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Live. Reserve your rooms now at Marriott .com
or call 888 -850 -6391. Hey, I hope you're having
a great day. It's time for another episode. I
am talk live. It's episode number 51, the expedition
logistics with George Nicholson in for GRN recorded
live on Thursday, February 9th, 2017. I'm your
host, Neil rap WB nine VPG. Thanks for tuning
into this episode. of HamTalk Live. Tonight we'll
be joined by George Nicholson in for GRN. George
is the go -to guy for packing up equipment for
those big top 10D expeditions and handling all
the logistics for the trips. And so we're going
to take your calls live in just a few minutes.
Last week on HamTalk Live, Joe Eisenberg, KZeroNEB
was here to talk about as a visit to the new
home of the Dayton Hamvention and also talk about
the new Bayou jumper kit. And if you missed that
show, you can listen anytime on demand at HamTalkLive
.com or you can listen to the podcast on iTunes,
Stitcher, Google Play, TuneIn, SoundCloud, or
just about any podcast service and also over
on YouTube. Do want to remind everybody that
next week is school club roundup. week. I'm in
a good mood today because we got our antenna
back up finally and got everything up and running
and we just got a couple of little things to
fix and and we can get through school club round
up with with where we're at. So I'm excited about
having the stepper back up and getting on the
air next week with the kids. And so give us a
call. You know, give these schools a call. They'll
be on all week Monday through Friday next week.
There will be a lot of activity between 14 -250
and 14 -280 and you can see all the recommended
frequencies over at the ARRL website. Just look
for School Club Roundup on there. If you want
to hear more about School Club Roundup, go back
in the archives on HamTalk Live. We did a show
back in October with Lou into our queue and I
know he's going to be on as well. So hopefully
you guys can. Get on School Club Roundup next
week, and there will be a little feature from
Lou on Amateur Radio Newsline, which came out
just a little bit ago, actually. It came out
a little early, so you can check that out as
well. All right. Well, get your questions ready
to go on how all these de -expeditions get all
that stuff to the middle of nowhere. After we
do a little interview with George, you can call
us. The telephone number to call is 812 -NET
-HAM -1. 812 -638 -4261. Or you can give us a
call on Skype. That's where we're at, and that's
at HamTalk Live. You can send a question via
Twitter as well. If you've got Mike Fright, our
Twitter handle is at HamTalk Live. You can catch
us there too. So I'll be... back with George
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and mention HamTalk Live. They'd like to hear
that. HamTalk Live is on the air every Thursday
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.com. And if you missed the show, all you gotta
do is go to hamtalklive .com and pull it up or
go to one of those podcasting. websites as well
and chances are we're there. George Nicholson
N4GRN became a ham in 2003. George is a commercial
contractor for both general and electrical projects
and specializes in adaptive reuse, historic renovations
at night clubs and restaurants and structural
restoration. So George put his contractor skills
to work in ham radio by taking care of the logistics.
for many of the major top 10 needed de -expeditions.
He's also gone on several of those de -expeditions
to islands like Peter One, Desacheo, Navassa,
Malpelo, and South Orkney Antarctica de -expeditions
himself. Uh, he lives in Fairburn, Georgia with
his wife, Kim. And in addition to ham radio,
George does a lot of, um, or did a lot of caving
and climbing, backpacking, skydiving and camping
in the past. And now he's, uh, doing some cooking
and raising some exotic plants. So we may have
to get into that. Uh, his homepage is at george
dash Nicholson .com. So George, thank you for
coming on the show tonight. It's a pleasure to
be on tonight. Well, we want to talk about some
of these exotic trips The D expeditions you've
worked with Bob often and and Lynn Johnson and
Craig Thompson and a bunch of these guys that
that put together these big -time trips and trying
to pack is what we want to talk about tonight.
