W4DXP
FLORIDA DXPEDITION GROUP (FDXPG)

"St. Lucia 1999 CQWW SSB Contest"



J6J

Our Contest Callsign for the 1999 CQWW SSB Contest

 

We stayed at the DX SHACK near the Capital of Castries! Please check out the web site for the DX Shack, info about the St. Lucia location and other great DXpedition locations. URL for the DX Shack is:

http://www.qth.com/dxshack/

Additional photos and information on the J6J effort for the 1999 CQWW SSB contest can be found at the following URL provided by William Beyer N2WB:

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hall/1204/photo.html

The Operators for this year's trip were as follows:

Bill Gallier W4WX/J68WX

Clarence J. Kerous W9AAZ/J68AZ

William Beyer Jr. N2WB/J68WB

The "J6J" Story - 1999 CQWW SSB Contest from St. Lucia
by Clarence J. Kerous W9AAZ

The morning of October 25, 1999 began at 3:00 AM for 3 members of the Florida DXpedtion Group (FDXPG). The reason Bill W4WX, Clarence W9AAZ, and William N2WB were up at this ungodly hour was to load my pickup truck with radio gear and luggage, and then drive to the Jacksonville, Florida International Airport to catch a 6:00 AM flight to Atlanta, Ga., then to Montego Bay, Jamaica, and then the third and final leg to St. Lucia in the Caribbean. It was time for the clubs yearly bash in the CQWW SSB contest !.

We arrived at Jax International at 4:40 AM and unloaded our 6 check in bags which contained our clothes, and most importantly, rigs, an amplifier, coax, etc. Additionally, we each had a carry on bag with 2 laptop computers, and another HF rig. We Found 2 red caps and asked them to help us with our mountain of luggage, they said they did not come on duty until 5:00 AM . So after giving my XYL Sue, who drove us to the airport, a hug and a kiss, we lugged all our bags to the Delta check in counter while the red caps watched !. It was not yet 5:00 AM and the ticket counter was not open yet, so we stood in line with a crowd of people and waited. Finally we got checked in, had our carry on bags x-rayed, and walked to the Delta concourse to await departure. Once on board the fully booked Boeing 767 flight to Atlanta we all dozed off until we touched down at Hartselle Intl in Atlanta. We found where our next connecting flight was. It was an Air Jamaica flight which as usual was at a concourse way on the other side of the airport !. We boarded a people mover train and were quickly at the right concourse. After we boarded the Air Jamaica A-320 Airbus we relaxed as we took off towards Montego Bay, Jamaica, the flight path was almost due south and took us right over Cuba. We all enjoyed a very good Champagne breakfast while enroute. At 10:05 AM we landed right on time at Sangster Intl in Montego Bay. We had little time to check out the duty free shops as our connecting flight to St. Lucia was starting to board at the other end of the airport. This time we boarded a Air Jamaica A-321 Airbus, and as we departed I got a couple of nice pictures of Montego Bay. We must admit Air Jamaica really goes the extra mile for customer satisfaction. This time we all enjoyed a superb hot Champagne lunch !. It sure beats the bag of pretzels you get on some airlines. After a very enjoyable flight the Captain announced we were on the final approach to Hewannora Intl airport in St. Lucia. I took a look out the plane window and got my first look at St. Lucia, the entire island was emerald green in color. I got a couple of great pictures of the famous twin peaks of St. Lucia, Gros Piton, and Petit Piton as we approached the Island from the southwest. We landed right on time at 3:40 PM. As the flight attendant opened the door of the plane we could smell the warm moist tropical air of St. Lucia for the first time.

 

We gathered up all our luggage from the carousel and proceeded to Customs. We were concerned about getting all our radio gear and computers thru Customs without any kind of problems. As luck would have it, our seats on the plane were right behind First Class, so we were one of the first in the Customs line. The Customs Officer was confused as to what to do upon seeing all of the gear we had. By now almost all of the 188 passengers had disembarked, and there was a huge crowd of people behind us. Seeing this the Custom Officer quickly stamped our immigration visa’s and said to us, “ Have a nice vacation in St. Lucia “. We grabbed our bags and got out of there pronto !. After we cleared Customs we were met by our congenial host Mr. Bernard Thomas, J69B. The three of us had rented his villa for a week to ham it up and to do the CQWW SSB contest.

