Update -- March 12, 2010: Bill and I have now made about 8000 QSOs. We are staying at the Te Mahina (The Moon) guesthouse on the six-mile wide Nukunonu lagoon. Te Mahina is owned by Zak, the general manager of Nukunonu atoll. We occupy one upstairs bedroom facing the lagoon as the ham shack, and use another upstairs room to sleep. There is a large eating area downstairs. Zak's sister Lydia cooks our meals and does our laundry. A DXers paradise!!! The US is straight across the lagoon to the northeast, Europe north, Japan northwest, and South America east. It's a great radio QTH. We have one HF9V on the neighboring property to the east. It is great -- no noise, and away from tin roofs. The other HF9V is on the seawall directly in front of the house -- more manmade noise, and about an S-unit poorer on the higher bands. Our 160 antenna to the left, among the palms about 75 feet from the water -- not an ideal spot and we had to move it once because the palm fronds were banging into it during a windy 2 day period. 160 condx have been very poor and we are trying to figure out what to do to improve our signal. We would like to get it out near the water and away from the palms, but there is lots of wave action in the lagoon and the villagers use the beach for their boats. We have made only 15 QSOs on 160!!! We are getting out well on the other bands, especially on the east HF9V. We have been able to work into Europe on 12/15 meters -- eastern EU at our sunset, western EU at our sunrise. I have made about 450 RTTY QSOs -- all on 17 meters. I find RTTY very frustrating as can call CQ on RTTY for 15 minutes or more on an open band with no replies. Everyone seems to be waiting for a spot!! Doesn't anyone tune their radios to the RTTY freqs any more?? If I'm not spotted on CW, look for me on RTTY. We expect to be here until March 25, but the boat schedule always changes!!! 73,
Bob ZK3YA
Update -- March 4, 2010: Boat sails Friday morning for Tokelau. No 5W0YA activity today...gear packed and at the wharf. Finally will get a good night sleep! We have 22,400 Qs in the log. See you from ZK3 -- Sunday or Monday.
73,
Bob
Update sent February 28th (following earthquake in Chile):
It’s been a busy morning here in Samoa! We got a knock on the door at 2 a.m. from Nigel, our owner, saying there was a tsunami heading across the Pacific toward Samoa because of a huge earthquake in Chile. They were predicting the wave to come at 9 a.m., and we should be prepared to evacuate to higher ground around 6 a.m. I had been on the radio all evening and was just preparing to go to sleep when the knock came. So we stayed up and tried without much success to listen to shortwave broadcast station reports. Well Nigel came back at 3:30 a.m. and said he was evacuating the guests in two shifts in his car and we should be prepared to leave with the second shift at 4. He said that during the last evacuations -– for the Samoa earthquake last September and a quake in Vanuatu a few months ago, roads leading up into the hills got very clogged. Well just before 4 the tsunami sirens starting going off all over town. This is not a drill!! What to take????? Well, no time to take down antennas, or really pack up stuff, so left with computer, passport, money, and camera – leaving radio gear to the mercy of the water. As we drove the several miles up to a crossroads with a little store and cemetery (hmm… did Nigel know something?) we passed lines of people walking to the hills. We parked near the store, which had opened and was doing a landslide of business. There was a nearly full moon and lots of people just camped out along the road and in the cemetery. Well, not much to do now but wait for 5 hours, so Bill and I just wandered around the area until dawn. When we came back to the car, Nigel suggested we go up further up the hill to a hotel that probably would serve breakfast. So off we go, again in 2 shifts, up to this very nice hotel – tennis courts, swimming pool, outdoor eating veranda, etc. We got there by 6:30. They were just setting up for their 7 a.m. breakfast buffet. Thus we passed the time until almost 9 drinking coffee, eating the buffet, and getting better acquainted with our 5 fellow guests from our cottages. About 9:30 Nigel decides the tsunami must have come and heads back with instructions for us to take a taxi, which we do about 15 minutes later. When we come into Apia town, the place is deserted and the harbor is empty as all ships have put to sea. We arrive at the cottages to find Nigel has not yet arrived and the gate is locked. Hmm… does he know something now that we don’t? Bill and I decide to go over to the water side of the road… may as well have a ringside seat if it’s going to sweep us away. Well, soon the cottage caretaker arrives and opens the gate for us. He does not know if the “all clear” has been given. Bill and I decide to walk back to the harbor. I want to get a picture of it without the ships. We head the half mile to the harbor seawall in town. Ironically, we pass two Samoans who ask us whether it’s ok to venture out. At the seawall there is a Samoan man who is studying the water. As we stand watching, the water starts receding, maybe 50 to 100 feet (probably a foot vertical), exposing some of the reef. And then some larger waves come in, the water comes back and rises probably two feet. A minute later it is back at the original level. The time is 10:40 a.m. Ten minutes later, the Samoan gets an “all clear” message on his cell phone. And that was our tsunami experience. It’s now 12:45 pm. Shops in town still have not opened but the Princess Tui Inn internet is up and running and so we can communicate our well-being. I’m heading back to the cottage to get some sleep. Just another day in paradise. 73, Bob 5W0YA
Update from W7YAQ -- February 17th: Hi Gang, We are 8500 QSOs into our DXpedition. This morning we packed our gear so that it could be loaded onto the "ship" (a loose term!) for Thursday night's voyage to Tokelau. When we got to the Tokelau office in Apia we were told that the voyage was canceled due to a developing tropical depression between Apia and Tokelau, 500 miles to the north. So we hauled the equipment back to the cottage where we are staying. This was the second cancellation for us. The first was also weather related -- Cyclone Rene which caused high seas in Tokelau, slammed into American Samoa to the east, and then Tonga to the south. This is clearly cyclone season in this part of the South Pacific although on our previous 3 trips this time of year we haven't encountered them. Well the good news is that rather than being in transit during the ARRL DX contest, we will be on the air from Samoa. We will be using Bill's call 5W0OU. We will probably put up one of our 3 antennas tonight just to be on the air, and put the others back up tomorrow. We are somewhat space limited and we are hoping to negotiate with a neighbor to use some of their property so that we have more than 40 feet of spacing between the verticals. There is one tall palm in the corner of the property that we also might be able to use. The surprise for us this trip is emergence of 12 meters!! Between us we have over 1000 QSOs on that band, including some sunset openings into eastern Europe and sunrise to North America. Conversely the low bands have been a bit disappointing, although 80 was hot this morning into North America. Randy had a FB signal after 1500 UTC, and then band opened into Europe with lots of OH, SM, LA, DL, OM, OK, etc in the log. 40 was also good at our sunrise to western Europe. I have only made about 70 QSOs on 160, about half to the US. After the DX contest we will dust off the Microphone. I have made about 450 RTTY QSOs and will continue to be active on that mode. We will look for you guys in the log!! 73, Bob W7YAQ / 5W0YA
5W0/ZK3 Expedition:
CODXC member W7YAQ will be operating (along w/ N7OU) from 5W and ZK3. They will be active on all HF bands, mainly on CW with some SSB and RTTY. Callsigns TBD. Look for them on this schedule (dates subject to change depending on transportation to ZK3): Feb10-Feb15 Samoa (5W) Feb17-Mar10 Tokelau (ZK3) Mar11-Mar15 Samoa (5W) | 