You have the daunting task of trying to put together
all this equipment and make sure you've got everything
you need over there and not too much because
you got to pack it all and send it all and get
it over there in the middle of nowhere. So tell
us how you go about preparing for one of these
de -expeditions. Well, the first one that I was
involved in was the Peter the First trip. It
was my first de -expedition. I'd only been a
ham for two years. I ended up on the team and
was asked to handle a lot of the logistics for
the project. And it turned out that I handled
everything in the end as far as packing. and
containerizing and getting everything to South
America onto the island, packed up and brought
back to the states. In the process of doing that
the first time, I spent a number of hours researching
every possible thing that we could need while
on the island. I prepared an Excel spreadsheet
that had 18 individual pages. And each page had
anywhere from 20 to 300 line items. And once
that was compiled and I felt that I had a pretty
good idea of what was needed, for example, the
radio tab would have all of the radio equipment,
the transceivers, the amplifiers, bandpass filters,
everything that actually was part of the radio.
table set up was in that first tab. Antennas,
coax, was on a second tab. Once I got those set
up, I passed them out to the various team members
in charge of each category. Jerry, W9BZ, has
helped a lot with the antennas, he and Ralph,
so they would tweak the antenna list. Craig,
Bob Alf, and Glenn would tweak the radio and
amplifier list. So after each list was tweaked,
I would clean it up, send it out again. Once
we got everything complete on the list, the next
thing we do is we start assigning box numbers,
which is where my work really comes in. We generally
have everything shipped to Atlanta. We'll have
it in a large storage building. And every item
is put into a box. The boxes are put into larger
boxes. Sometimes the larger boxes are three foot
by three foot square cubed. And every box that
size is assigned a number. A pallet will be assigned
a pallet number. And every item is listed as
to what box and what crate or pallet the box
is in so that we know exactly where every piece
is. That takes a considerable amount of time
to inventory every item and exactly where it
is in every box in every crate. It's a real intense
task, takes a lot of time. We're very fortunate
here with the SEDXC club in Atlanta. A number
of the club members have worked with Bob and
I on the weekends preparing For example, we'll
take the stepper antennas and assemble every
one of them to make sure we've got all the components
to make sure everything is fitted properly. Then
we disassemble it, package it back up, number
the package, inventory the package, and we do
that with everything. Craig takes all of the
transceivers and amplifiers, burns those in,
tests those. So everything is tested before we
go. And then once it's signed off on, it's put
into a container and stored until we actually
get ready to package the shipping container.
Uh, it's, it's a rather intense process. Yeah,
that's, that's very intense. So do you have any
numbers on like how long that takes and how much
stuff you, you have to pack for that? Yeah, we
generally start well for example bouvet We are
beginning to start working on the list now Ralph
has had the list for a while and I've had the
list Bob's got it Glenn's got it. We are working
on various components and Putting it together
now for bouvet, which is coming up this time
next year So a year ahead we start actually acquiring
materials and deciding how we're going to ship.
Once we've got the list pretty well tweaked,
we know who's donating equipment, what equipment
we're taking, how many stations we're setting
up. At that point, I start thinking about the
actual shipping and logistics. I start researching
pricing from the various ship lines, start talking
to various customs agents in the US and South
America or New Zealand, depending on where we're
shipping to. And that takes three or four months
to acquire. There are portions at times that
I get involved with, such as arranging for the
fueling for the ship when it arrives at port,
arranging for the pilot ships when they come
in. That's all worked through the customs agents
in South America and New Zealand. So I get to
move from the packaging into those other areas
about halfway through the actual inventorying
and packaging of the merchandise before it leaves
the states. The line items, for example, the
Amsterdam list I was looking at yesterday, there
was 1 ,042 individual line items on the customs
list. Each of those line items has got a box
number, a crate number, a weight, a size, who
was responsible for getting it to the container,
whether it's completely packaged or whether there's
parts needed. All of that's in the inventory
list along with a cost for customs and a weight
so that when we get ready to set up the helicopter
sling loads we know how much each box weighs
so we don't have to physically weigh boxes on
the ship before we take sling loads to the island.
