News
News #9 (November 6, 2024)
All team members were safely back in Germany on late October 31.
This DXpedition was not easy, but the team is happy to have made it. It is rather difficult to find a good ham radio QTH for a larger group on Nauru this time.
We were active from two different locations. The first group started at an AirBNB QTH in Anibare on the east side of the island with the beam only for the higher bands. When the rest of the team arrived, we managed to secure another site on the north shore near the Arubo Catholic Church with antennas for lowbands (160 to 30 m) and one high band antenna for first 17, then 12 m as well as a 6 m loop. The RX situation on lowbands was not satisfactory, although we tried almost every night to find a solution for the atmospheric noise. However, it seems that we are not alone: other groups in the pacific are currently experiencing the same issues.
Our QSL Manager has checked the incoming log correction requests. Several dupes were removed and the online log now shows some 94 k QSOs.
The design for the QSL is already finished and the QSL mailings should start still before end of November. LoTW-Upload for our supporters has already started (OQRS).
The team is grateful to the support of the whole ham radio community.
Where do we go next?
News #8 (October 24, 2024)
Our DXpedition is coming to its end. Over 75.000 QSOs are already in the log from 160 m to 6 m. It was a rather wild adventure for all of us and it seems that Murphy was with us all the time. We had to check our antennas and guying lines daily and had to repair them often. Last but not least, we had to move our highband beam to slightly lower position. However, our large team is in a good spirit and we are quite satisfied with the results so far. As always, we learned new things which will be used for further DXPeditions.
Remember that 99,9 % of all QSOs from Nauru have a minimum distance of 4,000 km. Europe and most of the US is more than 10,000 km away. We have good TX antennas for the lowbands but the RX situation was quite challenging. High atmospheric noise level as well as some man made noise heavily affected RX performance. Nearly every night, we tried to improve the lowband receiving situation but it was difficult to eliminate the S9+ noise. The highbands performed generally quite well, but we are still waiting for a good 10 m opening to Europe. The last challenge will be the CQ WWDX SSB as M2.
Normally we hear rather well on higher bands. Please do not call us if you can’t hear us for sure. Also, please try to avoid dupes. Check the online log before calling again. We update our online log @ Clublog every day. Additionally, we offer a live stream where you can see your QSO immediately. If your QSOs does not appear there or in the online log, please call again. Log corrections will be checked and applied after the DXPedition.
Many thanks for all the serious, friendly and constructive comments. However, some of the comments were a little of the mark.
We will start to dismantle the antennas and the stations on October 29, after local sunrise.
News #7 (October 18, 2024)
The first team members have been on Nauru for a week, the rest of the crew arrived on October 15. More than 42,000 QSOs are already in the log and we became QRV on the low bands. We're still waiting for a great high band opening in Europe.
Our first QTH, an AirBnB guesthouse close to the Anibare harbor and our hotel, works quite well with our two element wire beam for the five high bands. For the lowbands activity we arranged another QTH near the Arubo Catholic Church, right on the north coast with no obstructions to the north. We erected two 22m Spiderbeam fiberglass poles for 160 and 80m verticals with one elevated radial. For 40m and 30m we use (rhombic) loops with 50 Ω impedance and on 60m we use another vertical with one elevated radial. DL8LAS and DL6KAC installed a DHDL receiving antenna. This helps against the very high atmospheric noise (up to S9). Fortunately, we do not have a lot of manmade noise at both QTHs. Regarding the lowbands, we are very satisfied with the antenna performance from 80m to 30m. On 160m we didn’t hear any station until now. 6m activity also takes place from the northern QTH. So far, we have logged nearly 500 QSOs on 6m – mainly with Japan. Expect regular activity on 6m from now on.
We all live in the Menen Hotel and the Nauruan people are friendly and helpful. The second QTH made it necessary to establish a transport service from the hotel in line with our shift operations. The ride takes about 15 minutes.
We have set up a live stream on Clublog for both QTHs. The Starlink satellite internet works really well and can be found in numerous houses on the island.
Unfortunately, we lost our sixth (backup) station. Electricity is very expensive on the island and you have to buy prepaid “power ups”. Fortunately, we only had few smaller power outages.
So still no time for sightseeing. Hopefully, we can do that next week.
