Of course some stations will not find one or several of their QSO’s on.

To these hams I say “don’t worry!”. Every situation will be checked with big care. It had been possible, in the huge pile ups, that some mistakes happened.

However, know also that FT5GA was pirated a lot of times, even on the scheduled DXpedition frequencies.

These malevolences are not of our fact, and we ask the community to understand us if some QSO’s will be rejected , for having not be found in the log.

73′s et merci, Didier, F5OGL

Hi all

We want to thank :

First Didier, F5OGL, of course, otherwise nothing had been possible. His great patience, and relationship mastery with the HQ both in Paris and Saint Denis de la R?Šunion, and the Civilian authorities. Thanks also Didier, for having trust on us.

Rafik, F5CQ , the dxpedition webmaster , and also for the daily updating of the online log and for the complaints treatment.

Jeff F6AOJ, pilote, who maintained at our disposal his great technical knowledge. Thanks also for the statistics. Thanks for having answered with humour on his personnal website, to defend us against the grizzly OM who never, at least one time in their life , left their armchair, except, maybe , to go sometimes to the toilets. THE CREW HAVE APPRECIATED

The KOP TEAM F6KOP (F4AJQ F6AML F4TTR F4EVR F5AGB F9IE and may be other whose callsigns have been forgotten) , otherwise nothing about the gear and technical help could have be possible,. They helped us from the beginning in 2004, . We thank them for their help include their effort to go along us to the airport. They did so, on front of numerous French and foreign Hams reluctances. We think the real Ham Spirit is their, they are an exemple for all,included the French community.

All of the previous , both Servicemen and hams who were at a time or another on the list of operators and who did leave the crew for Service reasons, like F5RQQ F5TLN F5PHW F5PTM F5CQ F5CW F5JKK and many other.

All of you who, in the background, helped us inspite of the difficulties which appeared all this aventure long.

We hope we have won our challenge, in spite of the Service duties and our more or less habits of each of us in this kind of traffic. Nobody is perfect and those who never did will never know and will never be mistaken.

The goal of 50 000 QSO??s was reached by a 5 operators crew, with two and sometimes three stations. We think It seems correct for a spare time activity. Of course with two more operators, it could have been possible to traffic 24 hours a day, and why not to break the K5D results, but the Service has decided differently.

Freddy has now to sort the pictures and the videos, a joint job with Florence??s job who made the dxpedition report. A documentary movie will be realised, to be came out for the next Clipperton DX Club Convention.

To all of you, Thank you and once again Thank you, see you soon on the air from Metropolitan France.

73 from FT5GA operator??s : Yves F5PRU – Bernard F5LPY – David F8CRS – Philippe F4EGS – Freddy F5IRO

I like to thank you all for the contacts-you fellows did a great job ! and thousands thank you all for your efforts, all time new country for me and many others, these folks saying things should be in your shoes, your Jobs come first then amateur radio take them as a grain of salt!

Take Care men, have a safe journey home and a pleasant trip-God Speed.

Paul K8PG

—–

Tonight, the crew continue to traffic with 4 stations on the air, untill 2100 utc + / -

On October 7th morning, dismantling of a complete station and 2 spiderbeams.

Exceptionnally, and for the Ham Community we will do a last effort, with traffic until tomorrow 0900 utc, with two stations, which will be found, propagation permitting, from 40 to 12m, in CW, then SSB, then RTTY and again CW, SSB, RTTY etc …

On Wednesday in the afternoon, the two last stations will be dismantled.

If the plane flight plan is again delayed, (no more information yet), we will be ready to continue the traffic with only one station, until the departure, which is scheduled on Thursday at 1100utc.

Leaving the Gloriosos, after a touch and down on Mayotte, we will arrive in the evening to Saint Denis, Reunion Island.

On next weekend, we will clean and pack the gear all the two days long, making it ready for its return to Metropolitan France.

Via F5NQL??s mailbox, Maurice, Internet communication for FT5GA.

Yesterday, the crew, while in full pile up on 20SSB, 24CW and 28rtty had to stop suddenly because of technical reasons concerning the power supply.

Yesterday evening the op??s were active again but this morning the traffic had been cut again.

Now 4 station are active; the 4th was put under repairs and after some DiY, it??s on the air again. These 4 stations will be on the air until the last moment and as longer as possible.

The crew must dismantle the 80 and 160 area farm included the K9AY, this morning. The plane which will come with the new reserve, is awaited a day early as scheduled, and the air track and its surroundings, are to be cleaned of any obstacle.

