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Please stand by. It's ha - Good evening to everyone.
This is HamTalk Live episode number eight. The
Palmara The Expedition with Craig Thompson K9CT
recorded live on Thursday, April 7th, 2016. I'm
your host, Neil Rapp, WB9VPG. Thanks for tuning
in to this episode of HamTalk Live. Tonight on
the show, Craig Thompson K9CT will be here to
talk about co -leading the recent Palmyra Atold
the Expedition K5P will take your calls live
in just a few minutes. Last week on the Big Show,
Rosalie White, K1STO was here to talk about taking
amateur radio into space aboard the International
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-HAM -1 that's 812 -638 -4261 Need to tell you
about some exciting plans we have coming up soon.
Our Dayton Hamvention Preview will start in just
two weeks. Next week Don Wilbanks AE5DW is brave
enough to return. He's going to talk about the
Bill Pasternak Young Ham of the Year Award by
Amateur Radio Newsline. And then the following
week we will start our Dayton Hamvention Preview
where each week we will feature something that's
been that's going to be happening at Hamvention
this year. We'll be joined by the general chairman
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and a couple of the forum presenters. And the
night before Hamvention, just announcing this,
we will be broadcasting live from Dayton with
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in Dayton or you can call in while you're on
your way to Dayton or stuck at home. So keep
listening and watch our Facebook and Twitter
feed for all the details on that. My guest this
evening is Craig Thompson, K9CT from Trevoli,
Illinois, not too far from Peoria. Craig is an
extra class license holder and been a ham for
48 years. He has a degree in electronics engineering
technology from Bradley University, as well as
worked for an MBA. After serving as operations
manager and vice president of a small company,
Craig started his own business in 1980. Thompson
Electronics Company is a solutions provider for
security, communications, audio, video, fire
alarm systems for industrial, government, education,
hospital, and religious markets in central Illinois.
His combination of ham radio and electronics
career has allowed him to build an impressive
contesting station and participate in several
de -expeditions. His latest journey was co -leading
a trip at the end of January to Cooper Island
in the Palmyra Atoll located a thousand miles
south of Hawaii. The Nature Conservancy bought
Palmyra in 2000 from the Fullard Leo family who
had previously turned down offers to have the
atoll used as a nuclear waste site and a casino.
What a combination. Today Palmyra is a national
marine monument and the Conservancy and the U
.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are partnering
to protect it. So, Craig, welcome to HamTalk
Live this evening. Thanks, Neil. Yeah, and thank
you for joining us. I know you had to leave a
dinner a little early, so we appreciate you taking
the time to join us tonight. First, why don't
you just give us a little rundown of how you
got started in ham radio. Well, like a lot of
probably listeners of the same age as I we lived
in a time when math and science in school were
really Emphasized because it was the space race
with Sputnik having been launched and we were
going to be on the moon and I was always intrigued
with technology and science and that sort of
thing. So My father surprised me one day, actually
on my birthday when I was young, maybe 12 years
old or so, and gave me some ham radio books.
And I read them, and over time, learned the code
on my own. I don't believe I ever heard code.
I just had the radio telegraph code book from
ADRL, and I figured out what it sounded like.
My parents found a family that lived in a neighboring
village and they took me over there and I met
the husband and wife were both hams and the lady
was W9USR, Lucy Hilbert was her name and she
had me sit down in front of her Collins and my
jaw dropped and we listened to CW and we practiced
code for a little bit and she says, why don't
you come back in a couple of weeks? We'll take
the test. So that's how I got started. And of
course, after I saw a beautiful Collins station
and really nice people, I wanted to be a ham
radio operator. So that's how I got started.
And when I decided to go to school after high
school, I picked Bradley University because I
wanted to study electrical engineering technology.
And lo and behold, they had a ham radio station
there. And I quite kiddingly tell people that
I majored in ham radio and I might earn in electrical
engineering. In fact, I still have friends today
from that. In fact, one of the guys that was
in my club actually works for me to this day.
We were friends for life, but it was a great
time. I learned how to DX. I learned how to contest
with that group. That was a great way to get
started in ham radio. I think a lot of people
that are probably in my age probably started
in a similar fashion. So ham radio has been good
to me because it got me into a technical career
and actually helped me get interested in the
business that I'm in. So I've never been in RF
except for a hobby and I do other things that
are not RF related in my business. So that's
how I've kept them separate, but they're all
electrical electronics, you know, so absolutely.