News #6 (October 13, 2024)
The first group of six team members arrived on Nauru very early in the morning on October 10th.
Our luggage also arrived without any problems. The pickup from the Menen Hotel went perfectly and we were able to move into our rooms early. However, we were all pretty tired. The temperature shows a hot 30 degrees Celsius and not much lower at night.
Since the Menen Hotel doesn't allow amateur radio in its area, we booked an AirBNB tiny house about 1km north. That was fine with electricity, air conditioning and internet. Phill C21TS visited us on the first day. This area does not offer a clear view to the north-northwest for Europe and Japan, but a good view to the northeast for the USA.
On the first day we assembled the wire beam and started the expedition with up to three stations. The ground noise was and is low here and we were QRV on CW, SSB and FT8 from 20 to 10 m. Almost all the higher bands were open on the first evening. This allowed us to work a lot of Europeans.
Then the conditions were disturbed and it was not possible to work any EU for many hours. We found poor conditions with K = 8 on shortwave.
In the first few days we still had and have a lot to organize, so sometimes not all stations were present. We are quite satisfied with 18,000 QSOs in three days.
Today we installed a small 6-m-loop and were able to work some JAs and BA4SI.
The second group of our team will arrive in Nauru early Tuesday morning with lots more equipment. In the afternoon we plan to start erecting all low band antennas 160 to 30 and 6 m on our newly and additional ordered second QTH in the north of the island. We plan to be QRV on low bands starting Wednesday.
News #5 (October 1, 2024)
The C21MM team is looking forward to its next adventure. This DXpedition to Nauru is already the most expensive and complicated expedition ever for us. Hopefully we won’t encounter any more nasty surprises.
In a few days, on October 7, the first six team members will leave Germany and plan to arrive on Nauru on October 10, after an overnight stay in Brisbane, Australia. After their arrival there are still some things to organise, so limited operation (high bands only) will take place. Full operation with 5 stations 24/7 can be expected starting October 15 in the evening (local time, UTC +12). We will pay special attention to our sunrise and sunset for low band openings.
The whole team is grateful for the generous donations from early supporters. Thank you!
Our QSL manager has received the LoTW certificate for C21MM. QSLs and LoTW confirmations will be sent out after our return in November.
Further news and pictures will be published on our website. Please make sure to follow us on Twitter a.k.a. X: https://x.com/C21MM_2024. We will also provide DX World and Daily DX with updates during the DXPedition.
We are looking forward to working you! If you have any hints during the DXPedition, please drop us an email at c21mm.info@mydx.de. Note: This email is not meant for QSL inquiries!
News #4 (September 11, 2024)
Less than 4 weeks to go. Team members DG2RON, DJ5IW, DJ7TO, DJ9KH, DK3CG, DK5WL, DL1KWK, DL2RNS, DL4SVA, DL6KAC, DL6KVA, DL7JOM, DL7VEE and DL8LAS are ready.
We follow our main principles being light weight and cost effective. As always, only transceivers from Elecraft will be used. All equipment including antennas will be transported by the team members using “traditional luggage” partly oversized. However, this does not mean that we compromise on the antennas. For the high bands we are going to use our 2-element full size wire beam from LZ Antennas. That provides us with some dB more gain compared to a vertical. By using the LBS Pentaplexer we can operate 3 high bands together at the same time on this antenna.
As always, we follow our strategy to use resonant and full-size single band antennas on all bands (except 160 m). No grounded verticals will be used. Verticals with an elevated radial are even better for reception, also known as Up & Outer. This time we will carry two 22 m (72 feet) Spiderbeam fiberglass poles for 160 m & 80 m (compared to 18 m poles on our last DXpeditions). That is perfect for 80 m and an improvement for the top band as well. We will also bring the brand new 14-m-HD-fiberglass pole from Spiderbeam which gives us 2 m more height compared to the 12-m-HD-pole. This one is perfect for bands from 60 m and up. For low band receiving we plan BOGs. Jan, OK2ZAW (QRO.CZ), supported us with RX band filter boards for splitting one BOG to different receivers on different bands. For 40 & 30 m we try loops this time.
We always use small band pass filters for each band between transceiver and amplifier and additional bigger band pass filters to the antennas.
