FG - Guadeloupe

 

Rent-a-QTH on Guadeloupe. Small cottage with one bedroom, radio room, kitchen. Two towers, antennas for 6-160, rig and amplifier.

DX Shack FG Manager:
MR. Georges Santtalikan
FG5BG (He can speaks French,English,Spanish)
44 Rue Amedee Fengarol Brest F-97130 Capesterre Belle Eau F.W.I
TEL:590-86-4071,
FAX:590-86-3820
Email: Georges. FG5BG@wanadoo.fr , Web site: http://www.qth.com/dxshack/

 

Bob, N4CD writes in November, 2001 about the FG DX Shack:   Excellent location for contest or a few days operating.  Living conditions 'basic'.  Off the beaten path - car required for more than just a contest weekend.  Good antennas/rigs.  Very low noise!......worked 11,000 in 2 weeks.....fun!.....

Below is an article that was printed in World Radio.  Author, Bob, N4CD has given permission to post on this website.

Bob and Sue’s perfectly (nice/awful) trip to Guadeloupe

 

N4CD decided to go traveling and play DX again.  I get the urge to go to some more ‘needed’ location that Texas occasionally.  There is a rental shack set up by Hiroo JA2EZD and managed by Georges, FG5BG., in Guadeloupe, in the French West Indies.   The station is set up in a small 16 by 16-foot building, with a separate ‘bedroom area’ and kitchen area.  The facilities are ‘basic’ . I reserved a two-week period around Thanksgiving way back in the summer time when airfares were real cheap. Just seven hours of flying time from Dallas, it’s very different.  Temperature:  Highs in 80s.  Lows in 70s.  Year ‘round.  (Ice storm occurred in Dallas while I was there - grin). 

 

After Sept 11, the airlines started canceling flights.  Three days before my departure, I checked with American, and they realized they had cancelled the flights and service I was scheduled to be on.  They couldn’t get me there the same way.  In fact, I had to leave the day before, spend a night in Miami at extra cost, and then go on the next day.  There is now only one A.A. flight a day to Guadeloupe.  I finally arrived at PTP airport, and FG5BG’s son met me.  I rented a car since the DXshack is off the beaten path.  We headed over in a 2 car convoy to Capesterre to FG5BG’s house.  After a quick visit, and loading up the equipment for the shack, Georges and I  zipped over to the Dxshack QTH.  We turned off the main road onto a tiny one lane paved road for a mile, then onto a bumpy pot-holed gravel lane for 1000 feet to get to the DX shack.  Finally, the big antennas came into view!

 

The DX shack is 200 feet from the Caribbean, and has a 30m tower with A4S tribander, and 20m crank up tower with Force 12 C4XL and 2 el 40m beam.  There are 2 80m inverted Vees, a 160 sloper, and a 5 el 6m beam pointed at the US.   The rig is a TS-930 or TS450.   Usually there are high power amps, but the last contest group managed to destroy the Alpha amp, the Yaesu FL2000Z, and Ameritron amps in one contest.  I brought new 572B tubes to get the Yaesu amp running again. 

 

The first glitch appeared – no power when we entered the DXshack.  “Not to worry”, said Georges as he went off to find and fix the problem.  Two hours later, after repairing a bad splice,  we had 220v AC power.  Equipment was set up, and FG/N4CD went on the air.

 

Licensing here is easy!  Guadeloupe is a ‘department’ of France, and thus you get to use CEPT reciprocal licensing.  Bring along your original of the license, plus the 3 pages of CEPT document (off ARRL web site) and that is all you need if you have a U.S. license! No money.  No delays.    No waiting for officials to sign things. 

 

Money?  Another headache.  Remember YK2000 problems?   Guadeloupe was in the middle of a “Euro conversion”.  The banks couldn’t exchange dollars for Francs, the local currency – for a 6 day period.  Every system was ‘down’ while they did a Euro conversion test.  I tried first at the airport.  No luck.  Then off to the main bank in town next day.  No luck!  Well, great, but how are visitors supposed to survive for five days without local money until they figure out how to simply exchange dollars for Francs at the world advertised rate???  Fortunately, the supermarket took credit cards, so I didn’t starve!.  A few days later, Georges, FG5BG,  helped me out with some local money(French Francs).  They don’t take dollars outside the main tourist hotels/restaurants, and they were 20 miles away! 

 

Wow!…what a DX contest site.  Zero noise!  Loud signals from EU and NA.  Most of the few neighbors don’t have electricity, so they can’t even generate QRN!   Since I was by myself until my friend Sue arrived in 6 days, it was time to spend lots of time on the radio…..until the power went out again the next day, and Georges was required again to fix the power line.  I made 500-800 contacts a day – 10,12,15,17, 20 30,and 40m.   FG wasn’t supposed to be ‘rare’.  Despite that, the logs were filling up with contacts, and there were big pileups on every band.  There is only one cw op on the islands, and most of the contesters who visit use only a microphone.  Typically, they don’t spend much time on the WARC bands since they come for a few days before/after the contest.   

