African adventure 3XY1D, Guinea 2011-Conducted by DL7DF and crew

Text by Georg Knoess, DK7LX

It was time for another DX-trip, especially because of the improving band-conditions along with the upcoming new sunspot-cycle. Despite these facts, guys like Sigi, DL7DF and his crew can never rest for too long before going again somewhere on a DX-Pedition.

The only question was where to go? It turned out that 3X would suit all aspects in regards of demand, location and it would also add the needed quantity of adventure.

Why boarding a plane to a fancy tourist trap if there are such places? So first plans for a new trip to Guinea came up in 2010

During the first preparations it turned out that the contact person that supported Sigi during his 2002 trip to Guinea was still in place. Without the help of this local, named Khalil, this trip would probably not have taken place. It is deepest Africa and things work quite a bit different than in other parts of the world.

Sigi´s team was formed by operators who all have good experiences in Africa, most of which have travelled together in the past: Georg DK7LX, Wolf DL4WK, Sigi DL7DF, Frank DL7UFR, Jan SP3CYY and Leszek SP3DOI (in alphabetical order)

The team met at Brussels Airport on the 18^th of October and continued together on a smooth flight via Banjul/Gambia to Conakry, the capital city of the Republic of Guinea.

Upon arrival the local guide welcomed the crew at the airport and gave great support with solving the typical problems with the local customs. It is somewhat difficult to explain the customs in the deepest of Africa that the 160 Kg of radio gear are for pleasure and holiday travel only. It took much more than just verbal arguments to get the equipment back out of the instant confiscation. This is a point that many people do not seem to see when it comes to a summery of costs for such a trip, especially to Africa.

After a chaotic three hour Taxi ride across the city the team finally reached the home for the next two weeks, the Hotel Mariador Palace. Palace is actually some sort of a misnomer anyway. This place is located right on the ocean´s edge with a clear take-off to all important directions. On the positive side, the hotel management was well informed about the plans and the purpose of this stay. While enjoying a few drinks, the team made preparations for the next morning.

Next morning started early with inspecting the environment. Decisions for the locations of the single antennas had to be made. The antenna set up consisted of two Spider Beams, several Verticals for 40 and 30 M as well as plenty of wires for the low bands. Around noontime most of the antennas where in place and operational. 3XY1D hit the air on 12 M on 19^th of October.

As expected, the pile-ups where tremendous on all bands and the conditions where in our favour. From the next morning on, four to five stations where simultaneously on air in order to fill the logs. The K2´s as well as the homemade Solid State Amplifiers did a perfect job and thanks to a well performing filter network, interactions were kept low.

The flip of the coin was on one hand the malfunction of the 6 M Transceiver. The receiving unit got defective and could not be fixed. That was pain especially as the signal could be rcvd with S9 in e.g. the south of EU.

On the other hand the low band operation, 160 m in particular, proofed to be very difficult. Many hours were spent to test different antenna configurations but nothing really helped. One of the permanent main problems were the regular power cuts. These outages happened many times a day and have certainly been not very favourable for the equipment as well as for the DX-crowd out there, wondering what has happened.

At this point it is perhaps interesting to mention that the entire city of Conakry with about 1,5 Million inhabitants has no existing power network. All is generator-driven.

Despite from such minor problems, the team kept on operating 24/7 with high spirits and lots of fun during hot days and nights. Thanks to our local guide Khalil they were served with everything they needed for life: drinks, money exchange, translations, technical support (a bamboo rod for one of the Beams) and many more things.

The demand for 3X did not really get lower to the end and the participation on the CQWW SSB Contest gave us all another funny lesson what it means to run a pile-up, though quite a bit different from the usual DX-Pedition-routine.

The two weeks have really passed quickly and all of a sudden the team had to pack all together and prepare for the journey home.

The entire team would like to express gratitude to all our donors and supporters. Without your help and support this operation would have been far more difficult.

Thanks also to Khalil, our local guide in Conakry, and to the management of the Mariador Palace. The operation could even continue during a wedding that was held underneath one of the Spider Beams. The people were literally dancing beneath the antenna what has resulted into a nice picture that can be seen on the QSL-card.

For those who like to see the QSL-Statisitics, some picture, further information about the country as well as an online-log, please visit www.dl7df.com