Yeah. And I know the, um, the, the club at Bradley
is still going because we, we hear them, uh,
during school club roundup a lot, uh, at my job.
So, uh, I've been visiting them, uh, I invited
them out to my contest station and, uh, In fact,
we invited one of them out to operate in a couple
of weeks after that, which was very cool. I love
young people and it was great and I know you
do too, Neil. But I actually went back and visited
the club at their station. They still have the
same antenna that we put on the university. trying
to help them, uh, get some equipment and get
them more modernized, but they actually have
an active club now. So I'm very happy for that.
Yeah. Yeah. That's great. And yeah, it might
be time for a, for a new antenna. Yes, sir. Just
maybe. So, so tell us how you got into, uh, the,
the de -expeditions. Well, you know, that's,
that's, uh, That's interesting and it's also
challenging because I get often asked by people.
In fact, I just got an inquiry today from somebody
that certainly competent and qualified enough
to go on a de -expedition. But I decided I wanted
to do that. The skill set is learned by contesting
because you need to make accurate. fairly rapid
contacts when you're on these trips because you're
you have a limited amount of time so I really
liked contesting and so I figured that I had
some of the skills necessary to actually go on
a trip like that and some of my friends had been
on trips like this before and I listened to many
of their presentations and I thought you know
this this is maybe a way I can give back to ham
radio is to participate Because these when you
go on as a team member you're you are obligated
to financially contribute you're obligated to
help out and to be a good team member and so
you know not every young person can do that because
you know it when you're young you don't have
enough money you're taking you're raising your
family and building a career and and You don't
have the time because you have to work every
day so I'd reached a point in my life where I
felt I had the time and I had some extra money
and and maybe had the skills. So I started looking
around for opportunities and I'd made a connection
with someone that had gone on some de -expeditions
and this is probably the right way to do it is
to network with people that you know go on trips
and he called this fellow called me up one day
and he says there's an opportunity to go and
this is what's what's involved and so that's
how I got connected. is from networking. And
that was the expedition to Cocos Island, which
was very interesting. It was quite challenging
because the license was canceled before we got
to the island, actually before we got to the
country. We'd already left, we'd flown out and
they canceled the license. So I learned a lot
about political issues and we had to meet, actually
had to go to San Jose, Costa Rica. and thank
goodness we had a couple of very good Spanish
speaking people in our team and we were able
to negotiate our license and then we also had
to negotiate permission to actually land on the
island because it's a protected island. So that
was a real eye -opening experience for me. I
learned a lot from that experience and it was
a boat ride but subsequent to that I got involved
us in a similar fashion to go to Midway Island
and that was an interesting process because it
was unusual in that you put your name on a list
to be a team member and I was asked to be a team
member and that's how I got acquainted with a
lot of the people I actually go on the expeditions
today and the next de -expedition I did, I actually
co -led with one of the other operators on that
scene, Joe Wagex, and I co -led several de -expeditions.
We both had different qualities that we brought
to the table. I like managing projects, which
is what this is all about anyhow. He was really
great at PR, public relations, getting permission,
corresponding with people, getting great team
members assembled, fundraising. And so that's
how I got involved in these projects. And of
course, they're all very challenging. You learn
a lot about geography. You learn a lot about
logistics and raising money and why are things
so expensive. dealing with foreign governments
and even the US departments like Fish and Wildlife
can be very challenging. But if anybody ever
gets a chance, I would highly recommend that
you have this experience so that you can appreciate
what some of these guys go through to go on de
-expeditions for us de -exers that like to work
foreign countries. So it's like the guys that
are on Herd Island right now or down on Wanda
Nova. You know, they both have their challenges.
One is very cold and the weather is extreme with
high winds and they had to take many days by
boat to get there. And the other team is every
day dealing with high heat and really rugged
conditions. And it's hard for us sitting at our
nice home behind our radio appreciating the sometimes
very difficult conditions that these guys have
to go through so I think it's always good that
anybody gets a chance to walk in the shoes of
the people on the other end so you can appreciate
what these guys are doing for us. Oh absolutely
and you've had a chance to you know you started
off leading and co -leading these pretty early
on so you've you've been thrown right in. Yeah
you know it's uh It's funny how that happens.
