pa0r

Thursday,  November 30. .

7:30 Breakfast. We have been packing last night and the truck which will take our bagage to the airport will come 8:30, Insh Allah.... We will get our passports back at the hotel desk when we return the key to our room. The bus will pick us up around 9:00.

8:00 I have my passport, with a nice visum and plenty of stamps. Nothing can stop us from going home now.

8:30 No truck...

9:00 No truck, no bus. We wait outside,the weather is sunny again.

10:30 The bus arrives and we have to pack all stuff in the bus as the truck won't come.

11:15 We arrive at the airport. We unload the bus and find enough bagage carts to wheel everything into the departure hall. First bagage check, everything goes through the Xray scanner.

11:35 We put all stuff together in the arrival hall. Andy collects all tickets to check us in as a group, as we would completely block the check in counter.... We wait. The plane is leaving 14:10, so we have plenty of time. I am starting to get hungry, but where we are there is nothing we can buy. We change our money back into Euros.

11:50 We get our boarding tickets. Lufthansa opens a special counter for the bagage and it works out fine...

12:00 The bagage is on its way to the plane. We gather our hand luggage and proceed to customs for a passport check. We merge into the queue.

12:10 Mitch,VE6OH shows his passport. The customs officer looks at it, and types the name into a terminal. He tells Mitch to "wait a few minutes" and puts the passport aside. Mitch looks irritated and waits.

12:15 It is my turn. Mitch is still waiting a few minutes. The guy types my name into the terminal and says: "wait a few minutes" and puts my passport aside. I wait too.

12:20 Adriano, ON5GA joins us.

12:26 Franz, DK1II joins us. We now form an awkward block for the queue. The other expedition members have taken the other queue and wave at us. "We won't leave without you", Andy jokes. Mustapha tells us it is probably our own fault, we should not have harassed the customs people. I am not aware of any harassment. The customs guy asks us to sit down but there are no chairs.

12:45 I ask the guy what happens. He says something like "name check". Obviously he does not speak any language other than arabic. Meanwhile 4 seats are empty and we sit down and wait.

13:40 First call to board the plane to Frankfurt. We try to talk to the customs guys but nobody will tell us anything. We don't know what is wrong. We need an interpreter but nobody there who can help us. This is getting scary. We have no passport, and any policeman can put us in jail for that. Adriano has a connecting flight in Frankfurt and his bagage is checked through to Brussels. We don't fancy spending another day in Libia, and certainly not in this airport.

13:55 Last call for the plane to Frankfurt. We try to communicate with anybody in customs, but we have no luck. Haytem, an operator of the 5A1A club station appears. He talks arabic to customs and into his phone. He tells us to be patient.

14:10 We don't know if the plane has left. Haytem has disappeared again. Nobody tells us anything. We wait, there is nothing else we can do. If the plane leaves without us I will have to call home that I won't come and they will be scared too.

14:25 The Lufthansa station manager appears. He is on the phone to someone and tells us that the plane is still there, but it will not wait longer than 20 minutes after scheduled departure. And no, they won't have to unload the bagage as we havechecked in as a group.

14:35 We get thumbs up... The station manager tells us that somebody has given the green light for us to leave.

He explains that if your name is on a certain list, the terminal will go yellow when the guy types your name. And then there is endless checking and phoning, and we are lucky someone has given a green light.

14:40 I am the last one to get my passport stamped. We run to the Xray machine. Franz is still there, he has a radio in his hand luggage. My 2 laptops get through without problems. We run to gate 7. The door of the plane closes behind us.

14:45 The plane starts moving, we made it out....

We still don't know what happened. There was no explanation, and no apoligies. The secret service has had our names month ahead of the expedition.They have followed our steps metaculously during our stay. They have reported our every move during our operation. So why this 'monkey theatre'? I think Lybia is just not there yet, and despite all friendly speeches about peace and friendship ("you are always welcome here") I won't come back until the country is civilized. In other words, to me Lybia still sucks...

Tuesday 28, 8:30. We just broke the 100.000 qso barrier. Yuki is on 20 meters SSB for JA and Andy,DJ7IK is working some US stations on 80 SSB.

The crew will start dismantling most of the antennas today, and we will go on running with 3 stations until tomorrow morning. Weather has gone worse. We had to close down the station temporarily because of thunderstorms last night. And the next days are supposed to be rainy, just in time for the antenna work outside.

Meanwhile I will be checking the contest log and uploading the rest of the 100k qso's to the online log. Yesterday's batch (some 36.000 q's) did not make in into the online log, so we try again this morning.

 After switching back to the free dxpedition version of Win-test I am back into the routine of restarting programs on the various computers. This version of Win-test is crap. I don't understand how the authors of the program could release it in this state. (I will report on our experience with Win-test separately).

I hope we will get our passports back which were taken away from us when we got into the country....

