Don’t stop believin’!
Sorry folks but this is yet another YI9PSE post. But, unless I work them before they leave Iraq, this will be the last YI9PSE post. Honest.
I’m writing this blog entry in response to a number of discussion threads I’m seeing, DX cluster comments, and my own experiences around the YI9PSE DXpedition, still active from Iraq and scheduled to be on the bands from Kurdistan in the north of the country until the 12th of April.
I think many people are surprised by how difficult it’s proving to be getting a QSO with YI9PSE. Their website may have led many (me included) to assume that they’d be loud on many bands to most parts of the amateur radio world (the website says that they have ‘amplifiers’ and ‘gain antennas’). This isn’t the case (based on my own experience and that of many others). It seems that they have been subjected to circumstances in Iraq they weren’t expecting and poor band conditions (partly due to the recent solar storm we’ve all been subjected to). This has led to widespread frustration with many bemoaning the lack of those anticipated big signals from YI9PSE.
Now I believe that this frustration is in part also due to the fact that we’ve been spoilt by some of the recent high profile DXpeditions, VP6DX and K5M spring to mind, where they had good signals to many parts of the world. I for one worked both of those with the bit of wet string I call an antenna. The thing is though, I never gave up, even when it seemed that my efforts might be ultimately fruitless.
I called for hours trying to get my VP6DX contact and I almost gave up entirely before I jumped back in and had another go one morning. They were then soon in the log. K5M took a lot of effort too but after listening in on several consecutive nights I eventually got them on 30m when their signal seemed to be peaking into the UK. The thing to remember is that it’s not meant to be easy and it will likely more often than not be just that, not easy. But, as the song by Journey goes, “Keep on believin’…” because only by being there, believing that you will get lucky, can you hope to get what at times is a very hard earned QSO.