 

The amenities at the DX shack are spartan.  A refrigerator and microwave, outdoor gas stove, outdoor sink.  Toilet is flush, sort of.  The web page doesn’t say anything about a shower….shower??  Well, there is no ‘running’ water here.  A tank supplies water for the toilet.   55-gallon drums contain water for washing and your ‘shower’, which is a 2 gallon bucket you dump over your head.  The water gets pumped up from the stream when Georges starts up his little gas pump to fill the tanks!  Sort of like camping.  Maybe running water will be there in a year or two? 

 

The local supermarket is a few miles away.  You can get your Cokes, potato chips,  some pre-cooked food, and all sorts of other items.   I use the microwave, I had all I needed.  Oh, the pizza restaurant is 1 mile away when the craving hits.  This is a “French” island. 

 

Sue arrived six days later.  I had a feeling she wasn’t going to be overjoyed by the amenities.  Sue is good friend from way back- but not ‘ham friendly’.  To her, ham radio does nothing but get in the way of my doing other things with her!  The deal we had was half the time on the radio/ half the time doing things with Sue.  She would have preferred 0% radio instead. 

 

I picked her up at the airport (she had the same mandatory overnight stop on the way down).  She arrived tired.   When she got to the DX shack, her reaction was, ‘WHAT! No hot shower?”.  Even worse – “What!  No shower at all?”  And you had to wash with ‘creek water!!!”.   That did not score points with Sue.  The beds were ‘very firm’(hard!).   The place has ‘flow through’ ventilation.  You open all the doors and windows during the day.  At night, you close all the doors and windows to keep out most of the mosquitoes.  Only two windows have screens, sort of..  Sue had her mosquito net in place right away.  One contest group, when asked at what hotel they were staying, said “the Guadeloupe Hilton” as a joke.  (ala Hanoi Hilton).  It’s fine for a couple day contest, or if you are comfortable with ‘campground’ type living. 

 

It was off exploring and sightseeing the next day, to Cousteau’s off shore Pigeon Island conservation area.  Excellent diving and snorkeling here with millions of fish.  The water is maintained at warm constant temperature by heat escaping from the volcano.  Glass bottom boats glide a few feet above the reef.   The same day we went up the twisting, winding road to the dormant (but still sputtering) volcano, which last erupted in 1975.  Later, to the Capital of the country, BasseTerre.  (MacDonald’s there). 

 

On the way home, we stocked up on food at the store.   No turkey here for Thanksgiving- not their holiday.  I substituted chicken.   The beach is an easy 10 minute walk from the DXshack.

 

Soon it was time for the  CQ WW CW contest.  I’m an ‘accidental’ contester.  I didn’t reserve these two weeks because there was a contest.  It just happened to be in the time I was there.  So I felt obligated to make a few contacts (2400) in the contest part time.  The Kenwood radio had a nice 250 Hz wide filter.  On 20m, that didn’t make a difference.  I came up on 20m 20 hours into the contest.  I made a half dozen contacts before every ‘multiplier’ station worldwide found me, and decided they had to work me at the same time.  With the 30 dB attenuator on, with the r.f. gain at near zero, the S meter still sat at 60 over, with maybe 500 people calling, 10 ‘tuning’ their multi-KW amps, 20 calling and never listening….After 20 seconds, I finally got a call out of the mess, but that station couldn’t hear me because of 20 other stations calling and calling.  After 2 minutes of trying to work people, with no success, I went back to 10 and 15 and 40m.  I wonder how long that pile lasted?    Activity?  Wow..the first empty spot on 10m was 28201 cw!…..and that’s where I sat.  I never called anyone.  You could find me on 10 thru 80m in the ‘test’.  I called CQ and worked whoever wanted to work me.  No need for a dupe sheet that way.  I used a paper log – and realized that my CW speed was limited by how fast I could write callsigns down.   Hmmm…time for a computer for logging.   My calculations show that to work 11,000 stations, I sent about the better part of a million dots and dashes in 2 weeks, by paddle/electronic keyer. 

 

At home, my contesting is the other way around.  I call every station going up the band.  No one ever calls my little signal when I call CQ or wants to work Texas for a ‘rare’ multiplier

 

Georges has chickens outside at the DXshack.  The sun comes up at 5:30am.  The rooster goes up in the tree to better see the beginnings of daylight at 5 am(first photons).  The rooster is loud.  Sue doesn’t like 5 am wake up calls.  Her reaction:  “Where is that machete?  I’m going to kill that darn  rooster!”  We could have had fresh meat, but Sue never did really try to catch that rooster.  For me, the bands are great early in the morning, so I get up early, operate, and eat later.    Late to bed, early to rise, gets N4CD lots of operating time.  Outside are banana trees, star fruit trees, and coconut palms.  Breakfast awaits every morning right outside the door – that, and a microwave cooked egg, and bowl of cereal.   The excellent beach is a few minute walk, and there is a shower (not hot) at the beach.  Everyday we spend time at the beach. 

