5X1SF: A DXFC ADVENTURE IN UGANDA

5X1SF: A DXFC ADVENTURE IN UGANDA

As I had a small job to do in Uganda, and I knew the company office out there had a spare outdoor office, I decided to obtain my Ugandan 5X callsign and try working some pileups. I designed and built my own antenna, which is basically just a dipole, with the ability to easily change it to any band from 30m to 10m. I fed this with about 50 feet of Mini-8 coax which is light. I used an old kite string on a cord winder, so the whole antenna fitted into a small bag. To erect the antenna I simply tied a stone to the end of the string, threw it up into a tree and used it as an uphaul for my vertical or sloping dipole! It was always a perfect match – although I don’t know how well it would perform compared with a similar dipole horizontal at height.
I took my K3, along with a bencher paddle and a laptop. I have a cable which has a USB to serial converter, and two lines off it – a keying line to the rig and an RS232 line to the radio. That way I only need one USB port and I can do everything I want with Win-Test in DXpedition mode. All that’s left is the PSU, which is an Alinco DM-330MW, which is light, can deliver 30A and causes no RFI at all.
My licence wasn’t cheap – about $100 for one year – and I was issued with 5X1SF. As it only took an hour to process, I just waited in the UCC office for it. Bands are dead most of the day, and only came to life in the late evening – 1800z or 2100 local. I initially tried 20m CW. It was hard work, and I really found the pileup quite difficult to manage in the early evening, as signals were still very weak. I then tried SSB on 20m for a bit and this was a little easier, but soon became a zoo. The following evening I adjusted the antenna and tried 18MHz. This was successful. And so each night I tried a different band, until by the end of my trip I had 1123 QSOs in the log on all bands from 30m to 15m.
This was a work trip with a little radio thrown in, and I found myself ill after the first night in Uganda, and extremely tired for most of the time. I also had to make a trip into the Bundu. As a result I wasn’t on the radio as much as I’d have liked. However, I hope I managed to work you or give you a new one!