Well, it is done, finito!! We more than reached our goals in the contest, being 40 Million points. We have 17000 qso's in the contest log and a raw score of 46 Million!!! We will have to wait a bit to find out if it is enough for a first place in the M/M category.

It is rather quiet in the main shack. Most of the crew are on a trip to Tripolis. Yuki is running Japanese stations on 20 SSB like a machine gun.Andy, DL9USA is on 17 CW and Ruth IT9ESZ and Adriano, ON5GA are heating up 40m SSB.
The going qso rate is over 400.

We still need some 9500 qso's until we reach the 100k qso goal for the expedition, and it looks like we are going to make it.

Back to log checking...

It is sunday, November 26 and we have 16 hours to go in the contest. The network is running stable, and with the exception of restarting a logging program here and there everything works as planned. What a relief! After the

The pile-ups on 15 are incredible. We are working simplex but the pile-up is 1 kHz wide. It is impossible to grab more than a few letters from a callsign. And once you have it complete you have to give the report 3 times since the station will not hear you are giving it. This slows the rate down to about 100 - 150 per hour.

Oh well, lets call it a luxury problem... 15 will be open until 19:00 Z, lets go again.... CU on 15.....

The 16th was build-up day at 5A7A. Main activity was to set up all the antennas. The weather was excellent and most of the crew started to build the shacks, and the antennas.

The main shack first got a G5RV so we could start operating immediately. The build-up of the 2 spider beams of the main shack was started. They were both on the roof of the building, overlooking the sea.

For shack 3, the four-square for 40m was built on top of the roof of a building near by, and the 80m four square was put up on the beach. Meanwhile another crew had started to put up the HF9V vertical, 5-band spider beam, and the 3-band monster spider for 40-30-20 at shack 2.

Rudi, DK7PE built a Titanex V160E and some receive loops (penants) for the separate 160m shack.

The activities on 6m, 2m and 70cm (EME and MS) were housed in the 160m shack.

For shack 3, the four-square for 40m was built on top of the roof of a building near by, and the 80m four square was put up on the beach. Meanwhile another crew had started to put up the HF9V vertical, 5-band spider beam, and the 3-band monster spider for 40-30-20 at shack 2.

Rudi, DK7PE built a Titanex V160E and some receive loops (penants) for the separate 160m shack.

The activities on 6m, 2m and 70cm (EME and MS) were housed in the 160m shack.

The software/networking team consisting of myself, Pirmin HB9BTE, Manfred, DK1BT and Mitch, VE6OH started to build the WiFi network between the shacks and intalling software, drivers and interfaces on the laptops the participants had brought.

Networking@5A7A and the real meaning of "brick walls....''

Mitch had brought 3 linksys units which could be switched to several configurations. The planning had been to have only 3 shacks, so the network layout had to be redone. First we tried to have an access point on the roof of the main building and 2 repeaters at shacks 2 and 3. The access point had a 10dB amplifier at the 13dB gain antenna on the roof.

It took us a day to find out that he max.range of the equipment was at its limit for the 490m between shacks 1 and 2.

But it was impossible to hear the 2.4 GHz signal inside the shacks. We had the same problem at TS7A in 2003, and we think they are using leaded paint on the walls in this part of the world. As soon as we stepped into a room the signal was completely gone.

This meant that we could not connect shack 3 to the network, and it was decided to move the stations from there into the main shack where we have a lot of room.

Meanwhile we experimented with putting a separate wired network into shack 2 and using the linksys units in a bridge configuration. This worked. Luckily Manfred had brought some ethernet hubs so we could connect the stations to it via wire. At this moment, 12 hours before the contest, the network is running fairly stable unless somebody pulls a plug somewhere.

There was no possibility to connect the 160m shack, so they will be isolated during the contest.

I would have liked to show you some photos of the antennas and other equipment here, but the internet connection is so bad that I cannot get the photos into the album from here. Please refer to the 5A7A website for that!!

(...)

I was picked up on the 14th around 5 o' clock PM at a fuel station near the German border, not far from Aachen, by Alexander, DK8FD who would join the expedition 1 week later. We got to Frankfurt airport around 19:30 and started looking for the 5A7A crew. We started at the group checkin, desk 314, but the lady at the desk told us there was only two of us, and that was no group. And moreover no groups were scheduled for checkin that evening. We tried the mobile phone. Andy, DJ7IK's number was either occupied or mailboxed.

Anyway, after half an hour we got through and were directed to counter 532. And indeed, part of the group was happily waiting for things to happen.We met Dave, K3LP, Krasi, K1LZ , and most of the TS7N participants of 2004, including Pirmin, HB9DTE, Franz, DF6QV and Guenter, DL9CB. And about half the equipment, nicely divided across about 20 bagage carts.It was a big hello, and everybody was glad to see the others. It was a bit like coming home.