 

On Sunday,  it is off to the far east end of Guadeloupe, where the Atlantic and Caribbean come together,  Spectacular surf!   Ah, no contesting Sunday.  The rental car was  a little Citroen manual 5 speed – an overgrown roller skate.  Gas is $4/gallon.  Ouch!  The natives speak French and Creole.  Most of the visitors to this island  are from Europe(France).  Nightlife?  Not at the DX shack.   No TV. 

 

The first two nights Sue was there were unusually warm.  Sue didn’t sleep well on the ‘very firm/hard’ bed, worrying about mosquitoes.  Then came Saturday, and the friendly Rastas across the street decided to have one of their twice a year celebrations.  They brought in generators, lights, and the ‘celebration’ started at 12 noon with very loud music (in French and Creole?) from a live band.  Not bad to listen to during the day.  Free entertainment.  However, it went all night until 5 am.  No break.  Continuous – hour after hour.  Sue didn’t sleep.  Heck, where else could you get live entertainment on Saturday night for free?  Probably the best band on the island for Reggae and Carib island music!   A good excuse to get on the radio a few times during the night – I wasn’t sleeping either.  

 

Sue headed back to Chicago after a week to catch up on sleep.  The bugs bit her legs a hundred times  since she stayed outside in the evenings and didn’t put on ‘bug spray’ which was available at the DXshack.  She didn’t think the accommodations were especially “YL friendly”.  In fact, her idea of the vacation was “perfectly awful!”    Sue is not the ‘camping kind’.   She just doesn’t appreciate zero ambient r.f. noise and a rare country prefix and being the only FG in an entire contest.  Or being able to make over 10,000 QSOs in two weeks. 

 

Bob had a great time.  12,200 plus contacts in the log.  A good appearance in the contest.  Lots of activity on WARC bands and CW.  Getting called by SU, 3A, HB0, 3W, 9H, 5R, FK, VK9s and other nice DX is a rush.  I worked over 100 countries without trying, and I’m sure W.A.S.  Six meters opened several days and over 200 stations were worked quickly in 20 countries.  (IC706 on 6m)  Almost all cw operation with low power.  The 2 el 40m beam was great.  80m was tough with tropical storms churning up QRN.  I tried 160m but the antenna system seemed to be tuned for 1.995 KHz, and I didn’t have a tuner to get it down to 1.800.  

 

Interestingly, the Kenwood had a narrow 250 Hz filter, and the TS-930 has CW Variable Bandpass Tuning also.  If you remember my past comments about contesting with a IC706 with so-so 500 Hz filter, this is about as different as you can get.  You can really narrow things down.  I ran split most of time, listening 1.0 to 2.5 up.  If I was listening on 1.6KHz up, if  you weren’t within 100 Hz, you just weren’t there.  You could be 60 over and 0.4Khz away, and I wouldn’t hear you at all.  That lets the lower power stations have a decent shot in the pileup, plus there are only a few stations calling in that bandpass, not 50 like in a 500 Hz bandpass. 

 

The folks who joined the pile of 100 calling exactly 1.0 KHz up probably had a long wait.  I was working everything else from 1.1 to 2.5 KHz up first, then only going back to up 1.0 to try and pull calls from the mess.  When no one was within the bandpass, I opened in up a bit.  I’ve always wanted a ‘narrow’ receiver in a DX location.  The only minor problem is sometimes you tuned around , and only heard part of a call.  Occasionally when it got slow, you had to tune a lot, since someone calling 0.3 KHz away just wasn’t there unless you moved the dial to zero him in.  If I had a choice, I’d have both 250 Hz and 500 Hz filters in my DX radio (like an FT-1000 or newer rigs).    Great rig and ran it QSK.   The beam worked OK on 12m, and so-so on 17m.  The 80m dipole worked very well on 30m. 

 

WD3P/QRP worked me with 100 milliwatts on 20 meters.  He is my ‘receiver tester’.  When I hear him out county hunting, he is 339.    His goal is to work all US counties QRP, and he is far along doing that.  Sometimes he uses under 100 milliwatts to call stations.  – I think that is this is  the known QRP record for stations that have worked me from here.  I’ve gotten cards from dozens of stations worldwide using dipoles, or running QRP, and my feeling was that if you could radiate a few watts, I could have heard and worked you.  You know you have reached the bottom of the pile when you start working QRP stations with indoor dipoles! 

 

Before you know it, it was time for N4CD to head home, to the inevitable stack of QSL cards that would start and continue to arrive for the next ten years!  Arriving home, I had a couple hundred SASEs/QSL cards waiting.  I hadn’t even ordered my QSL cards yet.  Then, two days later, 600 cards from the DX bureau for the TI2 trip arrived.  I’m buried under paperwork!

 

Bob had a perfectly nice trip to Guadeloupe.   Great radio, nice sightseeing, swimming, beaches.  Didn’t get lost too often in the car.  N4CDspent lots of time on the radio, and did things with Sue while she was visiting.  I enjoyed the bananas, great radio, nice warm weather, and even found an AM broadcast station to get news. No newspapers or TV for 2 weeks. 

 

Sue says “let’s try a nice hotel next time!”  She didn’t appreciate the good points of the DX shack!     N4CD is ready to try more Dxing from wherever there is a great radio location and radio already there! 

 

De N4CD

 

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