AND1 DX-EXPEDITION TO ANDOYA

AND1 19. – 28.10 2007. (69N02 15E31)
PARTICIPANTS: JA-Jan Alvestad, GF-Geir Fredheim, TBV-Tore B. Vik, OF-Ole Forr
EQUIPMENTS: SDR-IQ’s, ICOM R-75’s, AOR-7030’s and ETON E1’s. EXTRA HARD DISK’S, MP3 AND MD PLAYERS.
ANTENNAS: WEST: 300 METER, NORTH WEST: 250 METER, NORTH: 400 METER.

This year we were testing out a new QTH up in the north of Norway. During the spring/summer 2007 Jan was doing a great job to find a suitable QTH. And we ended up with Marmelkroken on Andoya island. I start from home 1.00 a.m on the 19th and after traveling with bus, plane and car we arrived at the new QTH just after 12.15 p.m. (UTC) Most the equipments was all ready at the location so we started to set up the antennas immediately. The terrain is mostly farm fields, but it’s very wet at the islands so we had to cross some dikes and a small river. All antennas ended up close to the Norwegian Sea. When we turn on the radios we notice many strong stations from Alaska and Northern Canada.

What did we expect to hear? The prime goal for the expedition was “The America’s”. The QTH have mountains to the East. So, Asia is almost absent. (That means no interference to North American stations during daytime!) It’s possible to put up an antenna to the north east witch hopefully can give better signals from Hawaii and maybe also other Pacific stations. The solar weather was not at our side during the expedition. But we did have some very good propagation to Brasil, Argentina, Paraguay most evenings. On the 22nd we had a very good opening to Northern LA during SR. On the 24th we had a great opening for hours to Ontario and New England states of USA. We also had a couple of good West Coast openings.

We all have hours and hours of recordings to go trough and it will take months to finish the complete logs. Here’s a couple of examples of what we heard from NA: CKAT, ON 600, CKNX, ON 920, WERC, AL 960, KUSW , WA 1250, KAPL, OR 1300, WNBH, MA 1340 WNER, NY 1410.

Many thanks to JA, GF and TBV for 10 very nice days. A special thanks to our Chef Geir for some delicious dinners! You impressed us!