Camel Trophy

CAMEL TROPHY I was one of the Team members that provided communications for the Camel Trophy Expedition from remote parts of the world, including Sabah Malaysia, Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, Belize, El-Salvador. Twenty teams from around the world compete in a 1'000 Mile drive through Jungle and Desert terrain for the coveted Camel Trophy. Besides the teams there are a fleet of support crews in another twenty vehicles all followed by some 250 or so Press Radio and Television journalists. Run by my good friend Richard G4CVI our Job was to provide the local and global communications for these people - quite a task. Amateur Radio was not forgotten either - we always took a 25 metre portable tower and selection of beam and wire antennas! Over the 5 Years I was involved we operated as G4SMC/8R1, G4SMC/9M6, G4SMC/LU,G4SMC/CE1, V31RD.

JY7SIX

JY7SIX In 1994 I was invited to join the team of JY7SIX a Dxpedition to put Jordan on 6 Metres for the first time by members of the UK Six Metre Group. Over a period of six weeks or so teams of operators flew out to Jordan from the UK. In all we made 1800 QSOs on 6m with about 1200 different callsigns in the log. We worked 49 countries including the USA, all in all a fantastic first for Jordan and 6 metres. Whilst in Jordan I found time to operate on the HF bands under my own call sign of JY8ED

Pictured L-R are Mike G3SED, Paul G4CCZ and Tom DL7AV

9M0C

9M0C I am one of the five founder members of the “5 Star Dxpeditioners group” we formed the group to activate rare countries. By using large antenna arrays and an experienced team. We wanted to make rare DX accessible to even the "little pistols". This was our first expedition and we made over 65000 QSO's in just 12 days from Palau Layang Layang in the Spratly Islands. My main operating responsibility was the 160 and 80 metre LF bands. We gave many people their first ever 160 Metre qso, struggling through S9 plus QRN and noise on the Island.

D68C

D68C For this Dxpedition I was again elected Antenna King with responsibilities for the choice, design and layout of the antenna systems. We took 30 operators and 7 tons of equipment in a 20ft container. The aim was to give everyone the chance to work D68C on all bands from 160 metres to 6 metres – even the little pistols. The Dxpedition was an outstanding success, and set the all time world record for number of qso’s achieved on a Dxpedition - in excess of 168,000!

3B9C

3B9C The Rodrigues Island Dxpedition took place in March 2004. We made more than 153,000 qso's. I was pleased to once again take on the responsibility of “Antenna King” for this Dxpedition. Quite a job when you realise we had 16 stations on air at the same time with Arrays for 6 Metres EME through to 160 Metres.

3B7C

3B7C - I was delighted to be support this Dxpedition to St Brandon Island, in the Indian ocean. The expedition took place in September 2007, and involved almost a year of planning. I joined the team to pack the container and check out all the equipment in several weekends of hard work at my works QTH Nevada in Portsmouth. The operation was a huge success and gave many people their first QSO with 3B7.

The picture to the right shows the 40 ft container being loaded on to the lorry at Nevada in Portsmouth for transport out to 3B7

T32C

T32C - I was delighted yet again to to support this Five Star Dxpedition, both assisting with antenna testing, storage and the loading of the container from our Nevada warehouse in Portsmouth. I also helped out with checking of antennas. Below is the 30 metre 4 square being tested at in my garden before shipping in the container. Sadly it never reached T32 and so went round the world and came back without ever being used!