There's been some really interesting projects
and what happens is that the team members are
as intrigued as we are as leaders in what can
we do next. We try to keep the same team members
if we can because we know that we got along well,
that who's a good operator, who's not a good
operator, that sort of thing. But it's so important
that everybody gets along because it's quite
stressful when you. are setting up in heat or
not the best conditions or you have to be safe
because landing in coral and you know there's
no medical help with you know very easy to get
to and we often bring a medical doctor with us
but there's so many things you have to think
of when you're the leader you're responsible
for all of these things and you have to think
about all of that and when we assemble a team
we want to make sure that everybody's going to
be safe and Everybody's quite aware. So when
you look back, there's just kind of a history
of learning every time you go out and you learn
from some of the best people in the world. It's
been an honor actually to be on some of these
teams where there's de -expeditions of the year
like K4UEE. He's a de -expeditioner. uh uh uh
extraordinaire and w zero gj or k zero ir or
some of these guys uh are have led the expeditions
for years and uh you learn so much from uh going
with them um so you know as time goes on uh you
you know uh you learn from your mistakes and
you you try not to repeat anything you know and
just do a better job so and it's always a learning
experience yep And if you note, like if you just
take a look at our website from Palmyra Island,
that's palmyra2016 .org, and look at that, you'll
see the team that we assembled. But not only
that, if you look at the volunteers that helped
us, when you look, if you scroll down from the
team members, you'll see the entire support team
we've had. Like K6TU, Stu Phillips has done a
remarkable job with propagation forecasts. And
you have to have all these logistical things
with help. And when we go through Hawaii, when
we went both to Wake and Midway and to Swains
Island, Paul Myra, KH7U, Kimo Chum has helped
so many people. with equipment on Hawaii and
making sure it gets on the boats and gets to
the planes. There's just a lot of great people
that are willing to help out actually all over
the world. So it's not just the team members
that go. A lot of times there's a lot of people
that put together the website or help pilot the
team and make sure that we get the right information.
Like was there an opening in Africa we missed
or was there an opening in in Eastern Europe
that we missed. You just have to assemble a big
team and get a lot of information to do these
things right. Not to mention all the cards. Yes.
Actually, I learned a lot of lessons. I thought
I would do the QSL cards for Paul Myra because
I'm on the NCDXF board and I wanted to do a little
research study on the effectiveness of OQRS and
direct QSLing and LOTW and all of these different
things. So I've been keeping track of how well
all of this has worked and I wanted to know how
difficult it was to do and so I learned a lot
and I have a lot of data now about the QSL process
and how much money can be raised from doing that.
I was really surprised, for instance, We had
sent out all of the QSOs and uploaded them to
LOTW, and we had 75 ,000 QSOs from Palmyra, and
almost 45 ,000 had been confirmed by LOTW now
in just a couple of months. Isn't that remarkable?
The percentage of active hams that are on LOTW.
I looked back at some of the previous de -expeditions.
This is the highest percentage I've ever seen.
It's remarkable. Yeah. Yeah, we've been at school.
We've been watching LOTW like every day. We're
still trying to get our CQ Worldwide contacts
confirmed on some of those because we're closing
in on DXCC. And it's been incredible how many
we've been able to do that way. It makes makes
our lives a lot easier. So I'm glad to hear that
that's being successful. You know, you think
about the cost for hams for postage and The most
the highest cost is somebody's actually sending
a QSL card to the QSL manager and then for them
to process the card it is so much work and Lotw
is by far the easiest night and I know that It's
also the least expensive. But I also know that
people want a card and I appreciate that. So
the OQRS systems that have been created, I think
have been a godsend because of the cost of postage.
I would prefer not to get a card and have to
look up all the data when the data can be matched
right online and then just receive a confirmed
ADiff file that I can issue a card and mail it
to the person. It's a much very effective. We
can do, I'll bet you we could do a thousand QSL
cards by OQRS for the same amount of work that
we would do for 250 cards direct. It's just so
much more work and at a higher cost per card.
So OQRS has really been a good thing too. Yeah,
absolutely. Well, tell us a little bit about
the island itself and about your stations there
at K5P. Well, this was idyllic. It's hard to
believe. You know, a lot of times people would
think of Tahiti or someplace like that as a destination,
location that would just be a beautiful place
to go. But I would cast Palmyra Atoll in that
same category. And what's so remarkable about
this is that in World War II, it was a Navy base.
And I actually have pictures in part of my PowerPoint
presentation of the island was almost stripped.
