Skip to main content

A DX expedition to kh0/nh0 land

Imagine a genuine Ham Radio Expedition to an exotic DX Location where no passport is required for US Citizens. We are talking about the Island of Saipan.


Saipan

Saipan Island was a major battle site during World War II and today there are historical locations on the island that chronicle that time. Residents of Saipan are US Citizens as of about 1986 and the total resident population is around 50,000. The total number of ham licenses associated with Saipan is around 500 or about 1%. Saipan is located in the Northern Mariana Island chain.

Perhaps our Ham Radio Rock Star of yesterday's post and newly minted Extra, could run an IOTA (Island on the Air) DX expedition to this location. It would certainly create a major pile up on 20M. She could even live stream the DX Expedition on You Tube... how cool is that. What a great story line for the ARRL... newly minted Extra runs IOTA DX Expedition to kh0/nh0.

Being a YL undoubtedly, she could get sponsorships from the radio manufacturers. It would be nice to see one of the American companies step up to the plate with some gear. (Elecraft or FLEX). 

I checked and a round-trip airfare from LA is about $1500 and a mid-priced hotel room can be had for about $150/night. Aside from ham radio, Saipan sports the usual paradise island activities like diving, sightseeing and a slower pace of living. Book your trip now to avoid the cyclone season.

Them that know can make things go.

73's
Pete N6QW

Popular posts from this blog

January 26, 2024. A simple CW Transceiver/Transmitter

Cruise through the lower part of the ham bands bands and what do you hear? Well, FT-8 and CW. Often you will not hear any SSB stations yet go to the lower part of the bands, and it is a cacophony (I love that word) of bad sounding signals and some high-speed keying. Fast is not so much of the issue as is bad, run together and jerky keying. But none the less our hobby started there.    So, you could crank down your ICOM 7300 and watch the waterfall on CW or you could homebrew a radio. Actually, to do CW right you need more thought up front than you do with a SSB transceiver. Often, I will state that a CW Transceiver is much more difficult to build than a simple SSB rig. I published two articles in QRP Quarterly on CW transceivers and all I got was a yawn so maybe history will repeat itself.  Yawn!   30M CW Transceiver with RIT!   Of interest is that the LO is a Varactor tuned LC oscillator using a NE602. Look closely at the RIT circuit which is only activated on ...

August 30, 2024. A PNP 20M SSB Transceiver

Shown below is the Block Diagram for the 20M PNP SSB Transceiver steered in the  Transmit Mode . The components shown in the dotted block are relay steered so that the block module is single pass and amplifies in a single direction. The Block diagram show steered in Transmit.  Essentially the steering process works so that the IF Module input follows the Balanced Modulator on Transmit and then the input side follows the Receive Mixer on Receive. All done with some relays and a bit of RG174U coax. For those who count things in detail, this block diagram is not unlike what was used for the PSSST Transceiver which can be found on my website . Yes, a warmed over P3ST only using PNP devices. TYGNYBNT. 73's Pete N6QW

March 31, 2024. Happy Easter to those who celebrate this day.

What a great day to Binge on Chocolate and experience the pain of that filling that has been leaking.  I would be in that category with the leaking filling(s) had I not just spent an amount equivalent to one of the fancy new uptown appliance box transceivers on two filling repairs. Well at least I can binge on the Chocolate bunnies without fear of pain. Regrettably everything appears to have jumped in price including the price of parts. Well not so much the parts as the shipping costs.  That notably is seen in the eBay treasures. I spotted a nice heathkit DX-20 for about $50 and the shipping was $65. Likely it is a twofer with part being a way to in effect charge a higher price by inflating the shipping and in part by increased shipping costs. Shipping with insurance across the US was about $150 for this jewel and that was three years ago. 6AM on the Left Coast ~ 20M Easter Sunday! My only hope is the cost of Chocolate Bunnies remains steady although a pound of See's Candies f...