We went to the Avis desk and rented a small Nissan mini van and loaded all our gear in it, and still had to put some in the trunk of Bernards car. We had landed at Hewanorra Intl Airport in the City of Vieux Fort on the south end of the island, and Bernards villa was on the north end near the capital city of Castries, located in an area called Morne Fortune. Bernard said to follow him, and Bill W4WX said he would do the driving. This turned out to be a real adventure in itself. In St. Lucia they drive on the left side of the road, and all the vehicles have the steering wheel on the right side !. This takes a little getting used to, and on top of that there are no posted speed limits, and everyone drives with their horn. After a couple of false starts Bill W4WX got his sea legs so to speak, and kind of got the hang of driving. But it was not without incident, he got off the road and into the volcanic rock on the shoulder a few times. Once he almost went into a deep ditch, and the rocks were flying as he manuevered back onto the tarmac. A Nascar driver he is not !. It goes without saying that William or I did not take any naps on the 35 mile trip which took just over an hour. St. Lucia is a volcanic island and is very mountainous. The roads twist and turn, and have numerous hairpin turns and switch backs. No limited access superhighways here !. Finally about dark we arrived safely at Bernards Villa in Morne Fortune. We lugged all our bags inside and checked out our home for the next week. It was fabulous to say the least. We each had our own bedroom, and the villa has a very nice kitchen complete with a refrigerator and a gas stove. We had a nice dining and living room area, as well as a full bath with tub and shower. The best part was the balcony outside. It overlooks the city of Castries and the natural deepwater harbor. We were on a steep hillside about 800 feet above the city and the view was just breathtaking. Also the antennas had a clear takeoff to the entire world.

Bernard, our host, saw to our every need, including 2 gallons of rum cooling in the frige !. We quickly tossed our personal belongings in our bedrooms and got down to the business at hand, which was ham radio of course. We set up a Kenwood TS-850 to a Wilson System 3 tribander with a 40 meter add on kit. Bill W4WX, who was now J68WX took first blood and made the first contacts for us from J6. He was followed shortly by William N2WB, now J68WB, and last but not least your scribe, Clarence W9AAZ, now J68AZ. It was childs play to get a nice pileup going, all you had to do was call “QRZed this is J68AZ St. Lucia in the Leeward Islands”.

We soon had guests, it was Mike K3LP, Ernest J69AZ, and several others. They were going to do a multi multi effort for the CQWW, and we here going to do a multi single effort. As things go when hams get together we ending up having a real bull session, and our host Bernard J69B joined us. The Rum was broken out and a good time was had by all. I especially liked Ernest J69AZ, his call is almost like mine, except he has a J69 prefix because he is a local resident. J68 calls are granted to visitors to the island. Finally around midnite our guests left and the three of us hit the rack having been up since 3:00 AM. St. Lucia is in the Atlantic Standard time zone, the time stays the same year round. Dawn comes very early, first light was at 5:15 AM . I was up first and put on a pot of St. Lucian coffee. The aroma soon got Bill and William stirring. We enjoyed our coffee while looking at a beautiful sunrise out on the balcony, this is living guys !. There was not a cloud in the sky, however this would not be the case all day. By afternoon it would cloud up and start to rain, it would then stop before sunset, and then rain again after dark. It did this like clockwork for the entire week we were on the island.

