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73 de Teemu SMØW

The storm kept sweeping over us during the night with high winds and occational showers. Anybody who has been on a boat or on an island in the middle of the ocean knows how this is.

During the night Teemu, SMØW got about 600 NA's into the log on 20m. This was our only real opening, but there were very few stations throughout the night. Also some 80m activity by Teemu in the morning.

Early in the morning we discovered that the wind had turned in such away that it was possible to land with a boat on the northern side of the reef. We quickly called por transport and he agreed to get to us very quickly before the conditions would change!

In about 1,5 hours we got everything exept antennas dismantled and packed and our boat arrived, already at thet time the winds started picking up again and wind direction started shifting so that it became dangerous to stay, hassle hassle and we made it off the reef just in time!

A team consisting of a few OH's came over to e sland on the same boat that got us home and they will don WAE RTTY contest (OJØMI) with our antennas from the reef.. god knows when they will get out of there.

 If you have any recordings of the operation please pass them along, it would be grately appreciated!

Our transport back, thats the gear of the new team arriving.

We get going back to the mainland through the rough seas outside the reef.

A big bunch of happy true-blue DXers!

Journey home was rough with the boat smashing aginst the big waves.

Me and Rick got the ferry back from Åland (OHØ) to Sweden (SM) and found that KØFF has his own kind of beer in business over here! Way to go!

We hope you enjoyed beeing our audience throughout the week, we tried our best to make a good DX show for those Deserving guys back home!  DX IS...

73 de Teemu SMØW

This morning wind started picking up and we are now in the middle of a big storm, as I am writing this the wind hauls throughout the building and we can hear the waves smash against the bedrock. We get some occational showers as well.

We don't know at this time when we can get off the reef because of the waether, but we are taking about the end of the weekend before the low preassure leaves this area. We will stick to our radios and continue giving out "a rare new one" for the Deserving.

We now have 10.000 QSO:s in the log since this morning and we will post a logsearch -after- the DXpedition is over.

We have kept going on our main bands 30, 20 SSB and 40 CW to hand out asd many "new ones" as possible. Teemu, SMØW made a low-band effort last night on 80m CW and managed to get approx. 150 NA contacts into the log.

Here are two shots of the sea banging onto the reef with enormous power.

So let us share a short story. In the picture below you see the so-called "Shitbay", continue scrolling down and you will get the picture.

Shitbay

This is the old out house taken out of service just a few months ago

Viewing down the drain you can obviously see that the "stuff" dissapears out in the blue, or rather it falls down into "Shitbay". You might think that it piles up there but then you are wrong. How is this head flushed then?

This picture comes from the -92 OJ0 DXpedition, Photo by OH1MDR. Now you see how the flushing takes place!

So today we will take a look at a small assortment of wildlife on this reef. One might think that this hostile environment cant host any other creatures than DXpeditioners but that is wrong.

This is Kermit the DX frog, he sits every night watching over our antennas.

After this expedition I think we might condider naming the reef "tarantula island". When darkness comes thousands of BIG spiders of various kinds creep out of their nests, I have never seen so many and so big spiders in scandinavia.

We have also seen many seals ans different kinds of birds on this reef. You can se the seals sun bathing on the rocks with some sea birds in the water.

Thats all for now, CU on the bands!

73 de Teemu OJØ/SMØW

We were running all according to plan with two stations until the graveyard hours when the fornt-end on one FT1000MP blew out despite having the right bandpass filters connected, the natennas were to close it seems. Both stations went QRT for a while when we set up the spare Elecraft K2 rig for the CW station ( lucky us we brought a spare rig) and the FT2000 was moved downstairs to the SSB room. We were then on air again.

We are trying to emphasize on "new country" QSO:s for those who have not yet managed to work Market Reef specially targeting areas of the world that have trouble reaching here. We are therefore mainly running 20m SSB and 30m CW.

We show up occationly on other bands when 20 and 30 goes slow but we will not do 160 this time, that will be left for future operations.

Here is the CW station using the sharp K2 receiver, We also have a FinnFet solid state amp connected,

Our generator feeding us mains sounds just like an old huey chopper, therefore I thought it would blow up in the morning because the noice got so loud, throwing of the headphones and running outside gave this view. The finnish coast guard was making a practice landing to get hands-on knowlege about this barren piece of rock when they have to come during more worse conditions.

Pertti OH2PM our main CW man was handing out OJ0B on 18 MHz at rapid speed during the day, otherwise this station has been on 30m mainly piloted by Pertti and Teemu SMØW.

Pertti installing the 18MHz dipole during the morning ontop of the lighthouse, what a takeoff!

About half the reef from above, imagine this is all flushed over by the sea during typical bad weather!

Lets finish off with two mood setting pictures again to give you that Magic Market Reef Spirit

The Market Reef lighthouse during sunset.

We will keep rolling out QSOs throughout the night and during the whole day tomorrow (wednesday). We will go QRT sometime early morning on thursday, our transport back is before lunch on thursday weather permitting, otherwise we have chow to last us for a week or so if we get stuck.

73s de Teemu OJØ/SMØW

We are now in action with two stations, primarily on 20m and 30m, we will do other frequencies as well. During the night Pertti OH2PM handed out a rare multiplier for those in WAE contest while Teemu SM0W was running many west coast stations in USA on 40m, propagation was great during the morning.

Teemu, SMØW in action on 20m SSB running JA's

HF2V right at the salt water edge

We have set a schedule for the next twentyfour hours to keep both stations on air simultaneously.

Martti OH2BH our strategy thinker... here is our "pravda" for the next twentyfour hours.

Rick SM6U running...

Market Reef Hall of Fame contemplating life on a bench.. Lasse OH0RJ to the left and Martti OH2BH to the right.

Speaking about the old times, found this sign inside the generator house, there has been quite a number of hams to this barren piece of rock.

Look for us on the bands, we are trying our best of giving you the Deserving ones a new one!

73 de Teemu OJØ/SMØW

now going to take a dip in the sea and shave...