MALI AFRICA SIX METER DX-PEDITION
TZ6EI
BY W7XU, N0QJM AND W0SD
JUNE 26 THROUGH JULY 5TH 2009 GMT
Mali QSL Card
This was primarily a six meter DX Pedition but it turned out a lot of 20 meter RTTY was operated
as well and some SSB and CW. 546 unique stations were worked on six meters. We were only able
to work 22 North America stations on six meters. Due to the fact that signals were not loud and sometimes would
come and go in seconds all contacts on 6 meters were made on CW. We used 50.117 for
the complete time of the DX-Pedition. On HF over 1000 unique stations were worked on RTTY and several
100 on SSB and a few on CW. We were able to operate RTTY concurrently with six meters. SSB and
CW were only able to be done a few evenings. We found that 20 meters was extremely poor until
about 5 pm local. The band pretty much went away about 8-9 pm local so this limited
the number of stations we could work. Our local time
was the same as GMT.
SIX METER RESULTS:
6M CW 6M RT Total %
EU 514 0 514 94.1
AF 8 0 8 1.5
NA 21 1 22 4.0
AS 2 0 2 0.4
6M CW
4X - 2
9A - 14
9H - 3
CM - 1
CT - 14
CT3 - 1
CU - 1
DL - 54
E7 - 3
EA - 34
EA6 - 7
EA8 - 7
EI - 3
F - 39
G - 49
GD - 1
GI - 1
GM - 5
GW - 5
HA - 13
HB - 5
I - 60
IS - 4
K - 17 (Includes 1 EME)
LA - 5
LZ - 17
OE - 10
OH - 19
OK - 9
OM - 3
ON - 16
OZ - 16
PA - 30
S5 - 15
SM - 13
SP - 19
SV - 4
UR - 13
VE - 4
YO - 2
YU - 8
TOTAL 546
Here are distances of the longest QSOs.
Miles KM
KJ9I WI 5153 8293
N9IW WI 5073 8164
K4MM FL 4847 7800
W3BTX PA 4682 7435
CO8LY 4560 7339
K2MUB 4506 7252
K2ZD 4458 7174
N1BUG 4247 6834 (First Mali terrestial QSO ever from NA that we know of)
K0HA heard us in and out and definitely copied TZ6EI from Nebraska which would be
5594 miles or 9004 KM. NA qso's were 4 or 5 hop and EU were 2-3 hope other than EA8
would be one hop. Based on quite a few six meter dx-peditions 4 and 5 hop qso's are
very difficult.
For those of you who did not work us from NA or other places it should be noted that a lot of
the reason you may not of worked us is just a matter of chance as it seemed we would
often just hear a specific small area so a lot of it was just where your QTH is in
reference to where there was some sporadic E ionizaton. So the bottom line is a good
antenna with a low angle of radiation if very valuable but it seems to be just as
important to not depend on "spots" but be listening as only a small area where you live
may be getting propagation. It also depends where the DX station is and where you are
in the world. Some parts of the world have better propagation than others.
Another big factor is how you luck out on QSB fades. A number of you
faded out, never to come back before we got your report! About the only thing we can both
do is try and be quick and send the RST right away.
One thing you can be assured of is that we beacon all the time so you can be certain
if there is propagation we will be there. We try and move the beam every half hour or so.
Sometimes on this trip is was an hour or more because of access problems to the antenna on the roof.
GRID SQUARE
Our grid square was IK62ap. We were most pleased that nearly
everyone just sent RST and not grid squares. For those few who send grid square you should
note we don't even log it so your sending us a grid square is a complete waste of time.
It should be noted a number of people are not in the log because we could not get the RST report.
Signals would be nice copy when a station called and the next time non-existent, never to come
back. We found the most successful stations who copied our report to them came back and sent
RRR or QSL ur 559 559 (or what ever report) de their call. This way we were able to get the
report before that station faded away to never be heard again. Stations who sent there call first
and then report often did not get in the log as that station faded out before they got to the
RST. We can tell you based on 10 days of operation that time is of the essence!!!!
EQUIPMENT
K3 with pre-amp, ACOM 1000, 28 foot boom yagi, LMR 400. Our antenna was about
35 feet high at the Hotel Mande on the roof. It is located in Bamako, Mali
right along the Niger River. Arliss W7XU was in Mali the first part of May 2009 and secured the
TZ6EI license which includes privleges for six meters. We discovered a slightly noisy 12 vdc switching power
supply about the 3rd day and changed to a different one. The supply was checked
out before we came and was clean. It may be that in the hotel we were only about 15 feet below
the antenna. It was not bad but with weak signals it does not take much. There was some local
noise but given we were right in town it was not that bad and the K3 noise blanker which worked well. One other
problem we found is that some people answered our beacon off frequency so at times we did not
hear them when in beacon mode. We often tried to tune up and down when in beacon mode and that
is how we discovered some people called far enough off they were not heard. We tried to keep
the filter fairly wide in beacon mode. If a station was strong it was not a problem but not many signals were
that strong. It should be noted you might have heard us well for a brief period and then a few
seconds later the propagation would be completely gone so it is easy to get the impression the
other station is not hearing well when in fact it was just the nature of six meters to do this
sometimes and certainly while we were
in Mali.
SIX METER EME
The only station worked on EME was W7GJ
QSL INFORMATION
QSL VIA W7XU. DX QSL cards need $2.00 and a SAE or current IRC's.
USA cards should have an SASE. This was an extremely expensive trip. Arliss W7XU made a trip
in early May 2009 to secure the license. We all of course made the trip for the Dx-Pedition. Our
expenses on site were expensive and air fare to Africa was expensive. To give you and idea how
expensive it was with Six Meter and HF contacts the cost was around $5.00 per QSO! Contributions to defray
expenses can be sent with the QSL card.
ON LINE LOGS
Thanks to Chris DL5NAM online logs for SIX Meters are available at the following link:
UPDATE: July 10, 2009 the HF online logs are also now available
link to To TZ6EI SIX METER ON LINE LOG SEARCGH
MALI DX-PEDITION PICTURES
TZ6EI with Holly N0QJM in mirror
Arliss W7XU
Ed W0SD
TZ6EI six meter beam, note dipole mast to right
TZ6EI dipoles
Rain storm 2 hours nearly every evening, we had to shut down sometimes because of bad lighting
Niger River, we were just on the north side of the river.