On this our first morning, we had no groceries, so a trip into Castries was in order. After the drive from the airport the evening before, Bill J68WX, graciously passed and let William J68WB do the driving chores. From the villa it is a very steep drive down into the city of Castries. Once in the city, traffic was terrible, bumper to bumper, horns honking everywhere !. Our first stop was at the Ministry of Telecommunications to see Mr. Perry Mason and get our ham tickets. He had given us verbal permission to operate on our first night. After driving in the left lane up and down numerous streets we found Bridge street and then the Telecommunications Ministry. We found a parking place 6 blocks from it and walked to Mr. Perry Mason’s second floor office. As we left after concluding our business, lo and behold, we spotted a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant across the street. Since we had not eaten since the day before we decided to have an early lunch at KFC. I ordered the 2 piece chicken meal with biscuit, fries, and a drink. It came to $10.40. This was in EC or East Caribbean dollars, or about $3.92 USD. I gave the very nice lady a US 20 dollar bill, and she said that by law she could only give me change back in EC. I said this was OK, and she gave me back almost $43.00 in East Caribbean dollars. The exchange rate is fixed at US one dollar equals $2.65 in EC dollars. The chicken was delicious and as good as any I have ever had at any KFC. After our meal we found a grocery store and stocked up on eats, prices were very reasonable. We also laid in a goodly supply of the nectar of the gods, BEER !. I got 12 bottles of Piton Malta, they do not come in 6 or 12 packs or cases, I got 12 bottles loose in a paper bag. We found that most things are not prepackaged, but are sold loose in whatever amount you need. We saw a hardware store and bought a small charcoal grill to cook steaks and burgers on that we had brought with us. Again the grill was sold put together with no box or packaging, we just carred it out under our arm. Most things in the hardware store were sold loose in bins, no bubble wrapped or prepackaged items.

We proceeded back to the villa at Morne Fortune, to get serious about getting two stations set up for the CQWW and general hamming. First things first, we needed some transformers to drop St. Lucias 220 volts down to 110 volts to use with our rigs, and computers etc. Bernard just smiled and said “ No Problem Mon “ he said he had a transformer but needed a little help carrying it. Soon he and Bill came back carrying the “ Mother of all Transformers “. It weighed over 100 pounds. We plugged it into the 220 volt wall outlet and plugged a long Heathkit plug strip into the 110 volt output side, and had no power problems for the entire week. The transformer never even got warm. Station one , the running station consisted of a Kenwood TS-850 lashed to a Ten-Tec Centaur amplifier. Station two, the multiplier station was a Yaesu FT-840 and a venerable Alpha 374 amplifier. We used two laptop computers both running CT version 9.37. Bill J68WX created a bin file for J68WX, J68WB, and J68AZ on each laptop. This way we could log all our contacts before and after the CQWW, using the DXpedition mode. During the contest we used CT in the regular mode and linked the two computers together with a null modem cable. The antennas at the villa consisted of a Wilson System 3 three element tribander with 40 meter add on kit, and a Mosley TA-33 tribander. There are wire antennas for 80 and 17 meters. We brought down an Alpha Delta 160-80-40 meter sloper, and as we unrolled the sloper, William J68WB put on a climbing belt and and hoisted the center of the sloper up to the top of Bernards tower and secured it. At this time it started to rain, and I mean really pouring !. Oh well, by now we were all soaked, so we just kept working. Bernard, Bill and I tied off the two sloping ends. We used the factory generic settings, and at a height of over 800 feet above sea level the SWR was just great on all 3 bands. We now had really decent antennas for all bands, Lookout world!.

