purpose of having a refuge
to protect them. So like we did on Midway all
the antennas are vertical They all have guy wires
that every two feet have a little streamer to
keep them away. We had 22 antennas up on Midway.
There were no bird strikes and we didn't lose
any antennas due to the animals. The biggest
threat to our equipment are the crabs. These
guys will eat anything, everything from sleeping
bags to any light pieces of rope, so the guy
wires have to be super strong and coated. And
we're not worried about birds. Fish and Wildlife
Service isn't worried about the birds because
we're going to take every precaution to protect
them. It's their habitat. We're the invasive
species here. So we're not going to turn this
into an Alfred Hitchcock movie, right? No, we're
not. I mean, there are tons of birds and tons
of crabs. Um, but, uh, we'll, we'll, we'll coexist.
They were all over midway also. And everywhere
we went, there were seals and penguins all over
South Orkney when we were there and we walked
around clanging pots to chase them away. I remember
watching some of the videos from some of those,
the expeditions and with the penguins and, and
birds and seals. I think one was one of them.
Yeah. Right. You don't have to watch where you
step because wherever you step, I mean, it's
the, you just have to wear boots. That's all.
Oh boy. Well, if you have a question. or comment
give us a call 812 -638 -4261 is the number or
you can send something in by Twitter or you can
call us on Skype as well again it's 812 -638
-4261 for the phone number we still have about
10 minutes left with Dawn so if you have questions
let us know I did have some questions about equipment
but you're you're still working that out right
The radios are decided on they'll be k3 s's Generously
loaned to us by Ella craft. They're also giving
us linears The antennas will be some form of
stepper verticals We're still designing How to
phase them and make arrays and then DX engineering
is Basically saying coax Filters Anything we
need that we don't get from the other two sponsors
from antenna tuners and the like they're gonna
Bundle them up and send them to us. So when we
get there we Are covering all bands and modes
Okay, very good well We've covered a lot of these
What are you going to be using for for power
without? any kind of Any kind of help there at
all We found that other locations that smaller
Generators are quieter easier to bring in over
the reef because Baker Island surrounded by reefs
and While we were able to go right up to the
shore on South Orkney with these large six kilowatt
generators, we're going to go for the Honda or
Briggs and Stratton two kilowatt models, take
more of them. They're more fuel efficient. And
our power supplies will all be powered by 2000
watt linears. We figure we'll need about six
or eight of them. Because of that reef, fish
and wildlife as part of the compatibility determination
has specified we have to bring 10 days of water,
10 days of fuel, 10 days of MREs in case the
boat can't restock us while we're on the island.
And so in addition to the power and the need
for a 10 -day supply, We're also going to be,
when we arrive and get on the island to build
our little city for two weeks, we'll be stocking
it just in case they can't get back to us for
a while. Always good to have that backup plan.
That's for sure. 812 -638 -4261. We still have
time for a couple of questions about the KH1
Baker Island, the expedition. So give us a call
if you like. Let us know what you're wondering
about it. I'm always interested to hear some
of the challenges of working with the government
agencies to get permission on this and some of
the links that you have to go through. You talked
about the scrubbing of the boats and everything.
What are some of the other challenges that you
had putting this proposal together? Getting approved
to go Well, the last operation allowed was 2002
so will be the first operation in 16 years to
this environment Our group first applied in March
of 2015 for permission to go We contacted the
Hawaiian office that manages the refuge they
told us that They would look at the application.
There have been lots of budget cutbacks to these
groups, so they just didn't have people that
could take time to go to the island with us,
which is one of the requirements to monitor us.
But we applied and about two years after we applied,
we received an email. um, notifying us that because
of the interest and four groups had applied by
then that they were going to do what's called
a compatibility determination. And that has two
purposes. Can we go there and not disturb the
refuge as well as if we went there, what are
the requirements and specifically what we must
do to preserve the environment we are visiting.
About two months after that, they did their compatibility
determination proposal and put it up on the web
for people to comment on. We commented on it
in terms of what we thought were the requirements
of a ham radio de -expedition. They determined
at the end of the day, 11 operators small footprint,
vertical antennas, and the requirement to take
the food along and what have you, the costs.
