KH1/KH7Z Baker Island DXpedition

Following a successful Visalia DX Convention, the KH1/KH7Z team met in Cupertino last week to assemble the stations and network in preparation of landing on Baker in 2 months. The DXpedition is now in the final planning stages and this step was the last before packing and shipping our gear to Fiji.

Stations — DXpedition sponsors Elecraft and DX Engineering provided the required gear. There will be 8 stations on Baker Island consisting of 8 Elecraft K3S transceivers — 7 powered by KPA500s; the 8th low band station powered by a KPA1500 amp. This is the first expedition to use a
KPA1500 and the team and Elecraft are looking forward to seeing this exciting new amplifier in action.

There will be 3 separate tents for CW, SSB, and Digital stations.
Co-leaders K6TD and N1DG, and AA7A, K6GFJ, K6MM, ND2T and N6MZ assembled the stations, activated the BGAN satellite network, interfaced the NUC computers & monitors, and installed N1MM+ in a complete on-island simulation (including generator power). We also successfully simulated making QSOs and uploading sample logs to ClubLog via the BGAN.

The network was designed by our IT team led by AA7A and N6MZ and consists of rapidly deployed transit boxes containing the switches power hubs and POE repeaters. Upon reaching the island the team will deploy these cases and run out cables from the central CW tent to SSB and Digital tents. All N1MM+ computers will be networked to our center administrative PC N1MM+ allowing 2 uploads daily via satellite to ClubLog to minimize duplicate contacts.

Antennas — Although limited to 43 feet, our 80 and 160 meter antennas are newly designed AA7JV “fat” verticals, which will sit just inside the high tide mark. The SteppiR verticals for 75 through 10 meters will also be mounted just inside of the high tide mark while four 2-element vertical arrays will be mounted away from the water for 15, 17 and 20 meters. In this way, we can maintain a 24-hour presence on 20 meters to maximize the number of unique callsigns and enable the most ATNO contacts. We also intend to install a multi-vertical array for 6 meters at the digital radios.

Testing the SteppIRs and our own design of vertical arrays is all that remains before cleaning and sterilizing our gear to meet the FWS Biological Protocols and sending the gear to our freight forwarder.

Please visit http://www.baker2018.net/pages/pretrip.html to see more pictures relating to our testing activity this week.

As with any DXpedition to the really rare ones, this will be another large budget operation. The operator team will contribute over 50% of the expected budget of $400,000. You can help make this DXpedition happen by visiting our website, and contributing today.
http://www.baker2018.net/pages/donate.html

Thank you in advance for your support.
The Baker Island 2018 Team

OPDX