As an Intermediate holiday we have been very active from 31 March – 10 April 2003 from the Faroer Islands. The team existed of Ronald PA3EWP (OY7WP), Dick PA3FQA (OY7QA), Rob PA5ET (OY7ET), Tom GM4FDM (OY7TW) and Bill AK0A (OY7WB) all very experienced operators.

We have been active from 10-160 meters in the modes CW,SSB,RTTY,PSK31 and SSTV.

Schedule:
29/03/2003 Ferry Denmark (Hanstholm) – Faroer Islands (Torshavn)

31/03/2003 Arrival 06.00 Faroer Islands
31/03/2003 Building station

10/04/2003 22.00 Departure Faroer Islands (Torshavn) – Denmark (Hanstholm)

12/04/2003 Arrival in Denmark
13/04/2003 Back at home

Equipment:
We will activate 3 HF stations with amplifiers.

Antennas:
Single window Quad (6-20m)
Single window Quad (10-30m)
Beam 10,15,20m
1 x 40 meter vertical
1 x 80 meter Titanex V80E vertical
1 x 160 meter Titanex V160E vertical
Beverage + Loop for reception

Modes of Operation:
CW, SSB, RTTY, PSK31 and some SSTV

Target Areas:
WARC bands all continents, Low bands

Callsigns:
The callsigns OY7ET, OY7QA, OY7TW, OY7WB, OY7WP and OY8PA, we will use OY8PA only on 160 meter and digital modes to avoid working dupes.

	Call	OY7WP homecall PA3EWP
	Name	Ronald Stuy
	Experience	HB0/PA3ERC, VP5/PA3EWP, VP5C, FG/PA3EWP, TO5C, J77C, J79WP, FM/PA3EWP, J6/PA3EWP, 9Y4/PA3EWP, 6Y5/PA3EWP, ZF2WP/ZF9, PJ7/PA3EWP, FS/PA3EWP, V47WP, VP2EWP, 8Q7WP,V26WP, 8P9JU,VP2MPA, J3/PA3EWP, J8/PA3EWP, J38PA, J8PA, TI9M, J75WP, J75PA, VP2MWP, VP2MPA Extensive contest experience at PI4COM, PA6WPX, PA6HQ
	Mode	SSB, CW, RTTY, PSK and SSTV
	Profession	Networking & System Specialist
	Email	pa3ewp@zonnet.nl

	Call	OY7QA homecall PA3FQA
	Name	Dick Grolleman
	Experience	VP5/PA3FQA, J79QA, J77C, FG/PA3FQA, FM/PA3FQA, TO5C, N7QA, VP8THU, VP8GEO, VP8DEI. Extensive contest experience at PI4COM, PA6WPX, PA6HQ
	Mode	SSB, RTTY, PSK and some CW
	Profession	Building towers and antenna’s for commercial radio and TV stations
	Email	pa3fqa@wxs.nl

	Call	OY7ET homecall PA5ET
	Name	Rob Snieder
	Experience	HB0/PA3ERC, VP5/PA3ERC, VP5C, FG/PA3ERC, TO5C, J77C, J79RC, FM/PA3ERC, J6/PA3ERC, 9Y4/PA3ERC, 6Y5/PA3ERC, ZF2RC/ZF9, PJ7/PA5ET, FS/PA5ET, V47ET, VP2EET, 8Q7ET,V26ET, 8P9JS,VP2MPA, J3/PA5ET, J8/PA5ET, J38PA, J8PA, TI9M, J75ET, J75PA, VP2MET, VP2MPA Extensive contest experience at PI4COM, PA6WPX, PA6HQ
	Mode	CW, RTTY, PSK and some SSB
	Profession	Network & System Specialist
	Email	pa5et@muurkrant.com

	Call	OY7TW homecall GM4FDM
	Name	Tom Wylie
	Experience	9H3RT, V26VG, VP8SDX, plus much Contest Experience as GM6X, GM7X, GM8X, GM5V, GM7V and GM5A.
	Mode	SSB, RTTY and a little CW
	Profession	Systems designer for CCTV and Security Systems
	Email	tom@gm4fdm.com

	Call	OY7WB homecall AK0A
	Name	Bill Boeckenhaupt
	Experience	Contesting, V3, TI2, TI9M
	Mode	RTTY, PSK and some SSB
	Profession	Retired
	Email	ak0a@kc.rr.com

The QSL manager for this tour is:

Rob Snieder
Van Leeuwenstraat 137
2273VS Voorburg
The Netherlands.

Pictures:

Statistics:

Bob K4UVT and Rob PA5ET have been working this year on a new version of LogStat, a DX-pedition Log Statistical Analysis program. This software has
been used for the first time during the TI9M expedition and was a great help to show the areas, modes and bands which needed more attention.

