213DX/1 Welcome to "the story" of 213DX/1 Market Reef. Team The team consist of 13DX028 Niko, 47DX002 Soren and 47DX101 John. Through years we have been good friends often in chat with each others at radio, internet or telephone. History In 2001 Niko and John took part of 213AT/DX with our 4 Swedish friends: 21AT011 Erik, 21AT014 Loic, 21AT116 Chris and 21AT139 Patrick in the DX-team "Shadow DXers team". Later in 2001 John and Niko left AT to join DX. A change of groups doesn't kill real friendship, and therefore we are very happy still to take part of Shadow DXers Team. In the weekend 8/7/2005 to 10/7/2005 Shadow DXers Team celebrated 5 years of anniversary in the summerhouse of 21AT139 Patrick. One of the many events during the weekend was a planned trip to Market Reef. Friday evening we made the info mail about the activation, but as there is no internetconnection at the summerhouse the mail was sent later the night by Loic from his home QTH. Read the mail here. The trip Due to expected change of weather, limited time and space+weight limits at the boat taking us to Market Reef, we decided that the trip should be a 3 hour stay at the Reef. We had a speed boat ready for us with the impressive max. speed at around 24 knots/hour (=approx. 42 km/h). We arrived at the Reef at approx. 07:40 UTC. On air Around 08:00 UTC our station was operational, having first contact with 19DX121 at 27.480. Unfortunately propagation was very bad, so in order to save the batterys life we decided to shut down the station and make some sight seeing (visiting the buildings). Around 08:15 we had a good opening to Holland, working some of the Dutch stations. We used approx. 30 watts working at 480 and 70-80 watts when calling at 555. This change of power was of course in order to save battery power. Propagation was not as strong as we hoped and we saw many "strange" skips. Signals jumping from S0 to S9 within one second, and signals booming at our station and not reachable at 213AT/DX only 150 meters from us (like propagation to 19 at the beginning). We also saw many examples about 213AT/DX working for instance 26, 68, 108 and 29 - and these divisions we almost did not listen. At the end it seems that our "QTH" at the SouthEast part of the Reef gave other openings than 213AT/DX close to the buildings... Even though the distance was only around 150 meters. But we will not complain: The weather was perfect, our company were fantastic, and it was a great experience for all of us. Close station We continued to call at 555 and 480, working a total of 92 stations until 10:15 UTC, where the battery was "flat" and we had to close the station as the weather was changeing (more wind coming). Cooperation: It is an important part of DXRC Vision to cooperate with our friends from other groups. Also when DX'ing. Normally we ask other teams for TRUE coorperation, which to us means: ONE log and ONE QSL-card. We belive this is the best, as we then avoid the strongest stations to call both activations in order to achive both clubs QSL-cards. Having only one log and one QSL-card opens the possibility for "smaller guns" also to get in log - which we like a lot. Unfortunately this trip didn't allow us to work with one log and one QSL-card, as our AT friends HQ does not support this idea !! Back.