We will run our proven shift system with radio and free time slots 24/7, ensuring that our experienced operators will have full concentration in their shift. 5 stations between 160 and 6 m in CW, SSB, RTTY and FT8 are planned. Starting with a first group of 6 men from October 10th only on high bands for few days. Second part of the group will arrive October 15.
News #3 (August 29, 2024)
To operate ham radio from Nauru has become extremely difficult, especially for larger groups. Our first attempt going to C2 started already in 2018. None of the mostly full booked hotels allow ham radio operation anymore. Additionally, it’s rather difficult to find a perfect ham radio location in the mountainous island.
Nauru is the least visited country in the world. The actual Most Wanted DXCC list on Club Log shows Nauru worldwide on rank 77 Mixed, in Phone on rank 48. In North America it ranks 113 (Phone 67) and in Western Europe Nauru ranks 38 Mixed (Phone 32). Since more than a year, Phill, C21TS, is doing an excellent job in FT8. He provides LoTW and paper QSLs via his manager. We will therefore try to focus more on CW on all bands from 160 m to 6 m as well as SSB and RTTY on several bands. Nevertheless, getting to the island proves rather difficult.
Out of nowhere, Nauru Airlines cancelled all our confirmed flights due to a change in their flight schedule! As you can imagine, the last week was therefore rather stressful as the whole group with 14 OPs had to rearrange all flights incl. those from Europe to Australia as well as our accommodation.
These rearrangements produced unexpected additional costs of around 8,000 US-$. C21MM has already become the most expensive “light weight DXpedition” ever for us. We are grateful for the support we have received from individuals and foundations to date. However, these unexpected costs will put an additional burden on our pockets. We therefore hope to get special support from the DX Community to bring this rare DXCC country on the air. Apart from PayPal we also have other support options available. Please contact our QSL manager Georg, DL4SVA.
Despite this bad news we also have some positive things to share. We are in very productive negotiations with a promising QTH in the north of the island – with direct beach access and a clear take off to the north (Europe) as well as to the northeast (USA). Hopefully it will work.
The new DXpedition period will be from October 10 to 29, 2024. That gives us the possibility to take part in the 2024 CQ WWDX SSB contest which takes place on October 26 & 27.
News #2 (August 10, 2024)
As a reminder: Our C21MM homepage has been online since July 28, 2024. In between we all got our visas for Nauru and Australia. On our way from Germany to Nauru there is an overnight stay in Brisbane.
Today we would like to give you some insights on our logo. If you try to find something typical for Nauru, you always come across phosphate mining, which is a story about colonialism and how fast wealth can fade away. This is what the excavator stands for.
However, there is still beautiful nature on the island like the endemic bird, the Nauru Reed Warbler which can be seen on the left side of the logo. We have to admit it’s a slightly beautified version of it. The original can be seen on one of the stamps of the small island:
To make the logo complete, the famous 5 band LZ beam is of course a must.
Thanks to Vincent, F4CVQ for the artwork of the logo and Fred, DH5FS, for the idea.
News #1 (July 22, 2024)
Our team (T2C in 2023 and P29RO in 2022 and other activities in the years before COVID) has decided to announce its next DXpedition. We will return to the pacific and travel to Nauru (C2) in October 2024. We are planning to operate with 5 stations, 24/7 from 160 to 6 m in CW, SSB, FT8 and RTTY.
Our group has extensive experience with travelling to pacific islands, but Nauru gave us some challenges. Getting all the necessary permissions and finding an usable location for the antennas is no easy task – especially for larger groups. We are grateful to Phill, C21TS, for his support on the island.
Flights, accommodation and a radio shack room are booked and confirmed. These are prerequisites for the necessary visa to enter Nauru. We also have acquired the necessary radio licence. The call sign will be announced soon. Going to Nauru isn’t cheap. Each of our team members spent several thousand Euros.
Due the complicated logistics, we plan to arrive with two teams: 6 team members will arrive on October 11, 2024. They will bring 2 stations. This includes the LZ wire beam and the LBS-pentaplexer. This means that operation in the first days will only occur on the high bands. The rest of the team will arrive on October 14 for another 12 days.
More details including a website will be available soon.
Rolf, DL7VEE
