The 9J2LA Story – Zambia 2020

Team 9J2LA is happy to announce the release of its DX-Pedition video on YouTube today.

We want to thank our club and individual sponsors as well as our supporters in Zambia for their generous support throughout every stage of this adventure. Further, we want to thank the Palm Zone Road Lodge Team for their great hospitality once again. Everyone involved made our life so much easier with their ongoing support. It is always great to have the DX community behind you!

9J2LA was active between 05.03. – 15.03.2020. The station was located in Chisamba, about 1h north of the capital Lusaka (Grid: KH44CX). The international team from Norway, Austria, Germany, and Sweden consisted out of Rune Egil Øye – LA7THA (Team Leader), Svein Bergstøl – LA3BO, Christian Quale – LA8OM, Svein Jarle Moe – LA9KKA, Morten Kvernmoen – LB8DC, Christian Wolfbauer – OE5CWO, Philipp Gröger – OE7PGI, Philipp Springer – DK6SP and Carl Jonsson – SM6CPY.

They worked 35.000 QSOs on the HF Bands and SSB + CW via QO-100 geostationary satellite.

All these QSOs have been verified by our QSL manager Charles (M0OXO) with his outstanding OQRS service. It is our pleasure having him on the team!

The team is already planning for their next trip and will keep you updated on their upcoming plans closer to the activity.

Enjoy watching their activity from Zambia, Africa.

Hope to see you down the log during our next DX adventure!

On behalf of team 9J2LA,
Rune Egil Øye – LA7THA

UPDATE: 9J2LA QSL status

Upate regarding #QSL status by our #QSL manager Charles #M0OXO:

“After a substantial delay due to customs and the global pandemic, 9J2LA QSL Cards have just arrived from #UX5UO print shop in the Ukraine.

Cards will be mailed early next week commencing the 8th June 2020. I would also like to remind you that as in line with the team policy, a full #LOTW upload will take place on the 18th of June, so please, no more emails.

My apologies for any inconvenience caused.”

#DXPedition #hamradio #hamr #Zambia2020

9J2LA QSL Cards – Info by M0OXO

Charles M0OXO says:

“Just a quick message to say that I am still waiting for the 9J2LA Cards to arrive from UX5UO QSL Print in the Ukraine. Normally they would have been here before now and mailed out but as yet nothing received. It is reported that there is a 7-10 delay in Customs due to Covid-19 issues but even then I would have expected them by now. I can only assume there are more restrictions on the route between the Ukraine & the UK for the same reasons and this is why they still haven’t arrived. Labels and envelopes are all ready here, I just need the cards to arrive and they will be mailed within 48 hours of receipt. Can i ask you to please stop emailing me asking about the position of the cards and LOTW. I would have thought under the current situation we have Worldwide that people would know and appreciate the reason for any delays but clearly not. As soon as they arrive I will post a message on the usual sites and keep you informed of the progress. My apologies for this unusual (but probably necessary) delay.”

As stated earlier on our social media channels, the upload of 9J2LA log to LOTW will be done by the 18th June 2020.

9J2LA QRV on QO-100 satellite

Monday was the first day on QO-100 satellite for us. Until now we have worked a total of 379 stations in SSB and CW.
We use a 30cm dish and about 12W from a newly developed Smart Radio Concepts transverter unit just outside of our shortwave CW shack. We try to be qrv each evening from around 1900 UTC at around 10489900.

Hope to catch you on the bands from Zambia.

73 de 9J2LA

 

9J2LA hits 20k QSOs

We just hit the 20k QSO mark at 9J2LA.
Feel free to check your QSOs in our livelog at https://clublog.org/livestream/9j2la

As there is still a big demand on SSB QSOs we will try to focus on this mode tomorrow (12.03.).

Hope to catch you later in the pileups!

73 de 9J2LA Team

Updates on 9J2LA DXPedition

Hey DX-Community,

due to a still bad internet connection we are focussing to update you on social media and not on our homepage.
There will be press releases and a big summary asap after the DXPedition available.

Meanwhile we keep you updated on a daily basis here:

www.facebook.com/9j2la
www.twtter.com/9j2la

73 de 9J2LA team

9J2LA Press Release #5 – 10.03.2020

Today we are qrv for 5,5 days from Zambia. As we announced an increased lowband activity for our DXPedition we will have 4 more nights on 160m / 80m available. The last night will be from Saturday to Sunday. We already achieved 1700 QSOs on 80m as well as 800 QSOs on 160m. The only things we are still struggling on are static crashes and big QRN which makes it difficult to work the tremendous pileups during the nightshifts.
We tried a lot to increase our RX situation though. We erected a LIRA, a beverage 1m above ground, a BOG and lastly a K9AY array. Unfortunately, the antennas are just to close to the property, and we get a lot of man-made noise except from the K9AY loop. It seems like the best RX is still on the vertical itself.

Another achievement is the availability of a station on the QO-100 geostationary satellite providing over 300 QSOs on SSB and CW until now. We will be QRV there each evening to hand out this DXCC there as well.
Until now we achieved a good amount of over 16.000 QSOs from 160m through 13cm.

As our DXPedition focusses on the lowbands we try to not miss any openings there. Our goal is to be listening on JA at their sunrise as well as on NA on our sunrise. In between there is a focus on EU.

Overall the QTH in Chisamba is okay and we deal with friendly people and an awesome host who allows us to put up any antenna we like on the property. Foods and beverages are good as well and we enjoy staying here. Though we are still facing power shedding each day at around 1500z so we have to start our purchased generator until +/- 2100z when the power is finally coming back.

Anyways, we experienced a lot of patience on all bands – please keep up with this awesome spirit!

Also a huge thanks to our donors. We try to keep the list on the website updated on a regular basis.

73 de Rune, LA7THA
9J2LA team leader

 

P.S.: At last something we had to deal with yesterday. We lost the LIRA RX antenna due to a cyclist who passed luckily 4 supporting poles but rode straight into the last one. Though, the antenna is already up again 😊

New Club donation received!

A big thank you to Western Washington DX Club (WWDXC) for their generous donation.
We really appreciate that they will support us in our work to activate Zambia.
We hope more clubs and individuals will follow their good example.

9J2LA Press Release #4 – 04.03.2020

Good morning DX-community,

today we start our journey to 9J, Zambia. Many of the team members are already in Oslo and we will gathering @Gardermoen airport for the final “re-packing party” early afternoon. I feel confident with the team, equipment, the lodge, bus transportation as well as a 5 KW backup generator is prepared at the QTH. Zambia is still experiencing power shedding so let us hope this will not be too much of a headache for the team. My only concern is the custom process @KKIA in Lusaka. We have done what we where told to do regarding custom clearing down there. Customs at the airport are aware that we are coming 😊. A refundable deposit of $6000 is payed to a custom clearance agency so by theory all should be “swift”, let’s see how that will work out 😊. Furthermore we will have limited access to internet for a couple of days until we have a proper 4G network ready. Due to that fact further updates on our website are limited. A huge thank you for all the support from individuals, clubs etc. Wish us all good luck and hopefully we “see you” in the pileups soon.

 

73 de Rune LA7THA
9J2LA teamleader

New Club donation received!

A big thank you to NorthEast Wisconsin DX Association (NEWDXA) for their generous donation.
We really appreciate that they will support us in our work to activate Zambia.
We hope more clubs and individuals will follow their good example.