With Radio Club SK0UX to Cuba (The story of T48RCT/T49C 1997)

By Göran Fagerström/SM0DRD

This article was originally published in Swedish magazine QTC just after the operation so this is the very first time it´s published in English. Thanks very much Goran! Raul/CO8ZZ

• A low-budget trip with little baggage: What we could bring onto the plane.
• Great emphasis on building friendships with the Cuban hams and on increasing their awareness of modern technology.

We worked under palms at a paradisaical beach on north-east Cuba and wondered if any Swedish contest expeditions of this scale had occurred before. Weight negotiations with the airline and the travel agency were past us. Ten wire antennas for the usual shortwave bands were in place all around us and were emitting limited power, in principle QRP, on most bands. VHF- and WARC-band activities were also ongoing.

Unlimited view on the north coast

With bad conditions and low power, since weight limitations resulted in only a few linears, we needed hi-gain antennas with low radiation angles on 20, 15 and 10 meters. The site’s possibilities were not bad: a straight ”shot” right by the sea on Cuba’s north coast with the horizon visible from west to east, in other word Europe, the U.S. and Japan.  Possible anchor points were few and low, however, the only relative high one was a concrete water tower.

Antenna construction consumed the main part of the week before the contest. We built very large but relatively low 2 x 5 elements delta-loops with 12.5 dB gain on 10, 15 and 20. Boom length was a full lambda. Each band had one towards the Europe and one towards Japan, which coincided with the U.S. west coast. Waldemar/SM0TQX was in charge of the antenna construction and simulated everything precisely in his computer, antenna heights and other parameters, for instance the steep slope from their highest points. They matched perfectly! Other beam directions were not prioritized, sorry for that.

For the lower bands, we built simpler wire antennas: 2 dipoles on 40, one inverted Vee on 160 and a sloping dipole on 80. It turned out to be a very positive surprise, performing great both towards Europe and other directions. Finally, verticals for the WARC bands were erected and two beams for 50 and 144 MHz. During the CQWW CW contest, approximately 8,300 contacts were logged with about 9,500,000 points in the Multi/Multi class. Five stations and computers were connected by a so-called loop network. Even though all rigs were in the same room, the extremely effective bandpass filters that we built at home before the trip completely eliminated inter-band interference. One of two linears went on strike right before the contest began.  It illustrates of Cuba’s component and transportation problems that it took half the contest to get hold of the combination of resistors that were needed.

Many Swedes

This is the first time that the Cuban authorities issues a one-suffix call.  Our objective never was to compete with the big guns, but rather to provide the country and prefix to as many as possible and use the CQWW for that purpose. Using the special contest call T49C, just above 300 QSOs, of which 99 Swedes, were logged during the contest proper. Many SM’s and large pile-ups occurred during non-contest day, too, when we used the call T48RCT.

All in all, we made a little over 14,000 QSOs on all bands from 1.8 to 144 MHz, including the WARC bands. Both CQ and SSB, but unfortunately not RTTY as planned. Maybe next time!   We could have run many more contacts if the Cubans had stayed on after our departure, but this was not possible for them for financial reasons. A few more days of activity could have generated 4,000 QSOs a day.

Antenna construction took so much time that we only had about seventy hours for activities when all antennas were raised. The 160 meter antenna was erected last.  It was only possible to put it in place on top of all the other beams, making our efforts on top band unsuccessful with only two and a half nights on the band and inexperience in handling the enormous pile-ups. On VHF, satellite QSOs were made on 2 meters. An MS contact was not completed, unfortunately, and an EME sked with KB8FQ was not successful. We discussed it with W5UN but he ”departed” to the shortwave contest and did not have time for a sked.      Costa Rica and others were worked on 6 meters.

Many Cuban participants

The more one prepares, the better the results. A very thorough equipment planning and manufacture at home of certain key components (for example bandpass filters and computer cables) worked very well. We did not miss a single connector, tool or computer file.  We also knew a lot about the Cubans beforehand and they knew everything about us before we met, and we had pictures of the site to plan for the antennas. Work organization was informal –  everyone found their place and delivered his best according to each one’s abilities and interests.

We were guests of the local radio club in the town of Las Tunas, which is a whole day’s travel from Habana in a province that is not visited by tourists much. After visiting their club-house, we rode together in a scrambling borrowed bus to a simple resort by sea, normally only frequented by Cubans. Its name is Punta Corella in the unusual grid square FL11 (FL11SG) and was not even mentioned on the map.

Four Cubans operated and the others also had important parts to play. Hands-on antenna construction was handled by Rafael, CO8MA.  Emilio, CO8EB, chairman of the local club, coordinated with quiet efficiency. Oscar, CO2OJ, from Federacion de Radioaficionades de Cuba (FRC, the equivalent of our SSA), worked day and night before our takeoff to manage or liaison with the FRC. We even had a young barefoot doctor detached to us! It ought to be a feather in the hat for the Las Tunas Club to have been permitted to carry out the activities with us, and successfully so. Big-city complex exists here too!

Heaven opening

The goal of transferring competency and developing friendships were met more than in full.  Consider a group who has never experienced a contest logging program, CT or modern computers and rigs. And who is on after short training sessions before our arrival and before the contest’s start. They must have felt it like heaven opening in the technical equipment area.

We also gained deep insights into the life of Cubans, both standard of living and access to components, computers and other equipment. Rigs are built with tubes and components from the sixties. Computers are upgraded from 8086 processors to a top-of-the line 386, using a 5 inch floppy-disk unit, however, not a 3 ¼ one. Transport is by hitchhiking, horses, people on truck beds are very common. All gear is very much wanted – coax, contact, software manuals, books, everything – and of course we left stuff.

Watching what is achieved with know-how and effort has made us making plans for collecting everything that is discarded in Sweden in order to send it there. A well developed system for making sure that things reach right hands without any customs or delivery problems does exist and going for it might be worthwhile.

The QSLs Online concept – being able to search for your contacts and download your QSLs over the net – was also successful. Logs were sent electronically from Cuba to Sweden, where Niklas/SM7UFW published them on SK0UX’s web page. Mailing them was not simple: Certain logs had to be sent twice, since they were transferred over a 144 MHz BBS connection and onward out of Cuba by e-mail.

Accepting Online QSLs

With our Cuba expedition, the usage of QSLs Online by SK0UX took on speed. Certain people within the ARRL have questioned the validity of ”electronic cards” for DXCC, but hams in both the USA and within Europe have indicated that they want to raise this issue with the ARRL. We have had a discussion with the DXCC Advisory Committee and it has made me believe that such a change is possible – not strange, since the potential gains are enormous. An interesting fact is that the ARRL has accepted non-printed QSLs previously, but relatively recently adapted its present ”forbidding” rule.

This expedition would not have come about without the efforts of Carlos/SM0KCO (now CX7CO). It started almost a year before the trip by a chance 40 meter SSB contact with SK0UX’s quad antenna, which heard a Cuban station’s QRP signal (few have linears). That we much later got e-mail connection to Cuba simplified things a lot and lowered his phone bills considerably. The last weeks before departure I believe that he worked full-time with the project!

Finally, I would like to mention two people:  Ulf Mimer provided much support, and Ingvar Axelsson/SM0MO would have taken part and was very much looking forward to the trip, but unfortunately passed away after a short period of illness just before it.