Checkin was at counter 314. The whole process was rather slow, but all overweight kilograms disappeared into the bagage system. Lufthansa had even provided a special pallet for the oversize packages like antennas etc.
We were also able to check in, and there was an invitation letter from Lybia and a list of passport numbers. Mine was not on it. I had been forced to buy a new passport because the old one would have had its validity date exceeded by more than 6 month. Oh well, at least I had a boarding ticket...

We went to Alex's home, had some beers and I went to sleep on the couch. Alex promised to keep the owner of the house, a siberian tomcat, quiet. Like so many snow-white cats it is deaf, and makes a terrible noise when necessary.

Early rise

after a short but nice breakfast we made it into the car at 6:30 AM. Dietzenbach is only 30 minutes away from the airport and we had planned to reconvene with the group at 7:00 AM.

Now the whole crew was there.... and we restarted the checkin, shoving another 400 kg overweight into the plane.

The rest was child's play. I had to show our Lybian invitation to the airline rep. and I could even show him my name was on the list of passport numbers. Unbureaucraticly (how do you spell that?) they let me through, just in time to board the plane.
During the quiet flight to Tripolis we had our last beers and champaigne... it took us 2 and a half hours to fly down to our destination. Weather was nice, and we had some stunning views of the alps on the way. We flew over 9H3 and IG9, and soon hit the 5A coast.

Getting in

After boarding we were hoarded to a seperate spot in no-man's land where we had to pay 80 Euros for a visum (well not exactly only for the visum, everything would be included, including the fun social programs during our stay). The passport/visa checking took about 1 and a half hours, with many meetings and deliberation... our baggage arrived from the plane. They took our passports away. Then suddenly we were allowed to move the baggage out through customs. There were no checks and every piece was Xrayed 3 times. After some 2 hours after getting off the plane we were in the arrival hall waiting for a bus and a lorry to take us to the hotel. We also bought some Lybian money, as credit cards are not used in 5A The ride down to the hotel took us through the suburbs of Tripolis to the Janzour village, where we entered the hotel complex through a well guarded gate. We certainly would not have worry about security during our stay.

Getting a room

The hotel had 5 single rooms and 13 double, where we had ordered 5 double rooms and 13 single. Unfortunately it was fully booked, and no more single rooms were available. After 1 and a half our of negotiations everybody had what he/she wanted, and we could happily move into our rooms and start building up 5A7A for the big pileups...

(...)

We are travelling to Frankfurt. Nicoletta is bringing me to the DL/PA0 border, where I will be picked up by Alexander, DK8FD, who has volunteered to rpovide boarding for the night.  I am armed with 2 laptops, a CW keyer paddle, my favourite headphones and UTP cable. Tonite the bagage will be checked in at Franfurt airport (if we make it in time), and tomorrow morning 9:30 we will be flying to Tropolis. In Janzour, a suburb of Tripolis a quiet beach hotel is waiting for an invasion they won't easilly forget:) There will be spiderbeams all over the hotel, a 4-square for 80m, a Titanex vertical for 160... and over 30 crazy people talking about strange things and sitting behind strange equipment... And oh yes, the lights will flicker in a weird rhitm.

 We have ordered an ADSL connection for internet so I hope I can update the blog during my stay. And  of course I have taken the pskmail client with me, just in case.

Wish us luck....

I was invited to deliver a 1-hour presentation about pskmail yesterday at the Dutch Ham Convention. About 100 Hams attended the presentation, and it was good to see that nobody left the premises during the speech. Actually people were standing at the back of the room.

From the quality of the questions asked after the presentation it became clear that most  of the audiance had understood what it is all about, and the reactions  were generally quite positive. We got rid of some 6 Live CD's and we even managed to get some people interested in experimenting with a pskmail server!

One aspect which I had not thought about is that the QRP- and narrow-band nature of pskmail makes it quite useful for countries where digital infrastructure is not as abundant as we take for granted. And where the super-commercial Windows OS is the one which has the widest use in the world we westerners know, this picture may become quite different as soon as the new MIT Linux PC gets its feet on the ground in the rest of the world. You might say that pskmail is the first application software written for a situation where connectivity to the internet is not available for everybody.

We are following the first installation of a pskmail server in South America with interest. If all goes well it will be situated in Quito, Equador. An environment where a lot of hams cannot afford an internet connection in the first place. This will provide us with a reference installation in the developing world which will generate a lot of ideas for making pskmail even more suitable for that kind of environment.

One if these ideas is to extend pskmail with an RTTY FSK mode. That would allow users to use a simple CW TRX for the transmit side, and to use  gMFSK + a simple DC receiver for receive. The RTTY_ARQ protocol specification is ready. Unfortunately there is no suitable Linux software which generates a signal for FSK like MMTTY does for windows; all programs are AFSK based.

Could we get an FSK output on gMFSK?  Who can spend some time on this?

The alternative is to develop a simple  AFSK_to_FSK converter, but the software solution will be less expensive!!