After we dried off and changed clothes, I sat down at the TS-850 running station and put out a short CQ on 15 meters, signing “This is J68AZ in the West Indies calling”. When the rig went back into receive it was like a floodgate had been opened !. It sounded like the entire world was calling all at once, WOW !! what a pileup !. William quickly fired up the multiplier station on 20 and got himself into an awesome pileup. It got so bad we had to start working split to keep things sorted out !. Man- O-Man, this was really living. working DX is one thing, but being DX on the receiving end of a huge pileup is another. We worked the world that afternoon, including hundreds of European stations, a 4S7, and Pai, VU2PAI who was 20 over S-9 !. Our being so close to the equator did wonders for propagation. Later on towards evening the bands opened to the west. William and I both had just SUPER JA pileups. Finally I shut down to cook supper and then Bill J68WX pulled out his secret DX weapon, a KAM plus TNC. He hooked it up to the rig and laptop and called CQ de J68WX on RTTY. I listened to the resulting pileup, it was just huge, it sounded like thousands of RTTY stations were calling him all at once. It just can’t get any better than this !. After Steaks cooked on the grill and fresh baked french bread graciously supplied by our host Bernard, it was back to the pileups once again. We stayed up late that evening putting many, many stations in our logs on SSB, CW, and RTTY. Finally about 11:30 PM we pulled the plugs and all hit the sack.

I was up the next morning at 5:30 AM and put the coffee on and started breakfast. I think the only reason the guys let me come on these trips is because I can cook a good breakfast!. The aroma of the coffee and bacon got the other 2 guys up, and we again enjoyed a wonderful breakfast while enjoying the sun come up over Castries, It was as always, simply beautiful !. After our enjoyable meal we shaved and cleaned up and once again headed down into Castries to shop for peace offering for our XYL’s. We again parked downtown and walked the countless open air shops and bazaars. We bought the usual T-Shirts, some jewelery and perfume to insure our staying in good graces with our wives !. We found a nice little Pub and all enjoyed a cold Piton beer or two. We then headed back thru the murderous traffic and up to the villa. I won’t say we got lost, but we were a bit confused for a while, as there are no road signs at all. Happily we found our way back to the villa. After a leisurely lunch it was again back to the seemingly endless pileups on SSB, RTTY, and CW. How sweet it is !.

Bernard has a very wonderful lady friend, her name is Janelle. She is as pretty as a picture and is a 5th grade school teacher. Boy, my 5th grade teacher never looked this good !. She was kind enough to make us two big pots of homemade pumpkin soup, which is a St. Lucian delicacy. It was absolutely delicious, we ate every last drop of it. Janelle was also kind enough to stop by every day while Bernard was at work to see if we needed anything. She got us the charcoal we used with our grill. it is locally made, and comes in bulk, she put it in a plastic garbage bag. We used paper to light it as there was no charcoal starter to be found on the island.

On Thursday before the contest, Bill J68WX was working a roaring RTTY pileup, so William and I decided to drive around and do some sight seeing just like regular tourists. We headed north out of Castries past Point Seraphine and Rodney Bay Marina. We saw a sign that said Pigeon Island Park, so we turned onto the road. We came out by a beautiful and almost totally deserted beach !. Pigeon Island was about a half mile out in the ocean. The water was without a doubt the clearest we had ever seen. It was a deep blue in color. We walked on the beach and it was fabulous, the water was as warm as the air temperature. It was about 85 degrees. We picked up some fantastic coral and sea shells as souvenirs. St. Lucia is such a wonderful place !.

After we returned to the Villa evening was approaching. Bernard came home and told us not to bother to cook supper. He was taking the 3 of us out to a wine tasting festival. He said we would have to wear long pants, no shorts and T-Shirts allowed. We quickly dressed and all piled into his car. We ended up at the Royal St. Lucian Hotel on the beach at Rodney Bay. This place is as exclusive as it gets !. Bernard is an executive with St. Lucia Distillers Limited and this wine tasting affair was partially put on by his company. We tasted and drank some of the fanciest and most expensive wines from all over the world. There was also a fabulous buffet being served. Boy did we ever pig out on some great eats, including Caviar. It was all being served by chefs in white starched uniforms and tall white chefs hats.

Finally Friday rolled around and the CQWW would start at 8:00 PM local time. We spent the day checking out all the equipment, and then checking it again to be sure we would have no problems during the contest. We all sacked out for some nap time. With only 3 of us it was going to be a long 48 hours indeed !. As the time drew near for the contest to start we reviewed the schedule that Bill had drawn up. It was 3 hours on and 3 hours off, 3 hours on, then 6 hours off. This would be repeated thruout the entire week- end. William would start the contest as the running station on 20 meters, and I would man the multiplier station.