Diary:

Monday 31st March
We arrived 3 hours later in OY land due to high winds. At Arrival at the house we quickly started to build the antennas in the rain. Due to heavy winds we couldn’t erect the 160 meter vertical so we started the night with only the 2 Quads. We have forgotten to bring the 10 meter fiber mast for 40 meter. When it got dark we stopped the antenna work and start building the station in the house. One hour later we had 3 stations setup ready to go.

Tuesday 1st April
In the early morning the sun was shining but by the time we started working again on the 160 meter antenna is was raining and storming again. Weather changes very rapidly over here. We decided to leave the 160 meter vertical for later and started working on the 80 meter vertical, by the time that one was set up we continued with the 160 meter vertical. We decided to wait with the 40 meter antenna since we had enough bands to operate.We soon learned the propagation is very bad on the high bands, with an A-index of 26 the 15 meter band is highest band and only workable in the afternoon. We work mainly Europe but are constantly watching the band opening to other continents.Uploading the logs to the web-site wasn’t that easy as expected. We finally got access to our provider using cellular phones. It seems that Internet providers have different phone numbers from within the same country and abroad. We didn’t knew that, but that problem is solved now, Alex PA1AW will receive daily logs from us which he will try to publish same night. We also started a diary which we will upload for publications. The 9K6 line is to slow and to expensive to upload pictures so you have to wait until we are back home.

Wednesday 2nd April
Today we have set up the Force 12 beam and made a 40 meter inverted-V antenna. End off the day we had about 4.5k Q’s in the log. We now have 3 stations active during the day and 2 stations during the night.

Thursday 3rd April
During a storm the 160 meter vertical broke, it was to late to repair it so we had to operate this night without 160 meter. Today we have done some PSK for the first time. During the first hours of the night we had no propagation and stopped early, at 3 o’clock we started again and had a good run to the USA on 30 meter and later a small run to JA. Conditions are slowly improving.

Friday 4th April
We got the 160 meter vertical repaired and set it up again in the afternoon with an extra set of guy wires. Around 11 o’clock we had a little opening on 12 & 10 meters so at leased we have now worked all bands from 10-160 meters. At 17.00 we logged 10.000 QSO’s. In the evening we have been very active on the low bands 40/80/160 including a good run on topband SSB.

Saturday 5th April
To give you an idea how our operating schedule looks like here is the schedule we use:

Team 1 = PA5ET, GM4FDM, AK0A
Team 2 = PA3EWP, PA3FQADuring the night we didn’t work any North America or Japan . . . so it became an European show again. We are constantly on the watch for openings outside of Europe but just haven’t been lucky yet.At the end of the morning and beginning of the afternoon we had our first good opening on 10 & 12 meter and that in the weekend so quit some HAM’s made the log. This weekend we will participate in the EA RTTY Contest as OY7WB for the full 24 hours, the other 2 stations will be on other bands and modes.

Sunday 6th April
We didn’t had a good night, hardly no stations outside Europe have been worked and we had lots of problems to find clear spots due to the SPDX contest. If you can’t beat them join them so in the morning we decided to work the SP contest stations and hand out serial numbers which was greatly accepted as a new multiplier for all SP’s so we could keep our frequency better than before.This morning in the RTTY contest we only had propagation on 20 meters and have worked all RTTY stations so we stopped earlier.The pile-ups are getting more controllable so often we can now work simplex which increases the QSO rate. In the afternoon we had a good run to the USA on 17 meters SSB & CW and the first US/VE stations made the log on 12 meters. In the evening we activated the low bands again, the propagation is getting better and better. On 40 meter we worked some South America which we didn’t here in the days before.

Monday 7th April
In the early morning the low bands where finaly good to North America. Lot’s off US stations made a QSO on 30, 40 or 80. We even worked a few on 160. In the morning we worked quit some JA’s on 30, 20 and 17 meters. The afternoon started very slowly, 20 meter was good but 10 and 12 not, end of the afternoon 12 meter openened for a short time and some US stations have been worked. Tonight we will concentrate again on the low bands.

Tuesday 8th April
Tuesday started great, this has been the best night so far, 20 meter didn’t close before 03.00 and we made about 2000 Q’s during the night.

Thursday 10th April
We worked 40 & 80 meters during the night, the 160 meter vertical had a bad SWR. It was clearly we have worked almost everyone, we didn’t had any pile-ups anymore and worked simplex most of the time. We dismantelled the low band verticals at 10.00 and the Quads at 14.00 local time.We finished this Dx-pedition with 26.000 QSO’s in the log. We are happy with this result. As soon we come home we will publish the statistics and pictures. This will be the last update from OY-land.