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Nov 56 min read

9L5A - Sierra Leone


9L5A Update (08 Dec)


Saturday, December 7th at 17:00, 9L5A officially QRT with more than 110,000 QSOs in the log. We had to stop a little earlier than planned because the rising tide would have been problematic to dismantle the last antennas on the rocks, not to mention that it’s dark at 6:30pm in Sierra Leone. We now have to clean and pack everything in order to fill our 30 checked bags and 15 cabin bags, the weight of which is of course limited. For log corrections, use exclusively the email address mentioned on our website (LOG section) to the exclusion of any other recipient.



9L5A Update (07 Dec)


Before reaching the milestone of 100,000 QSOs yesterday, we took some time to offer some school supplies to the Bureh school. These children are so touching that several of us left with moist eyes. We then toured the village meeting the people, we were  very warm welcomed. When we came back, there were more police officers than operators at our hotel checking our equipment and especially our license. Even if the situation was impressive (and a little tense) at the beginning everything ended in a good atmosphere with a drink of friendship and mutual respect.



9L5A Update (06 Dec)


After 8 days of activity 9L5A has crossed the symbolic milestone of 100,000 QSOs, more than half of which are CW and SSB. We will start dismantling the antennas tomorrow (Saturday December 7), our last day of traffic. We will stop by the end of the afternoon to finish dismantling and spend the evening repacking everything, and Sunday morning we will go to the airport.



9L5A Update (05 Dec)



Our team in Mayotte is made up of 12 operators :

  • F2DX Patrick (Leader, CW operator, Video producer, Webmaster)

  • HB9GWJ Olivier (Leader, SSB operator, Satellite Manager)

  • F1ULQ Jean-Luc (Co-leader, SSB operator, IT Manager)

  • F1DHX Thierry (RTTY/SSB operator)

  • F4AZF Damien (SSB operator)

  • F4FET Guillaume (SSB operator)

  • F4HAU Diego (SSB operator)

  • F4HHL Johan (SSB operator)

  • F4HRG Gildas (RTTY/SSB operator)

  • F5AGB Bruno (CW operator)

  • F5NTZ Xavier (CW operator)

  • F8AAN David (CW operator)

  • F8EFU Philippe (CW operator)

  • F8GGV Misho (CW operator)

  • ON7RN Eric (CW operator)



9L5A Update (04 Dec)


As there are many complaints about our log from live streaming (« DATA » vs. « FT8 » mode among others), it looks necessary to remind that we regularly update manually our log by overwriting the one coming from the live streaming. Some QSOs do not appear live but will be there after the next manual update which is now daily. So no need to send a multitude of messages that we don’t have time to process while we’re on an expedition.



Apart from that, the days follow one another with more than 10,000 QSOs per day with an almost perfect balance between CW, SSB and FT8. It looks so surprising compared to other expeditions that some criticize us for doing too much CW and SSB; this is a shame! We had announced for a long time that we would prioritize “human” modes, otherwise we would not have planned 15 operators. It would for sure be much easier to leave 6 stations running in FT8 and enjoy long nights of sleep, the beach and 31° water, we would already have exceeded 100,000 QSOs. But this is not the vision we have of radio in general and especially an expedition. Given the size of the pileups, there is obviously (and fortunately) a large majority who must think like us.



9L5A Update (01 Dec)


As our hotel does not have internet and we only use the 4G network, we preferred to be cautious before announcing that we wanted to use Live Streaming because it was necessary to do some testing first.


We had a problem at first because FT8 was not present. Since, it worked quite well even if we are not immune to outages due to the instability of the 4G connection.


On the other hand, you may have noticed that FT8 QSOs appeared under « DATA ». This is a problem coming from the Club Log interface as on our side they are recorded in FT8. As Live Streaming also feeds our online log, it is not surprising that you will find « FT8 » QSOs (those  we have uploaded manually) but also QSOs in « DATA » mode (those coming from Live Streaming). Don’t worry, however, we regularly upload the entire log, overwriting the previous one, and everything then backs to normal.


Our Live Streaming is available on https://clublog.org/livestream/9L5A



9L5A Update (29 Nov)


Traffic started last night. The last antennas were finally installed today. Our QTH is ideally open to Europe, North America and South America with a direct way over the sea. For the antennas location however, we had to take into account the tide which rises every evening very high leaving almost nothing left of the beach. Our stations are powered by 2 cables of 4 mm² from a 10.5 kVA diesel generator that we have installed. Several photos of the installation have been added to our website.



9L5A Update (28 Nov)


We arrived at 8:15 PM yesterday evening in Freetown after a stopover in Guinea which was not planned until two days earlier. Because of this change it was too late to cross by ferry and save precious kilometers and we had to do what we call the big trip. If we add a clutch failure on our bus which took an hour to repair in the middle of the countryside, we finally arrived at our hotel at 04:00 AM where we were nevertheless welcomed with a good meal. The night was short (between 2 and 3 hours) and the antennas installation continued today until the night. Even if not all of them are installed yet we start traffic this evening. Enjoy the photos of the trip on our site.



9L5A Update (27 Nov)


It’s D-Day! Our team spends a last night near Charles-de-Gaulle airport (Paris) for a takeoff tomorrow at 10:15 a.m. towards Brussels. We will then take another flight to Freetown with a stopover in Monrovia (Liberia). The arrival in Sierra Leone is scheduled at 8:15 p.m. where it will still take at least 3 hours of driving to reach our QTH.



9L5A Update (22 Nov)


For each of our six 9L5A stations, we have created a sheet with a global view of the propagation forecasts for all continents and all bands. Europe will be very easy to contact. The objective is also to favor other continents when the forecast is suitable. Please follow the operators’ instructions when they ask for « NA only », « SA only », « OC only », « JA only » etc. because our goal is to satisfy as many people as possible and not just Europe. In VK/ZL for example 9L is ranked #24, and #36 in Japan.



9L5A Update (20 Nov)


To benefit from a fast LoTW confirmation it has become more and more common to have to pay or, otherwise, to wait 6 months (or even more). F6KOP does not support this practice. 9L5A log will be on LoTW as soon as we return from the expedition (subject to a short delay for the usual corrections). LoTW will therefore be free and immediate for everyone.



However if you want to help us, everyone is free to make a donation (without any obligation). Donors via Clublog of an amount equal or greater than $7 will automatically benefit of free OQRS request for their direct QSL. You can also help us via PayPal without asking for the QSL and you will thus appear on the list of donors on our website.



9L5A Update (18 Nov)



We will work SPLIT only! Please pay attention to the SPLIT MODE on your transceiver before calling, and listen also to the operators instructions.


CW : up 1-5

SSB : up 5-15

RTTY : up 3-10


FT8 : MSHV program (2 to 6 slots) will be used for FT8 on the announced frequencies. As DXpedition (fox) we will not use F/H mode. All hunters can call us in normal mode (with locator or report) and stay on their frequency even for answering. Please do not call us on our transmission frequencies! The QSO will be logged on our side once we send RR73 or 73.


NOTE: Our band plan has been established taking into account that of 3D2Y (Rotuma) whose DXpedition is at the same time.



9L5A


Ops: F1DHX, F1ULQ, F2DX, F4AZF, F4FET, F4HAU, F4HHL, F4HRG, F5AGB, F5NTZ, F8AAN, F8EFU, F8GGV, HB9GWJ & ON7RN


Bands: 6M - 160M & QO-100


Modes: CW, SSB, RTTY & FT8


Qsl Info: Qsl via F5GSJ (direct or buro), Clublog OQRS or LoTW


Start Date - End Date: Nov. 27 - Dec. 08




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