So it's a lot of items. The 142 items may not
just be individual items. One item could well
be interface boxes for the rig. Well, the interface
box would have a USB cable, possibly a serial
cable, RGA cable. That could be a number of cables
that are in that one line item. It's really more
than 1 ,042 items that were there, but that's
the breakout that we had. For example, the plastic
bag would hold all of those cables. So one line
item might have 10 individual items in it. And
it's critical that we know which box every item
is in, because if Customs decides to open up
a box in the container at the port, and the box
does not have what's on the inventory for that
box, then it leaves them with possibly opening
up a lot of containers. And you really don't
want that to happen when you start worrying about
items disappearing or getting damaged, not being
properly stored back. So you've got to make sure,
I try to make 100 % sure that every box has got
exactly what's on the inventory in it. Wow. That's
just, that's a lot of work. And of course you've
got the rigs and the antennas and the supports
and the interfaces and all that. Uh, what about
living arrangements or are you taking care of
all the shelters and food and water? Do you do
that too? Or you have somebody else that does
that or. Well, it's broken down. There's a lot
of help involved. For example, the bouvet trip,
Glenn Johnson, WZROGJ, he's been doing most of
the research on shelters this time. He and Ralph.
And we're still looking at shelters. It's sort
of a joint effort. We all talk about it. We run
things by each other. But Glenn has been doing
most of the phone calling on shelters this time.
We're looking at some shelter options for this
trip. Previous trips, Ralph had actually bought
the shelters, had shipped them to Atlanta. We
built the floor systems for the shelters here
in Atlanta. And the rigs, like I say, the rigs
are, I guess the last two trips, Craig has dealt
directly with the manufacturers on the rigs and
has had those shipped direct to his location
where he burns them in, then he ships them to
me. and we package them up into Pelican cases.
What I try to do is take a complete station and
put in one Pelican case. It would generally have
a K3, an amplifier, one or two bandpass filters,
all the interface cables needed, and a power
supply. We'd have to that way you could take
a Pelican case you could put it on the floor
beside a table and Everything could go on the
table and just be put together and you didn't
have to run from table to table looking for cables
a complete Station would be in one Pelican case
that also diversifies the load In the event that
you lost a box or a sling had to be dropped from
the helicopter because wind was Tossing it around
and it was too dangerous and the helicopter had
to drop the sling You don't want to lose all
of your bandpass filters or all of your patch
cables So everything is diversified into a number
of boxes so that you never Are out of business
if you lose one or two boxes That's all part
of this inventorying and packaging that I do
is make sure that we don't put all of the tarroids
in one box. We spread them out. We don't put
all of the patch cables in one box. That way,
like I said, you're not out of business if you
lose one or two boxes or a full crate or a full
sling load. Same with food. Same with safety
equipment. Everything is diversified. You know,
we have to when we go to go on these trips to
these islands. We have to take everything we
set up a complete infrastructure to Completely
support the team for two weeks So we've got shelter
food medical and safety Sanitation You've got
your you know, you should be shelters your bedding
and then you've got all of the ham radio stuff
plus the power infrastructure all of the antenna
towers and poles and it's a massive amount of
material. I think we actually had the weights
on two of the trips and it was around 18 to 20
tons of equipment packaged that was helicoptered
to the island. Peter I, we had 26 helicopter
sling drops each direction. That's a lot of helicopter
flights getting material to an island. And I
know that from watching the video and talking
to some of the people on the trip that you weren't
able to finish all of those coming back quite
all at the same time. And that was interesting.
Yes, we actually left the island a few days early
because of an impending storm that was coming,
a huge storm. And we were down to the last two
or three large boxes were left on the island,
along with the helicopter, two man support crew
and Charles Thiele, the world's most traveled
man who was on the trip with us. Charles became
a real hardworking team member and helped with
a lot of the infrastructure building. He just
chipped in and helped. So Charles and two of
the helicopter crew were on the island. The storm
rolled in early. The helicopter had to leave
and leave them on the island. They were there
a number of hours without shelter, without food.
It was a little scary and a little interesting,
but everything worked out. Got a beautiful picture
of Charles and the helicopter crew coming across
the flight ramp when they got out of the helicopter
on the ship Carrying the American flag with this
big smile on their faces. Oh, I bet So so speaking
of coming back and unloading and then you got
to take care of all the You know things to put
the island back the way, you know, it was You
know with most of these trips Then you've got
all of this stuff that you bring back. So what
happens to all these antennas and radios and
everything once you're back from one of these
trips? Does it go on to the next group of people
going out on a trip? Well, various things happen.