There's a fee for going here. There's a fee for
the resource monitor to reimburse the government
for her salary and travel. And then the four
groups that had applied, revised their applications
and operating plans with regards to safety for
evacuation. What happens if somebody gets injured?
And at the end of the day, we got a phone call
that because of the experience of our group,
because we've all been in these kinds of environments,
the fact that we were so highly rated after our
Midway Island expedition. that we were the chosen
group and after all the back clapping and and
all the the fun part then we started looking
for a boat and then you say Be careful what you
wish for because Now the hard work begins equipment
Planning operation procedure. We're producing
a manual checking out emergency evacuation, uh,
um, companies that can airlift a dam, uh, an
injured member of the group and the good old
fundraising, you know, $430 ,000 is, uh, it's
a lot of money. And for the expedition, this
is a pretty, pretty quick turnaround. Yeah, we
had over two years to plan for VP 8 or K We we
had about 11 months from when we got the the
green light and then a lot of the boats in the
area won't go between December and May because
of the typhoon season in the Pacific so we were
sort of button -holed as to when we could go
because fish and wildlife determined when it's
not the mating season for this type of bird,
when their people could go, and the permit was
for 12 months. So if we, if by the time we got
done negotiating, all the other details with
fish and wildlife, it sort of had to be June.
And we're going to make the best of the propagation
that June provides. And that's where FT8 might
come in on six meters. And while we do lose common
darkness to some parts of the world in June,
some of our members who have operated from the
Pacific Find that European propagation isn't
all that bad in June to the middle of the Pacific
So and again on the high bands like 17 20 and
30 So we're looking forward to it. It should
be fun. Yeah, it sounds like Sounds like a fun
time and we've got just a couple of minutes left
So let me ask you a little bit about your support
team back Back at home, so to speak You've got
some people helping out with Piloting everything
and getting the word out on a lot of things and
your social media and website and things like
that So let's talk a little bit about the the
crew back here at home Every successful de -expedition
since Heard Island back in 1995, when ON4UN and
I were the two pilots on that expedition, needs
feedback. And you can't always get feedback from
your on -the -air CUSOs. So, you know... Every
expedition will miss an opening. So we have AA1V
being our chief pilot. He's assisted by CALL,
MM0NDX, NF4A who is with us on Midway. All experienced
DXers are feeding Don AA1V with info they get
from various parts of the world. J1HSX who's
done many, many Japanese stints as a pilot, they
will all be feeding in as V51A will be from Africa,
what we've missed. In addition, Marty, our wonder
boy of social media will be taking care of Facebook,
Twitter, press releases to make sure everybody
knows When we've actually started operating on
the Island, um, and feeding the audiences, Marty
lane likes to say, but you think Marty can feed
the audience. You really think he can do that?
He's a smorgasbord. Yeah, he will definitely
do that. And he's been doing a fine job of promoting
it so far. And that's how I found out about it
first was Marty on Facebook. So thanks to Marty
for doing that and all the pilots. letting them
know how things are going during the trip. So
we're just about out of time, Don, but thank
you so much for coming on and talking about all
this. And now Marty's calling me a schmuck. So
that's not what I had in mind when I'm putting
the jar. Oh, my. Well, thank you so much for.
for coming on and we appreciate it. And we look
forward to hearing you on the air from Baker
Island in June. And Neil, it's been a pleasure.
Thanks for your time. All right. And remind us
of the website again with the donate button.
Baker 2018 dot net. All right. Very good. Well,
that's a wrap for this week's edition of HamTalk
Live. Thanks to my guest, Don Greenbaum, N1DG,
and everyone out there in cyberspace for listening
and chiming in on Twitter and the chat. And next
week, Thursday night, nine o 'clock Eastern time.
And it is time change this weekend, so we'll
still be at nine o 'clock Eastern with the time
change. Val Hotzfeld in V9L will be here to talk
about the Puerto Rico. disaster communications
trip, so we look forward to hearing from her
about all the events down in Puerto Rico. We've
been hearing a lot about that, so we'll have
a chance to talk to Val next week. So for a list
of all of our upcoming guests, go over to HamTalkLive
.com and click on the schedule link. And so for
now, this is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, saying 7 -3,
7 -5, and may the good DX be yours. Thanks for
watching.