And they built an airstrip. Actually, that airstrip
still exists. And it was many, many buildings
and several thousand soldiers or Navy. people
and engineers and support staff. And there was
hardly any palm trees or anything like that on
the entire island. And they actually had cleared
a channel, dredged a channel so that large ships
could come in and dock and bring supplies and
then get back out. And you contrast that today.
to just a beautiful place. Now, I have to tell
you, if you walk into the jungle, you might run
into a jeep that was left from World War II era
or buildings that are covered in vines that might
be a generator building or was maybe an old barracks,
underground barracks. So it takes you back in
history. All you have to do is just get off the
beaten path a little bit. But actually, I got
to tell you, it was a complete surprise to us.
You can look online, and you can try to find
out about Palmyra. And if you look, you'll find
out that, of course, fish and wildlife controls
the area. But in fact, the Nature Conservancy
owns a significant portion of the atoll. And
so in the area that they control, they have built
cottages, little huts in the palm trees, and
they have a research area that people from universities
will come and do different research for several
weeks at a time during the, usually about April
1st on until into the later fall. They do research
projects and it might be on island or it might
be in the coral or something that they're studying,
whether it's weather or environmental aspects
of testing that they want to do. So they spend
a lot of the time that we were, in the period
of the time that we were there, there were six
people there doing work, maintenance work, building,
cleaning, rehab of different things. And the
place really was spotless. So we land on this
beautiful runway. They meet us. They actually
threw out a red carpet for us when we landed.
And the population at the time before we landed
was six. And then with our nine, it was 15. And
they had a little greeting sign that said population
15 for us. And so you walk through the, they
led us in kind of a walkway through palm trees
and right next to the lagoon, I'll call it. which
was just shallow water, shallower water. And
of course, you could see it. It's as clear as
can be. So you could see sharks and different
things, sea life swimming right next to you as
you walked along. And so then they'd say, well,
here's your cabins. And they assigned a cabin
to us. And each of us had our own at the time.
But each actually had two beds, so two people
could stay. In one of these little huts, but
you know, they're just really basic and And then
we had a meeting and they told us in a this meeting
was held in a kitchen kind of a dining area and
that overlooked the lagoon and That's every day
was important in terms of we met there for our
meals We had a breakfast lunch and dinner and
if any conversation was had with everybody That
was expected to happen at that time So you can
imagine there's a laundry and showers. There
were, of course, toilets and that sort of thing.
But so we were kind of civilized way more than
we expected. But some of these buildings were
constructed even clear back in the 70s. There
were buildings. There was actually a murder.
a famous murder that was on the island had occurred
and we in the lagoon is where the people that
had their boat where they have they have a famous
swimming hole and those that's where those people
had tied up there and those were the people that
were docked and and the people that were accused
of the murder we found out where they had docked
and so we were kind of able to walk around and
and be part of what we'd read about So there's
a lot of history here, but it's a very quiet,
eerie place. Some people think it's spooky and
has different paranormal connotations associated
with it. But I got to tell you, I just considered
it a paradise. I think all of us did. But we
ended up operating out of a research lab that
was vacant. It was very nice. completely unexpected
that we would have access to such a nice facility,
but Like I said, they maintain this very well
now the island You had it obviously at night.
It's very dark. There are there are no lights
So when you walked around you had to have a headlamp
or a flashlight and you had to watch out for
crabs because there were crabs everywhere and
it was dangerous for both the crab and you if
you should step on them, so That's one thing
that you would not want to be surprised about
if you were to visit the island. And then they
showed us the cane spiders, which are about as
big as your palm of your hand. And evidently,
they don't bite, but they are sure scary. And
I had one in my hut, and you're not going to
keep them out of anything, but they were around.
Of course, One of the things that we found out
about that they had gotten rid of all the rats
and they the rats used to be really bad there
and we never once they have rat traps everywhere
but they haven't seen a rat in a couple of years.
They said the rats were so thick that they used
to be hanging in the palm trees eating the coconuts
and they were just, I forget the number of how
many there were per square meter or square whatever,
but it was just ridiculously bad and I'm so glad
that they got rid of them. This is basically,
if something gets introduced there that's not
supposed to be there, it doesn't have its counter.
to get rid of it. So they're very careful. In
other words, when we arrived on the island, we
had to have our clothing frozen and things like
that. So we'd make sure that we didn't bring
in any seeds or any bugs or spiders with us that
might cause another problem for them. So they're
very careful about the balance of nature on the
island. They had some trails that you could walk.
and you could walk through the islands and you
could see a lot of the World War II where they
had taken the coral and piled it up and leveled
it off and they had head officers quarters and
things like that. You could see gun mounts that
had fallen into the ocean. A lot of this was
now sunken. The ocean was taking it back, but
you could see a lot of these things. If we had
any time, we could go for a walk. But with our
operating schedule, especially the first few
days where you're setting everything up and you're
so eager to get on the air and work as many people
as possible, our schedule was actually three
hours on. and then or excuse me four hours on
and then eight hours off and then four hours
on and we had three teams of three that would
do that and then we'd get to a three hour on
and six hour off and then our time would shift
so that we all had a chance to operate at different
times and see what different propagation was
during the day and be on different bands so you
can see that if your eight hours was in the middle
of the day you might not get any rest just because
of the your body clock But so sometimes we'd
walk around and and take a look at things or
we'd be working on tenants and fixing things.
