Feature Article
Grand Manan DXpedition
by
D. Howard Dickson - VE1DHD

I have lived in Nova Scotia for over 30 years and have travelled numerous times to Back Bay in Charlotte County New Brunswick to visit a close friend at his cottage there, but I have never been out to Grand Manan Island.  Well all of that changed recently.
 

Good friends Dick Grantham (VE1AI) and Scott Wood (VE1QD) convinced me that we needed to get away for a weekend and operate from a relatively rare IOTA location, but it had to be a place with sufficient appeal for non-Ham spouses as well.

We settled on Grand Manan Island and when we discovered the “Morse Code” cottages (more about that later) on the island we figured that this had to be fate.  We arranged to rent two of the three cottages for the weekend of 13 to 16 May 2005 and set about planning our weekend
Grand Manan - where is it?  Grand Manan Island is one of several islands in the southern New Brunswick chain of islands classified as IOTA NA-014.  Situated thirty-five kilometres (22 miles) off the coast of Southern New Brunswick at the entrance to the Bay of Fundy, Grand Manan is about 26 km (about 16 miles) in length, with an area of 137 sq km (53 sq mi). 

Included in this group of islands along with Grand Manan is Campabello Island, famous because former U.S. President Roosevelt had his summer home on Campabello.
These islands are interesting because when you look at them on a map you would swear that they were part of the United States, but they are actually Canadian islands, even though Campabello is now connected by a bridge to Lubec Maine. 

Settled in the late 18th century, Grand Manan was claimed by the United States until 1817 when it was traded to the British for Moose, Frederick and Dudley islands in Passamaquoddy Bay, Maine.

For nearly 200 years, the Grand Manan Archipelago has been home to fisher folk and a quiet hide-away for bird watchers, geologists, naturalists, writers, artists - and recently - whale watchers.  The economy of the island is based chiefly on summer tourism and fishing - lobster; ground fish; herring and recently salmon farming.

To get to Grand Manan you take a car ferry from Blacks Harbour New Brunswick - about a 90-minute trip to North Head on Grand Manan.  The Morse Code Cottages are located in Castalia, a 5-minute drive from the ferry terminal.
 

Morse Code Cottages - The cottages were originally built and owned by the Morse family of Grand Manan.  Someone in the family - not a Ham - had the bright idea of calling them the Morse Code Cottages, and we were told by the current owners that an American Radio Amateur by the name of Ham has visited the cottages a couple of times.  So they were not surprised when we booked the cottages and informed them what our intentions were for the weekend.
North Head Beach with Grand Manan Ferry in upper left coming into port.
Swallow-Tail Light on North Head Grand Manan Island
The DX Team  - By the time we were ready to head to Grand Manan on the 12th of May, Scott and Dick had recruited three other Hams to our weekend IOTA DX outing.  Joining the group from the Halifax Amateur Radio Club was Gary - VE1RGB; from Prince Edward Island we recruited Ken - VY2RU; and from near Bangor Maine Joe - NY1S.  In addition to these operators - including myself (VE1DHD) - three spouses joined us for the weekend DXpedition.  They were Sandra Grantham (Dick’s wife); Sue Rolston (Scott’s wife) and Ella McCormick - VE1PEI (Ken’s wife).
Grand Manan Team (L to R) - 
Howard (VE1DHD); Scott (VE1QD); Ken (VY2RU); 
Dick (VE1AI); Joe (NY1S); & Gary (VE1RGB)
The Station  - The decision was made to set up and operate two stations - one running CW full time and the other SSB voice.  Scott and Dick contributed their two Yaesu FT-890ATs - one with an Ameritron 811H amplifier running 500 Watts; the other ran barefoot.  For antennas, Gary transported seven, eight-foot sections of interlocking pipe that we used to construct two masts - one 32 footer and another 24 footer. 

The taller of the two served as the apex for a 20-meter dipole.  We also attached one end of a 40-meter dipole (tuned up nicely on 15 as well) to this mast and the other end to the 24-foot mast.  For 80 metres we set up a sloper, with one end at the top of the 32-foot mast and the other end tied off in some bushes at the edge of the field.
All three of these antennas were fed to the back of the tuner attached to the amplifier on our voice radio.  The CW radio was fed by a simple long-wire antenna, with three radials, that was wrapped around a 30-foot extendable Fiberglas pole and tuned with a heavy-duty Yaesu FC-800 external tuner.  By the way, this tuner is a remarkable device and will tune absolutely anything!  The antenna itself worked wonderfully and covered all bands from 80 through 10 including the WARC bands.
 
Getting on the Air  - Since we were coming from different locations in the Maritimes and Maine, we agreed that we would meet in Blacks Harbour and catch the ferry at 13:30 to Grand Manan, arriving North Head at 15:30.  We figured that this would gave us time to get set up and ready to start operating after supper.

Set up went without a hitch, thanks to engineer Dick who had all of the antenna and radio layouts planned in advance.  By 1800 hrs we had all of the radios and antennas in place, and while Joe and I worked to get the two computers networked and WriteLog operational, Dick fired up the voice radio on 20 metres, turned on the amplifier and gave a call.

.  I think it was a Brit that came back to him with a 59 report.  Dick told him about our planned weekend operation and then signed, saying we needed to finish the set-up and have a bite to eat before getting underway officially.  Well….you should have heard the pile up.  There must have been a dozen stations calling.  I could pick out calls from Italy, the UK, Germany and the US, but we had to go QRT.
 