Sometimes Ellicraft will say if the team members
want to purchase the rigs they can purchase them
at a small discount or if there are club members
that want to purchase them that have been involved
and helped a lot. So some of the rigs are sold
some of them are actually sold pre -expedition
and the manufacturers especially Ellicraft have
been real good about configuring the rigs to
the specific needs on the island. And a lot of
times those tweaked out rigs are things that
some of the big contest guys would like to have.
So Craig has bought a number off them, Jerry's
bought some, I've purchased one. You have an
opportunity to do that. Sometimes the antennas
go directly on to the next expedition. Especially
things like the Battle Creek Special, it's always
cleaned up and prepared here in Atlanta. When
we get back, we clean it up and make sure all
the parts are in it and it's good and clean.
We'll hold it sometimes for a month or two and
then ship it direct to the next Dexpedition team.
Sometimes it's shipped back and put in storage
with the owner. Same things with Dex Engineering.
We sometimes buy all of their stuff. Sometimes
it goes to the next Dexpedition. And sometimes
we hold it in storage for the next one we're
preparing to do. We've still got some Force 12
antennas from Amsterdam that will more than likely
be going to Bouvier that have been in storage
here in Atlanta. So it's a number of different
things that happen. So you have to, when you
leave the island, you've got to package all of
this stuff back up and you have to make sure
you don't lose parts and you don't damage it
and you try to keep it dry. It's a task leaving
the island and then getting the stuff back to
the states. And then when you get back, you've
got that task of uncrating it all and cleaning
it up and dispersing it to where it needs to
go. So it's an ongoing process for about two
years. Wow. That's just amazing. You know, you've
got all that work to do, but you can't just run
out to the to the local electronics store and
pick up a plug? No, for example, Allocraft would
always send a couple of extra boards, not that
they have problems with their rigs, but boards
that tend to have failures due to static and
things like that and that might damage easier
than other boards. They will send replacement
boards or send replacement diodes in case we
have an electrical storm. I know we lost, I guess
it was a couple of ICOM radios, we lost due to
static electricity building up in a storm one
night on a dipole and it wiped out some diodes
in the front end of the rigs during the night
and we fortunately had spare parts and were able
to change those out the next day. So you've got
to carry, you've got to be sort of prepared for
those kind of things and every trip you go on
there's always something new that comes up. We
had on Malpelo two generators that died due to
the heat and we actually had the tools and some
extra parts with us and were able to disassemble
the two bad generators and put one good one back
together. So we try to carry all the tools we
could need, all the parts within reason. You've
got to weigh all of this extra stuff with how
long it's going to take you to get it to the
island, how costly it is to buy. And there's
a number of things that you just have to juggle
around to make sure you don't take too much,
but that you've got everything you need. Wow.
There's a lot of preparation into, into that.
And I'm sure we could, we could ask a lot of
things that are coming to mind on you know, how
all this actually works. So we're going to give
you, the listener, a chance to ask. When we come
back, we'll start taking your phone calls at
812 -NET -HAM -1 and look at some tweets. You
can catch us over at HamTalk Live, but we need
to take a quick break. We'll be back right after
this message from Spring Hill Suites, Miamisburg,
right here on HamTalk Live. If you're going to
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-NET -HAM -1. That's 812 -638 -4261. Now, here's
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We're here at HamTalkLive .com every Thursday
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broadcast. So I wanted to get that information
out to everyone. But right now it's time for
your calls. If you have a question for George,
give us a call at 812 -NET -HAM -1. That's 812
-638 -4261. or you can Skype us at HamTalk Live
and you can also tweet HamTalk Live as well.
And we do have some tweets here, so we'll just
go ahead and dig into those. I got a couple of
things on my list here still, but let's get to
some of these questions that have come in from,
None other than Dr. Scott Wright, KZeroMD. He
wants to know what's the toughest de -expedition,
which one's been the toughest to organize? Was
it Malpelo in the heat or Amsterdam in the middle
of nowhere or one of the Antarctics? And are
there any left on your bucket list to organize
and operate from? And I think this is a loaded
question. Here, George, it says, who has the
loudest signal from your end of the pile up?
I'm sure that's a loaded question. Uh, always,
uh, we laugh about making sure that I listened
for the, uh, K zero MD carefully. Uh, and I've
been fortunate enough to contact Scott on several
of the D expeditions. It's really odd how the
propagation works on these trips. US can be coming
in really strong and then all of a sudden it's
gone. But you never know that the big guys with
the big rigs aren't always the loudest sometimes.