But that was a surprise to see how nice it was
and how the food was good. They treated us well.
And we actually had chores we always we had to
pitch in. We didn't know any of this ahead of
time. We just but we are glad to do it. Um, we,
we were expected to clean up the kitchen and,
uh, clean the restrooms and clean the showers
and all of the other things. We even one day
had it, we took a break off the radio and helped
rake. Uh, they normally get a lot of rain there.
Um, and they were actually surprised while we
were there that we didn't get as much rain. Uh,
it's nice to have all of those things there.
Yes. So that you can, you don't mind cleaning
them. What do you have though? Those, those,
those things there that, uh, you don't have on,
on other trips. So, yeah, it was, oh yeah. Compared
to a lot of them. This was a very pleasant experience.
You know, compared to Navasa last year where
it was a deserted Island, it's a, you know, it's
actually desert and, um, there's no water, uh,
no food. So this flies in contrast to that, but.
Just so you know, we had to pay them to get the
food there. And we had to pay them so much a
day per person for our quarters. And the reason
is we're a burden to them. So there's a fee associated
with doing these things. We had to pay for the
flight in. The flight had to be approved. But
like I said there was we didn't have it was hard
to set the expectations But it was a way better
than a lot of the expeditions. I'll put it that
way Very nice sounds like it really was well,
we're way over so I need to take a break here
We'll get back with more from Craig Thompson
canine CT and your chance to call in Right after
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Jeff and Dan, a call at 800 -729 -4373. Craig
Thompson, K9CT, is our guest this evening talking
about the Palmyra D Expedition and we want to
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Craig Thompson canine CT. So a couple of things
that we were going to talk about real quick the
stations on the island and Some of the interference
problems you ran into Yes, thanks Neil actually
we plan the stations very early based upon the
number of people we're going to have and and
the look and how much of a site layout will we
would have on the island and So a lot of planning
goes into that. We were limited by Fish and Wildlife
as to what antennas we could have because of
the birds. They wanted us to be very careful
about using horizontal antennas. So primarily,
well, I would say entirely, we use stepper vertical
antennas. And we had a Battle Creek special for
160. And we created a 80 meter vertical using
a spider pole. And we put them as close to the
lagoon as possible. So we had actually three
stepper 80 through 10 meter verticals separated
by probably a football field in three directions.
And so that would allow at least three stations
to be on at the same time. And because we were
in the same location, we knew we couldn't be
on the same band. So we wouldn't be on CW and
sideband on 20 meters at the same time because
we end up burning up the front end of a radio.
So anyhow, Stepper was one of our sponsors and
that was a great thing because that gave us a
lot of versatility. And the Battle Creek special,
of course, comes from Battle Creek, Michigan
and some guys up in that area, W8UVZKAGG, who
make sure that the expeditions get these antennas.
And then we had an all -EllaCraft setup. In fact,
we were very fortunate. We ended up with the
K3S, which is their newest model. And we interface
those with the computers and with their new USB
interfaces. They have a codec. And we were able
to do RIDI and CW and very easily using the new
interface on the K3S. So we actually took stations
for four. So we could do four setups. You'll
notice that we had three operators on at a time.
So the four station was actually a six meter
beacon that we ran the entire time. It was our
spare radio. And then we had a network computer
system for all the logging. So that was our layout,
and everything was in fairly close proximity
to this lab that I was talking about. And we
tried to keep as many antennas on the water as
possible so that we'd get the best effect, the
enhancement from the water. We had one special
antenna that we had set up for Europe on 20 meters.
It was SVDA, which is a two vertical elements
with gain and we set that up to go to Europe
because for Europe it's a very difficult path.