As the final seconds ticked by we were all a bit tense. At last the clock rolled over to 00:00 Zulu, and the reason for our trip had begun. It was the start of the 1999 CQWW SSB contest !. William staked out a reasonably clear spot and started calling “CQ contest from J6J, Japan Six Japan”. This was the contest call that Mr. Perry Mason of the Ministry of Telecommunications was kind enough to issue to us for use during the CQWW. William’s CQ was rewarded with an immediate and large pileup. I was on 15 meters looking for multipliers, the band was unbelievable, DX was in abundance from all over the world. In short order I logged lots of great mults, BY, JT, S79, 9V, 9M8, DU etc. It was like a DXers wildest dream come true !. My first 3 hour shift was over in what seemed like minutes. I than had 3 hours off and tried to take a nap, but I was just to keyed up. Soon it was my turn on the running station. I stayed on 20 meters until the rate started to go down. Then I QSYed down to 40 meters. I found a clear ? spot around 7.080, and listened around 7.220 and started working lots of DX and stateside stations by working split, and simplex. After a while things started to slow down so I again QSYed, this time to 75 meters. My God the band was just full of absolute rock crushing signals. I finally found a spot were the QRM was bearable and set up shop, calling “CQ contest from Japan Six Japan”. Wow, was I ever busy logging DX and US stations. Everyone had huge signals. Soon my shift was over and Bill relieved me. This time I hit the bed and fell right asleep. I awoke just 5 minutes before my next shift, and it was now the dead of the night. I went to 160 meters, Ouch, the static crashes were sometimes running 20 over 9. I worked stations in the Caribbean and South America with ease, I also worked a few US stations, but never heard any Europeans at all. To say the least this was very disappointing, so I QSYed back to 80 meters. I had the devils own time trying to find a spot to operate, the band was full of the Big multi multi QSO machines who cranked out contacts endlessly. Finally I found an opening in the QRM and started to pound out the contacts. Soon William mercifully relieved me. I now had 6 hours off, so I first cooked breakfast for the guys, and subbed for them while they wolfed down some grub. I then hit the bed for almost 5 hours of much needed rest.

When I awoke it was again time to man the run station. By now 10 and 15 meters were both wide open. I got on 15 meters and it was almost total chaos. The Europeans were louder the the Stateside stations. I worked and logged them as fast as I could. After a while the QRM got so bad I QSYed to 21.160 to escape the overpowering signals up higher in the band. I got an immediate run of Europeans going, and then, even outside the US phone band, I started to work US stations !. I would work them and say “Your 59-08, check your dial”. On Saturday evening I was again on 15 meters and all of a sudden I experienced the most unbelievable opening to Japan I have ever heard. It sounded like thousands of JA stations were calling J6J !. The nice part of it was when I would go back to a particular station, all the others in the multitude would actually stand by and let me work him. Now thats discipline !. I turned the pileup over to William, and Bill manned the multiplier station and I took a short nap. Soon I was up and at it again, and my 3 hours shift on the multiplier station went by quickly.

After my shift Sunday morning on the multiplier station I again rustled up breakfast for the boys. I then had 5 wonderful hours off to rest, and rest I did. By the time it was again my turn to operate it was Sunday afternoon with the end of the contest in site. I was once again on the multiplier stations tuning for mults. Even after over 40 hours the band was jammed with signals, and some were really juicy multipliers. I found and worked VU, FK, and lots of other Pacific DX stations. We split the last 3 hours of the contest up into one hour shifts for each of us. I had the honor of the last hour of the CQWW on the running station on 20 meters. Good Grief it was wide open to say the least !. Stations from all over the world were put in the log, including lots of JA’s, another 4S7, and one of the last I worked was an HS in Thailand. At 23:59:59 the clock on CT rolled over and it was all over. I signed by saying “Thats all Folks J6J QRT”. I still had stations calling even though the contest was now over. Bill immediately backed up the logs on disk for both computers, and then we were going to make supper. Bernard came down and said he had a Victory Dinner prepared for us. We stuffed ourselves on shrimp creole, octopus, beans, the ever present french bread, and there were plenty of libations from Bernards extremely well stocked bar !. We then went back to the villa with plans of getting a good nights sleep, however we had company again. It was Ernest J69AZ, and Mike K3LP/J6. We once again got into the rum and swapped contest war stories till God only knows when.

