Rent-a-QTH: in Saigon. Hotel room, plus separate radio room. Rig, amp, tribander, and wires for 40-160.
Contact DX Shack 3W Manager, Mr Trinh Hau, 3W6LI (He can speak English)
Email: thoang@tlnet.com.vn, or 3w6li@wwdx.net. Web site at: http://www.qth.com/dxshack/
15 Doing Xoai, Tan Binh Dist, HCM Vietnam. Tel +848-849-6993
Comments from Mirek, VK3DXI. Mirek visited on 05.09.98, and says the Hau, 3W6LI is a fantastic host. The station was set up, and worked great. He made 8500 QSOs in 5 days of operation.
Here is a nice report from Bob, N4CD, who visited the above Rent-a-QTH in October, 2001
Just back from two weeks at the 3W rental place of
JA2EZD in Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) City.......had a fun time. On the air for 10-11 days or so....took a
few off to do sightseeing.
Good news and bad news....the location is in
downtown Saigon.....the noise level is S9 on all bands.........on SSB....nearly
all the time......sometimes only S5 to S7 toward the west/northwest....... very hard to operate much SSB from this
QTH.....(or, according to the locals, within 30 mile radius of HCM city the
noise level is high)........ noise on
CW with the filter in was S4........that is the bad news. I've been told most cities in Far East are
very noisy to operate from......
The other surprise....10M is full of
garbage!......28.4 and up is all FM type CB stuff......from 28.0 to 28.4, pick
any frequency, and it will be wiped out by crud (birdies) for 5 out of every 15
seconds at S9 plus.......makes it hard to get in QSOs.....or pick out
calls.....or run a pile up......stuff fades out in the evening......there as long
as sun is up.....not sure where it comes from, but it is loud, and makes it
hard (and tiring) to operate on 10m.
15m was the bread and gravy band....fantastic openings to EU (8 hour
time difference) between 9pm and midnight local......also a few US then.....
Good news...still made 5000 QSOs, nearly all on
CW.....very hard to work stateside......noise, plus a 20 story building to the
Northeast, maybe 500-700 feet away,
which blocked the path over JA back to the states....Worked about 200 US
stations. Tried, but very very
tough......over Europe or over Alaska, with echo and high ambient noise to get
through......
Nice QTH with lots to do, hundreds of places to
eat, 'touristy' things to do for a few days... this is not the place to win CQWW SSB contest from......(well,
for Vietnam, yes...for the world...no way....).
You pay $20/day to use the radio room, and about
$40 a day for the hotel...so if you don't use the radio everyday (go
sightseeing), you pay only for the hotel room......
You get license for 3 bands...... rarely get
40m......but the locals say you 'can operate whereever you want...gov't doesn't
care'....but still you have license that lists only 10,15,20m frequencies, so
exact status with ARRL DXCC would be questionable (don't ask, don't
tell????)...... As far as I can tell,
NO ONE has gotten a license for WARC or 80m...hi hi......
However, with only triband beam and 40m dipole,
you don't want to fight the noise with other simple antenna.....plus there
would be doubt about whether it would even 'count' officially if they started
checking...listened on 40m, but never heard a cw signal.....band full of
SSB....not speaking english.....(have 7.000 to 7.100 in this part of the world
for hams).....
Hau, 3W6LI,
is excellent host...equipment worked well (SB200 amp and FT900....plus
he has backup rigs). Antenna tribander
up 120-150 feet....you get out well....easily out talk what you can hear due to
the noise level....without the amp......
he took care to make sure things were set up, working.....and that I had
what I needed.....
The rent--a-shack was pretty much as described on
the web site....about 100 people have visited this rent-a-shack (mostly JAs) in
the past few years according to Hau.....
73 Bob N4CD Email TELEGRAPHY@prodigy.net
Helpful Ham: Jack Meier, ES1AKM (3W6KM), has been to the Rent-a-QTH listed above, and is willing to offer help and information about the location. You can contact Jack via Email at: es1akm@erau.ee
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