So it's interesting. what we get because we hear
much better a lot of times on these remote islands
than anybody else does in the big cities and
even in the country because we've got no noise.
So hearing is not a problem usually. But I do
listen for Dr. Scott. He's one of my favorite
people as I listen for everybody. I think the
toughest one That I've organized was actually
the Navassa trip It was tough and that there
was so many hurdles to go over with Immigrations
and customs and US Fish and Wildlife It was just
a constant battle For six or eight months trying
to get everything in order so that we had no
problems when we got there And we had some glitches
when we got there. We had anticipated them. We
knew what to do. It went smooth after we got
there. But that was the toughest one, I think,
as far as organizing and pulling it off. Peter
the First was probably the most serious concern.
It was my first was one reason. The other reason
is it was a dangerous location. We had to make
sure we had everything we needed. We had to make
sure we knew where it was. So it was a tough
job packaging and things had to go in last that
came out first. It was a real challenge to package
that one. Malpelo, that was split up between
the Colombian team and the U .S. team, making
sure that we coordinated everything and Colombia
had what they were supposed to have and we had
what we were supposed to have. It was a little
bit challenging to make sure that happened. They're
all challenges in different kinds of ways, every
one of them. The hot locations have got different
needs. You've got more water requirements. You've
got to worry about generators overheating. You've
got to make sure team members stay hydrated.
We've got to make sure that we've got plenty
of electrolytes on the hot trips so that people
don't have electrolyte problems. We almost had
a few at Mount Palo. We found out into the...
First week there that the ship that was preparing
the food the shelf could not eat salt at all
So everything he was preparing was being prepared
with a salt substitute which we did not know
and Dr. Gary found out one day that that's why
people were having cramps and we ended up getting
out a bag of salt and Resalting all of our food
as we got it. So wow, you know, those are the
kind of things you don't think about sometimes
And you just have to make sure you've got what
you need when those things come up. And the neat
thing is the expeditions that Bob and Glenn and
Ralph put together, the teams are such that we've
got a variety of skills and everybody has input
into everything. And we can cover pretty much
anything that happens on the trip and therefore
prior to trip. I'm constantly getting feedback.
Did you have this on the list? Has this been
accounted for? I really enjoy doing it. It's
very interesting putting these packages together.
Customs and immigrations can be a real challenge,
but the worst one was the Navassa trip in Jamaica.
Jamaica was just a real hassle. Nice people.
And in the end, it was not a problem, but they
just had their way of doing it. And it was very
difficult. And any on the bucket list, any that
you still haven't done that you want to do? Well,
my number one on the bucket list since Peter,
the first has been Desacheo. So, uh, I haven't
looked for the next bucket list yet. I had been
looking toward. Desacheo, I mean, been looking
for Choet Bouvet since Peter the First. I'm sure
I'll have a new bucket list, but right now I
haven't had time to think about the next one.
Got a lot of preparation to do for Bouvet. Absolutely,
and that's coming up just a year away and we
look forward to that. We do have another tweet
from Eric into KOJ and he wants to know what
your favorite de -expedition was and what's your
most memorable contact while operating on a de
-expedition. Okay, those are good ones. I guess
the favorite... Most favorite de -expedition?
That's really hard. I don't know that I have
a favorite. Peter the First, maybe, because it
was my first and it was a big challenge. And
we met a lot of very interesting people on the
way there and on the way back. I think it's probably
the one I remember the most. But they're all
unique in their own way. And a big part of these
large trips is the camaraderie of all of the
people involved, not just the team, but the unique
people that you meet in the Antarctic, the unique
people you meet with the shipping companies,
like the Braveheart crew, the DAP crew that took
us to Peter One. It's just so many facets to
it that it's really hard to say what the favorite
is and as far as the most memorable contact Again
that's hard to say when I sit down at the rig
and I've got my three -hour shift It's gone before
I know it you get into a zone of just listening
for call signs and there are times that I contact
friends and don't even realize I've done it until
I'm off the air. And somebody says, do you remember
talking to KZeroMD, for example? I think I made
a contact with Scott. I believe it was maybe
Desacheo, and I didn't even realize I was talking
to Scott at the time. I was just as rapidly as
possible knocking them off the list as they were
coming in. But I think maybe Some of the guys
that I remember that in my first one or two trips
that I had heard so much about like Marty Lane
and some of those guys I remember my first contact
with them from Peter the first star from Desacheo
But I don't have a favorite contact. I don't
guess I know a lot of people do but I really
don't Okay, and Eric falls up with how about
just as a ham operator in general anywhere? Do
you have a most memorable contact most memorable
contact ever? Yes, I actually I do I Had I had
back back in high school in college I wanted
to be a ham, but I had nobody living close to
us I could not learn the Morse code by myself.