It's over the pole. When we talk about interference,
of course, the first thing a lot of DXers think
about is the intentional interference that might
occur. There was also some interference that
we had from We'll call it the Chinese dragon
radar and I think you might have some audio of
that Yeah, I have a clip of that. We'll play
that sure and then Well that as you can see was
a showstopper When that came on, you tried to
find a place where the radar was not. We could
actually, because Europe was so rare, sometimes
this would occur right when we just got that
great opening to Europe and it would only last
maybe half an hour or 45 minutes, and all of
a sudden that would come on and now you're done.
So you needed to move to another band or someplace
where the radar was not operating. We were very
cautious about DQRM. We know that a lot of it
is caused by frustration, and we thought we had
a really good team of operators. When you keep
the QSO rates high and people have a good feeling
that they're going to get in the log, generally
the level of frustration is reduced. So we try
to make sure we ran at a very good clip and get
as many people in the log as possible, and we
think we did that. The other interference we
had was mostly on the low bands, 80 and 160.
And I didn't say this, but about nine months
prior to us arriving, they had installed solar
power and batteries and inverters for powering
the little camp that we were staying at. And
so in the building that we were on, there were
inverters all along the very top. And I mean
solar panels along the roof. And then in the
adjacent building, there were inverters. And
we kept wondering what all the noise was. Well,
we could actually see it on the Ellicraft P3,
which is a band scope, that we could see some
very unusual noise. So they had an AM radio.
And I went around with this AM radio. And I found
that it was all of these inverters. So we had
sponsor Array Solutions out of Texas who had
loaned us an SAL -30, which is a receiving antenna.
And we set that up about 200 or 300 feet away
in an open area. And we virtually eliminated.
any of the noise issues. So we are very excited
that we thank goodness we brought along that
antenna because it made all the difference in
the world. So I highly recommend anybody make
sure you got a good receive antenna and you get
it away from the noise. It really was, it made
a big difference for us. Sounds like it's a lifesaver.
Okay, I need to take another quick break and
then we'll be back with more with Craig Thompson
right after this from Tower Electronics. This
episode of HamTalk Live is brought to you by
Tower Electronics. Tower Electronics has been
the Ham's dime store since 1978, bringing connectors,
antennas, cables and other parts to the world.
Scott and Jill travel the country bringing their
store to you at HamFest, but you can also order
online at PL -259 .com or by calling 920 -435
-2973. Stock up on those supplies like PL -259
and end connectors, audio cables, mobile antennas
and hamsticks. Their silver plated end connectors
are even in use on the International Space Station.
Tower Electronics is a dealer for MFJ, Comet,
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Tower Electronics online at PL -259 .com. Proud
to sponsor this episode of HamTalk Live. If a
man says something in the woods and there are
no women there, is he still wrong? You're listening
to HamTalk Live with Neil Rapp. And thanks to
Tower Electronics for sponsoring the show. Don't
miss Jill at the Mobile Alabama HamFest on Saturday.
Or visit their website at PL -259 .com. Craig
Thompson K9CT is with us and we just have a couple
of minutes here, Craig. So what else can you
tell us about your experience from home, Ira?
Well, I'd say that it was obviously a success
and a lot of that has to do with the team of
operators that we brought along. Everybody pitched
in and everybody carried an equal load and did
a super job. So I'd highly recommend that you
take a look at our website and see who they are.
You probably know a lot of them. The co -leader
was Lou N2TU. He is just a terrific guy and did
a lot of the work. He got the permissions and
he did all of that. And I congratulate him for
the part he brought to the table. So it was just
a great team effort. Like I said, we made 75
,000 QSOs. It was really not very easy the first
week because propagation was difficult. There
was a lot of geomagnetic disturbance. And so
you know what that means. There's just more absorption
and it made it more difficult. But as we got
into the second week, conditions improved and
we got a lot of more, especially Europeans in
particular, because it was so difficult of a
path through the rural oval. So we felt that
we had made a huge dent. Obviously we were at
number nine most wanted. location and we wanted
to make sure that because it may not there may
not be another de -expedition there for another
ten years so we wanted to make sure that anybody
that really needed it we got him in the log and
and I can tell you we especially several stations
in Europe we worked very hard to get them in
the log and we it might have taken several days
but inevitably we got them in the log on some
band somehow so From that standpoint, it was
very successful the equipment got back We the
sponsors were terrific We please support our
sponsors that without them donating and allowing
us to Use their great equipment these things
wouldn't happen because you can imagine the cost
I mean, these are expensive anyhow, but the additional
cost it would be without our sponsors. We are
out of time. Okay. Craig, thanks. And thanks
to all the listeners out there and we'll see
you next week.