C6ASB - February 2005
Eleuthera - NA-001 FL24
Home Station Info QSL Info Links
Sandy C6ASC (KC0RD) and I (Steve – C6ASB (AK0M) ventured forth to the Bahamas from Feb. 13-22, 2005, on another mid-winter respite from the cold Iowa weather. This year, due to the unavailability of the Sand Dollar Villa on the island of Abaco, a new location had to be found. Our criteria were:
- Warm weather
- Quiet; peaceful; lack of tourist traps
- Nice beach
- Comfortable accomodations
- Relatively easy air access
- Relatively inexpensive
- Good flyfishing opportunities
- Ham radio operation feasible
A substantial amount of Internet searching led us to returning to the Bahamas, this time to the island of Eleuthera, specifically to the Island Breeze Cottage near the center of the island. Eleuthera is IOTA NA-001, and the Island Breeze Cottage is located near the settlement of Palmetto Point, in grid square FL-24, and within two miles of the intersection of grids FL-14, FL-15, FL-24 and FL-25. The “rare grid” aspect of this location was not determined until I found accurate maps after our return, or some emphasis would have been placed on 6m operation during our stay.
From a preparation perspective, I had two significant ham-radio issues: what
to take for a transceiver; and what to use for antennas. Unlike our stay on
Abaco, this location had no ham radio or antenna provisions and I would have to
take everything with me. This led to criteria of light weight and size
limitations allowing fit into a 5” diameter telescoping fishing rod case I use,
along with my fishing rods. Airline baggage limitations (and the small planes
we use for the final leg of the journey) caused me to self-impose a length
limit of 48” on the fishing rod case.
My primary rig would be my Yaesu FT-857. I planned to take my FT-817 as a backup (I strongly believe in redundancy) and for portable use while there. That left the antenna issue to be solved…
I spent considerable time evaluating antenna designs, to the point that I even learned how to use EZNEC in doing some modeling. Essentially my choices were to use my trusty Butternut HF6V vertical, or use some kind of homebrew wire horizontal or vertical antenna. I had read a lot about K2KW's experiences with vertical antennas near salt water, and because I wanted to work as much “DX” as possible, I settled on some kind of vertical antenna design. I also desired higher performance on 80m than the Butternut provides (which is pretty good to begin with). So I ultimately ended up with a linear-loaded wire vertical design (more later). For beach and portable use, I settled on a linear- loaded vertical wire doublet.
We flew into the Governors Harbour airport, which is a typical small but very efficient out-island Bahamas airport. Prospective travelers should note that there are three airports on Eleuthera, and it is important from a ground transportation perspective to choose the right one. Because our cottage was physically “remote”, we found it necessary to rent a vehicle for our stay. This worked well for us, as we like to explore anyway, and it also enabled access to the many saltwater flats for fishing.
Our first impressions upon traveling from the airport to the cottage were
“what have we got ourselves into?”! The primary north-south road on the island,
Queens Highway, is in pretty good condition, but as soon as we turned off, road
quality quickly deteriorated into first numerous potholes; then broken pavement;
then potholed gravel roadbeds; then finally a narrow set of dirt tracks through
heavy brush that made me wonder if we were ultimately going to need a machete!
Then suddenly we popped into a clearing with the cottage and the nearby
bungalow (a separate rental unit), populated with numerous palm trees, and on a
ridge about 25ft high directly overlooking an Atlantic Ocean beach! It was very
nice, and we found the cottage very clean, very well equipped, and quite
private and scenic.
Ham-radio-wise, C6ASB made about 250 non-contest QSO's (all CW) over about 7
days, and about 430 QSO's during the ARRL DX CW contest, scoring just over 130K
points. I worked the contest at 5W (QRP) and thought I did quite well for about
8 hours of operation. There were some really good pileups (understatement!) and
runs, mostly on 20 and 15m. When I first ventured into the contest on 20m on
Saturday afternoon, C6A must not have been well-represented on that band, since
after 1 CQ and one or two QSOs, I must have been spotted on the DX spotting
networks. When I stood by for another call, enough stations were simultaneously
calling zero-beat that it sounded like just one steady carrier! What a
reintroduction to pileup management; to say I was overwhelmed is an
understatement! That situation occurred throughout my contest time on both 20
and 15m. Fun, I think!
Most of my non-contest Q's were at 10W, since I wanted to see what results I might expect if I bring my relatively all-inclusive IC-703 next time instead of the FT857, relatively large power supply, and outboard antenna tuner, etc.. In those instances when I couldn't make a QSO at the 10w level, I increased power up to about 75w, and found that most of the time that didn't do the job either. I also called CQ numerous times at both 10w and 75w with about the same results either way. My conclusion is that 10w is probably adequate for this type of casual operation, even at this point in the solar cycle.
I was sure rusty with handling the pileups!
For antennas I used my 32ft telescoping fiberglass Telepole extended about 25ft, bungee-corded to the second floor deck on our cottage, to support a 38ft linear-loaded wire vertical with two elevated (gull-wing style per Force 12 literature) homebrew Butternut-style stub-tuned radials. The linear loading was made using 450-ohm balanced line for the stub, with the main wire element threaded through the center of it. I found that the linear loading was only of value on 80m, and ended up just using the vertical wire portion on 40-20m, and loaded the linear-loading stub (shorted at the base) for 17-10m (my base feed insulator design allows me to jumper the linear- loading in or out, or just feed it itself). I heard a LOT of loud European stations, especially on 40 and 80m and even 160m, but not much luck in working them this trip. Maybe the antenna wasn't working as well as it should have been, as last trip from Abaco I worked lots of 80m DX at 75w on CW with a Butternut vertical.