Scott - VE1QD at the mike
Sustaining the Crew - You may have read the interesting article by Lynn Bowser - VE1ENT - that appeared recently in the Bulletin about feeding DXpeditioners.  Well, we took Lynn’s comments to heart and Scott was good enough to organise us, along with the food.  We ate like royalty, but in the end there was way too much food.  Diets for everyone now! 

Just a sampler of the weekend menu - BBQ pepper steak; breakfast enchiladas, Mediterranean lamb curry; cedar planked and BBQ Atlantic salmon steaks with maple-cured bacon; and chicken and vegetable stir-fry on noodles. 
Dick brought along a good supply of wine from his famous cellar and there was always plenty of fruit to nibble on and a fresh pot of coffee on the burner.

Getting on the Air - So now for the real reason we went to Grand Manan - DXing from an IOTA location.  Because Grand Manan has only one permanent Ham - Murry Brown (VE9MB) - we figured that it should be a reasonably popular location as far as IOTA chasers are concerned, and we were not disappointed.  Although band conditions were not the greatest, we got off to a reasonably good start. We made our first official contact at 23:07Z on Friday, and 52 minutes later at 23:59Z we had made 71 contacts.  By Saturday evening at 23:58Z we were up to 658 contacts and by 03:49 on Sunday the 15th we were at 892.  Then the band just died.  Joe NY1S was the only one operating at the time and right in the middle of a CW contact, the other operator disappeared. Joe looked around a bit and heard absolutely nothing, with the exception of some strange “warbling sounds”, so he went outside for a smoke.  He noticed that it was very bright out, but there was no moon. 
Joe - NY1S on the CW
But when he looked to the Northwest and saw the most spectacular Aurora Borealis, he knew that something significant had happened. It was not until we got home and onto the Internet that we realized that there had been a huge solar explosion and communication had literally been wiped out for several hours - the latter we certainly did know. 
 
 
This was one of the largest solar events in recent years - a G5 event, which is the highest on the National Weather Service Space & Environmental Service scale.  The resulting K-Index, which measures the maximum deviation of the Earth's magnetic field in a given three-hour period, was a 9 on a scale of 1 to 9.  I also heard from our Club’s ISS and ARISS expert
that the increased density of space, as a result of this solar event, caused the International Space Station to slow down by a few seconds. 

For more information on this go to:
www.noaanews.noaa.gov and http://sec.noaa.gov/NOAAscales

So by 03:49 we were up to 892 contacts and over the next 20 hours or so we added another 103, and by tear down on Monday the 16th at 12:55Z we had an additional 27 contacts (in just about 13 hours - 2 per hour is tough slogging!!!).
 

The overall Stats - 
 
DX Countries Worked
80m- 33
40m - 28
20m - 28
17m - 27
15m - 3
Band Total - 119
Country Total - 65

Zones Worked
80m - 9
40m - 11
20m - 12
17m - 10
15m - 3
Total = 45

 Prefixes Worked
80m - 106
40m - 119
20m - 140
17m - 62
15m - 4
Total = 431

IOTA worked
80m - 6
40m - 6
20m - 4
17m - 4
15m - 1
Total = 12

Here is the country breakdown by prefix:

4J, 4X, 7X, 8P, 9A, C6, CM, CT, CU, DL, EA, EA6, EA8, EI, ES, F, G, GI, GM, GW, HA, HB, HB0, HI, HK, HP, I, JA, K, KL, KP4, LA, LU, LX, LY, LZ, OD, OE, OH, OK, OM, ON, OZ, P4, PA, PY, PY0F, S5, SM, SP, SV, SV5, T9, TI, UA, UA2, UR, VE, VP9, YO, YU, YV, Z3, ZB, ZL. 65 countries in all.
 

Gary (VE1RGB) found time to catch up on the latest stock quotes between QSOs.
So, although the weekend ended on a low note as far as propagation and radio contacts were concerned, overall I would consider it a success.  We took some time to tour around Grand Manan a bit - it does not take long - and we found it to be a fantastic place.  We spent time chatting with some of the locals to find out more about the history and culture on Grand Manan, and they could not have been more helpful or more hospitable.  We also got to enjoy each other’s company, and did I mention, we ate very well too.  So all in all the weekend was a great success.

A special thanks to Sue, Ella and Gary for providing some of the photos used in this article.

73 and good DXing.  Howard (VE1DHD)

From L to R - Joe; Ken; Gary; Dick; Sandra
From L to R - Scott; Joe; Ken & Gary
From L to R - Sandra; Sue; Ella; Scott and Joe
Guest Operator - Murry Brown (VE9MB) from Grand Manan Island
From Left to Right - Sandra; Ella (VE1PEI) and Sue

Morse Code Cottages - Tall pole in centre of the field to the right of the pine tree is Scott’s vertical long wire.  The pole to the right in front of the middle cottage is the 32-foot mast where all of our dipoles were attached.  Centre cottage was the operating cottage and sleeping quarters for Ken and Joe;  the cottage on the left was the “dining hall” and sleeping quarters for Ken & Ella, and for Howard.  Scott and Sue; Dick and Sandra both brought their RVs .

Our QSL card designed by Howard (VE1DHD)