So I never got my license I had I had been prepared
to pass the written test. I had built all the
HeathKit stuff. And I remember when I got my
ticket, I've got my novice ticket first. I was
getting ready to go in for open heart surgery
the next week. And my first contact was on, I
guess it was, I think it was 50, six meters.
And it was to Newfoundland. And that was my first
contact ever on ham radio. Well, I had just purchased
a home in Nova Scotia about a month before that.
Turns out the contact in Newfoundland was a very
good friend of one of the fishing families I
knew in Nova Scotia. And I met him the next year
when I went up and gave the presentation on Peter
the first. So I well remember that I don't remember
his call sign now. He's passed away. He was an
old gentleman, but he was a Newfoundland guy
and I made that first contact on six meters.
That's probably the one I remember the most.
All right. Very good. Well, we just have a couple
of minutes left. So, uh, if you want to tweet
us, uh, it's at ham talk live. Uh, we've got
time maybe for one quick call at eight one two
net am one. Uh, if you want to get that in, you
need to do that right away. Cause we're just
about out of time, uh, for this evening. But,
uh, one of the things and I actually was asking
about this before the show. Since we just got
our stepper back up at school today. And I remember
all the work that it took to, to get it put together
and drill out the poles and route those out and
all the shrink wrap and everything to get all
that going. What exactly do you do a little differently?
with those so that you can get those poles collapsed
again after you test everything, put everything
together so that you can pack those up and get
them out and put them back? Well, we take them
all apart as we do everything and assemble them
here in Atlanta and test them to make sure they're
working properly. make sure the control cables
are all working properly, and then we disassemble
and put back together. But, for example, the
shrink wrap we do not use. We use the really
good all -weather 3M electrical tape to tape
those tubes together with. We've never had a
failure with it. It's not your regular Scotch
33 3M. It's a much more expensive professional
grade tape that we use to put them together with.
They keep it completely dry. It doesn't get really
hard in cold weather. It doesn't melt in hot
weather. So that's what we do with the steppers.
And you don't tape the control cables. You don't
use tape to tape those together. You put them
together with zip ties. The tape gets all sticky
in hot weather. You've got everything sticking
to it. So we try to keep everything clean and
packaged neat. And everything is tested at least
once before it leaves for the container. Very
good, George. Well, I've got more questions I
could ask, but we're out of time. And, uh, I
just thank you so much for giving us some insight
on, you know, how to pack all this stuff up.
And we think, you know, making a little go kits,
a little tough, and this is the ultimate go kit
here we're talking about. So thanks for all your
work that you've done on, uh, these to make these
trips possible and thanks for sharing all that
information with us tonight and look forward
to maybe having you come on again maybe after
the next trip or leading up to the next trip
and give us some more insight. I appreciate the
opportunity to talk to you and be glad to come
on any time. All right. Well, that is a wrap
for this week's edition of HamTalk Live. I'd
like to thank my guest, George Nicholson, N4GRN
and everybody out there in cyberspace for listening
and tweeting in and invite you back next Thursday
night at 9 p .m. Eastern Time when Fred K4IU
will be here to talk about DXing. And next week
we celebrate being on the air for one year. So
thank you all for listening. and tell your friends
about the show, and here's hoping for an even
better second year of HamTalk Live. For a list
of all of our upcoming guests, be sure to visit
hamtalklive .com. So for now, this is Neil Rapp,
WB9VPG, saying seven three, seven five, and may
the good DX be yours. Thanks for watching.