I operated from the beach using a 20ft South Bend fishing pole to support a
center-fed, linear-loaded vertical wire doublet. The linear loaded elements
were homebrewed using three separated strands of Menards 3-wire rotor cable,
spaced apart 1/2" and taped every 4". The homebrew feedline was two #22 teflon-
insulated stranded/tinned wires also spaced 1/2" and taped every 4" (both the
feedline and the 3-wire antenna were built using N5ESE’s method).
I didn't have
much luck, but that may have been the time of day. I did work a few stations on
17m CW. I think that the linear loading was actually detrimental on bands other
than 20m, so I shortened the loading stub to 4ft from 8ft to get it less than 1/
8-wave on all bands it was used on. After giving some more thought while there
as to how the linear loading works, I think it is only of benefit if the stub
is less than 1/8 wavelength. I have to do some modeling to confirm that, but if
so, it will change my portable antenna designs. Next trip I would probably take
just a simple 18ft vertical wire doublet for the beach.
One significant
weather factor this trip was the strong wind almost every day. I’d estimate
that we usually had 25-35mph winds most of the time. This meant taping the
joints of the 32ft Telepole, and taping the wire antennas to the supporting
poles at about 5ft intervals. Both poles handled the wind just fine with this
precaution.
I used LDG tuners with both antennas... an AT100 Pro at the cottage, and a Z11 on the beach with the FT817. Both worked great... instant band changes and all-band flexibility at the touch of a button. I fed the beach antenna with the homebrew balanced line described above, and fed the cottage antenna with about 30ft of Radio Shack 300-ohm twinlead (got positive reviews on eham.net), routed into the cottage around a window screen. I did “cook” one of my homebrew baluns at the 75w level, I was skeptical of its design anyway, and this proved me right. The 1:1 coax bead balun I had worked just fine as a replacement.
Overall, next trip I'd cut down on the number of different wire antennas I'd take with me; I didn’t mention all the backup configurations I had packed “just in case” my primary designs did not work. I also think I might be better off with a higher-angle antenna than a vertical for operating the ARRL DX contest so close to the US mainland. Maybe a tall dipole or an inverted vee might be a better choice; having both and being able to do an A/B comparison would be an interesting experiment.
Sandy C6ASC didn't get on the air this
trip, instead spending time relaxing, reading and doing needlepoint.
We spent a lot of time doing other activities while there, precluding more time on the air. It’s just hard for me to sit in front of a radio in such nice weather in February, near a beach. There was quite a bit of relaxing and taking walks on the beach, stargazing at night, and cooking up our own meals. We also did quite a bit of exploring. Eleuthera is an interesting island of a lot of different contrasts geographically. The people are very friendly and accommodating. There’s not any real commercialism or nightlife on the island that we saw, so it’s not a good choice if that’s what you’re after.
My other passion is fishing, currently specifically flyfishing. Last year I caught my first bonefish on a fly rod, and what a thrill! This year I was hoping to find some bonefish on my own by wading on the many salt flats on both sides of Eleuthera, relatively easily accessible by vehicle. I also hoped to target some inshore species on the Atlantic coast.
Well, my fishing ambitions were thwarted initially by an injury the first day we were there. I cut my foot on a rock while out walking on the beach. Note, wear protective footwear when walking on the beach! With the open wound, I was very reluctant to get in the water for fear of infection. It did not start healing until Sandy removed (painfully) all the sand from the wound. By the end of the week, the wound was sealed enough that I felt safe entering the water.
Then I had to deal with the wind and cloudy skies. We minimized the wind
problem by fishing on the downwind (west) side of the island, where we also
found very nice beaches for Sandy to enjoy while I fished. However, the cold
fronts minimized the number of fish present on the flats, and those that were
there were hard to see due to the cloudy skies (no sunshine to cast shadows). I
didn’t catch any fish this trip, but it sure was fun anyway out trying on those
three days I was able to!
Snorkeling was a real treat on the reef in front of our cottage. My foot injury prevented me from doing as much of this as I would have liked, but the reef is a great place for snorkeling. I also saw quite a few fish, so next time I should get a little more ambitious about fishing right there on the beach!
Overall, for someone desiring a relatively inexpensive, comfortable, quiet
and relaxing vacation away from the crowds and commercialism, with pleasant
weather, nice (and private) beaches, excellent fishing options, and easy ham
radio operation, Eleuthera is hard to beat!
This is IOTA NA-001, CQ Zone 8, and grid square FL24.
QSL via AK0M.
Station Equipment - C6ASB - February 2005:
Yaesu FT-857 Transceiver
Yaesu FT-817 Transceiver
Samlex PS-23 13.8V power supply
LDG AT-100 Pro AutoTuner
LDG Z-11 AutoTuner
38ft vertical wire doublet with 25ft of linear loading
19ft vertical wire doublet with 15ft of linear loading
32ft Telepole
20ft South Bend SD-20 telescoping fishing pole
Radio Shack light duty 300 ohm twinlead
K1EL K10SMT keyer (packaged in an Altoids tin!)
Bencher Paddles
Palm Paddles
Heil BM-10 Headset/Microphone
HP 200LX palmtop computer with serial keying cable for portable logging
IBM ThinkPad 600e laptop for logging
Writelog & CT8 logging software
AK0M
Steve Sutterer
1928 Continental Drive
Cedar Falls, IA 50613
USA
SASE requested with direct QSLs.
Direct QSLs are usually answered within a few days after receipt.
All C6ASB logs are also available on LOTW.
Bureau cards are accepted, but get processed as time permits and usually only about once a year.
73, Steve - AK0M, C6ASB