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| Roger G3SXW and Nigel G3TXF operated as P29SX and P29XF from Loloata Island (OC-240), near Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea from 8 to 14 October 2004. 13,740 QSOs (no dups) were made during the 100% CW operation.
Loloata Island is 9.5°S and 147.2°E Grid Loc : QI30 .... P29SX QSL via G3SXW .... P29XF QSL via G3TXF The QSO breakdown across the eight bands is shown in the table below. P29SX made 6,570 QSOs on the five traditional HF bands (80m, 40m, 20m, 15m, 10m) and P29XF made 7,170 QSOs on the three WARC bands (30m, 17m, 12m). |
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Roger G3SXW collects his brand new P29SX licence from the Pangtel office on our arrival in Port Moresby.
Pangtel, the PNG telecom regulator, were very efficient in arranging for the P29SX and P29XF licences. Roger G3SXW had telephoned Pangtel only a few weeks before we were due to depart, the formal licence applications were then FAXed and the callsigns P29SX and P29XF were discussed and agreed over the phone. Thanks to Pangtel's help, we were able to collect the two new licences (P29SX and P29XF) immediately upon our arrival in Port Moresby (from London, via Singapore) and before we set off on the short journey over to Loloata Island. |
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| Rooms 15 and 16 on Loloata Island are just ideal for low power HF DX-peditioners - the sea water is on three sides and there's a spit of sand that provides an ideal location for an HF vertical antenna. | P29XF's WARC Band vertical was precisely where any good HF vertical antenna should always be - up to its knees in salt water! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Sunrise [20z] on Loloata Island, with the WARC Band vertical in the sea. The PNG mainland is several miles away from the island.
Operating from Loloata was mainly through the hours of darkness with the bands opening a couple of hours before sunset and closing a few hours after sunrise. |
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| Roger P29SX used an HF6 vertical covering 80m, 40m, 20m, 15m and 10m mounted on a spit of sand which was about 60ft from the 'shack'. There was plenty of space to run out radials for each of the five bands.
Both P29SX and P29XF used TS570DG tranceivers and operated from adjacent shacks. The operators met up at meal times as well as at odd times during the night (out on the varanda in front the shacks) both to have a short rest from the manic pile-ups and to discuss the vagaries of HF propagation from the tropics! |
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| Nigel P29XF operated on the three WARC bands only, changing from 30m to 17m and to 12m as the propagation allowed.
Unfortunately the 12m openings into Western Europe were scant. However both 17m and 30m provided excellent volumes of QSOs with good openings to most parts of the world. |
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According to the IOTA Directory, this was only the third amateur radio operation ever from Loloata.
Previous operations were P29VHX (DJ9HX) in 1999 and P29VCR/P29VPY (KQ1F/K1XM) in 2000. Loloata provides an ideal location for DX-pedition style operations. The Loloata website is www.loloata.com Our trip was booked through Scuba Jim of www.scuba-safaris.com in the UK. |
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| The crossing from Loloata back to the mainland took about 20 minutes in a fast boat. The sandspit on which the antennas were installed juts right out into the sea away from Loloata.
There is a clear sea take-off to Europe on both short and long-path, to JA and to the USA on short-path. Loloata itself is to the southwest of the antennas and hence provides a slight blockage only in the direction of Southern Africa as well as part of the USA on the long-path. Loloata Island is indeed a magnificent amateur radio location! |
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