 

As usual I awoke early, it was 6:00 AM and Bernard came down to say goodbye as he had to go to work. He gave us each a bottle of his best Bounty Rum, shook our hands and left. It was now Monday morning and we had a flight to catch at 2:30 PM. We broke down the stations, and the last QSO I made from St. Lucia was with Andy KD4FAZ back home in Orange Park, Fla. We then packed and waiting for the driver Bernard was sending to haul all our luggage to the airport. As usual Bernard thought of everything !. The station wagon and our driver Danny showed up and we loaded all our gear and headed south to Hewannora Intl airport 35 miles away. Along the way Danny gave us a grand tour, we stopped at a banana plantation and took pictures, and we also got some great shots of the seashore, and several small islands.

We soon arrived at the airport and unloaded our luggage and said goodbye to Danny. We checked in and paid the $54.00 EC or $20.00 US departure tax, and once again boarded an Air Jamaica A-321 Airbus. The flight to Montego Bay was uneventful except for the excellent Champage Lunch !. The flight from Jamaica to Atlanta started out just fine, the Champagne dinner was great, but Murphy had not visited us the entire week, now it was his turn !. As we neared Atlanta the weather turned very bad. Thunderstorms, high winds, and heavy rain. We were put in a holding pattern as were almost 40 other flights. After over an hour of holding we were running low on fuel and were diverted to Nashville, Tenn. to refuel and wait out the bad WX. We had a connecting flight to back home in Jacksonville, Fla. at 10:05 PM. We finally landed in Atlanta at 11:30 PM, and needless to say missed our flight. There was one last red eye flight out to Jacksonville at 1:00 AM. After passing through Customs and having the drug sniffing dogs check us and each and every one of our bags out, we got on the Boeing 767, which holds 300 people. We had 22 passengers total on board !. We landed back home at 2:05 AM in the rain. My wonderful XYL Sue, and Bills wife Lil were there waiting for us. They had been waiting for over 4 hours !. Mr. Murphy had one more trick up his sleeve, one of Bills bags with all his clothes was lost. He finally got it two days later. At 4:00 AM my head finally hit the pillow, 22 hours after we had gotten up in St. Lucia. I had jet lag for two days afterwards.

We all had a wonderfull time in St. Lucia. Mr. Bernard Thomas and Janelle were the most caring and gracious hosts that you could ever imagine. They were absolutely incredible to say the least. They both looked after our every need, and made us feel at home and welcome in St. Lucia. As Bernard always says “No Problem Mon”!!.

The Villa of Bernard Thomas J69B is available for rent to hams. It has a full compliment of antennas for all bands. We left the Alpha Delta sloper as a small gift to Bernard for his world class hospitality . As the travel brochures state the scenery on St. Lucia is............. “Simply Beautiful “!.

For further information on renting the villa please contact Mr. Bill Gallier W4WX, Email him at [email protected] . He will be glad to give you all the particulars. St. Lucia is very easy to get to, it is served by Air Jamacia, and American Airlines. No passport is needed for entry. All you need is your birth certificate and a photo ID if you are a US citizen. You can be assured of having a really great time with Mr. Bernard Thomas as your host !

Written by Clarence J. Kerous W9AAZ, J68AZ 1104 Buggy Whip Trail Middleburg, Florida 32068-3312

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  This Webpage created by Gary L. Young - K4GZ. Any comments, suggestions, or ideas can be sent by email to [email protected]. Last updated 24 August 2005.