It could be possible that all of the antennas have to be dismantled to day and the traffic, could be ceased, in such a case, this evening of course.

We will inform you of any change , if it??s happened.

73

Didier, F5OGL, FT5GA team leader.

Some zones are still to be worked, if the propagation will come with us.

So the team will pay some attention on 80m CW to the USA, and also on 160m, even if these bands are very very noisy.

Jeff, F6AOJ, EU Pilot is writing the strategy lines for the last week, according to these considerations.

Some friends from over the pond have indicated the presence of numerous pirates using the FT5GA callsign near the team band plan, so we ask you to check the daily updated online log, about your QSO??s. We don??t understand the reasons which cause these strange actions, maybe are they a little bit neurotic?

Instead of this presence of pirates, our friends, the crew members, are not annoyed at all.

We know also that a lot of friends haven??t yet contacted FT5GA. It will be done all that it??s possible on Gloriosos to QSO??ed them at least one time, during this last week.

The pilots, instead of their own job restraints, are receiving a 500 message range a day. They have to read them, to work them, and also to answer, for the most part.

We are receiving from the world, observations and FT5GA??s signal reports from friends. We thank them for the good help.

When all the received information are compiled and analysed, the traffic strategy is sent to FT5GA.. So daily, the crew can make the plan of the day ?? Traffic, Service.

73

Didier, F5OGL

Jeff/F6AOJ, EU pilot, has accepted to write some words.

FT5GA team is only 5 young completely unexperimented op’s in low-band traffic, even not DXers, they are only pilupers, on the wrong side of the island and with antennas away from sea costing, which means 10 to 20db signal loss

Beach access is prohibited for it??s a Turtles reproduction area.

But FT5GA is on the air ! It was this or nothing after 5 years of lobbying, so …. ?

We are not responsible for:
- SFI = 70
- poor S/N ratio in the evening
- and legions of QRMers
- low band peak from 2 to 5 in the morning EU local time
- power availability
- operator avalaibility

Radio is only 2/3 of time. 1/3 is job as military.
We dont have control on sharing time, and local organisation makes number of activities on the island for all residents ( 100% ) at the same time. It is a compromise.

In balance it is:

- a long expedition
- low cost cost operation for an very isolate place and nobody complains about .

In the evening the propagation is quite poor, because this dates are very early in the season and noise level reduces the signal to noise ratio and so many peole who are listening nothing are permanatly making deliberate QRM and it is just time lost.

So up to you, you have until Oct 8th to try again.

Pilots received about 500 requests a day, for ultra selective operation.

We can??t and we don??t want to manage in that way(planning prog require a Cray computer us in back office, and operators. We are sure to be in line with DXCC concept.

Remind, DXCC is a competion, and expeditions not a minium public service for everyone.
Dxpeditions working via list operation or equivalent selective mode should not be accepted by dxcc desk.

If a red carpet is spread between dx and dxer??s what is a QSO value? nothing more than contact via MSN.

We hope 35000 qso’s today in the log, which made 35000 smiles.

73 Jeff F6AOJ Eu-Pilot

After a good CQWW DX RTTY contest, the team has come back to the traffic instructions, written masterfully by Jeff/F6AOJ, using the usual propagation studying tools and Pilots reports.

Last night a Spiderbeam antenna felt down. Fortunately nothing was broken, and all have been set up without any problem.

We got from Yves-Michel/F5PRU, the following crew observation about the low bands:

As it was expected the 16om band is very poor. The QRN is very important.

On 40 and 80m, the propagation is not particuarly good and the reception is poor because of this QRN.

This noise is probably due to the almost permanent presence of thunderstorms, in the Gloriosos and Comoros archipelago areas.

About the higher bands, the crew focuses at the time on 10, 12 and 15 meters. The results in the past days were good, particularly on 10 where we found, at our surprise, very good conditions

In the morning, all the windows to Oceania, East/South-east Asia, Africa, South America and the west coast of north Ameria will be visited.

—-

From Didier/F5AOJ and Jeff/F6AOJ

We are very sad to observe the big activity of the Pirate Crew, around the FT5GA frequencies. Some hams do not know what Pirate means.
Please check the log and try again, if your QSO is not in it. The pirate crew cheated you.

From Rafik/F5CQ, webmaster:

Last Log updating as follow : http://www.clublog.org/charts/?c=FT5GA
Last QSO : 28/09 at 15:43 UTC
Total QSOs : 29701
Unique Callsigns : 10133

Included the CQWW DX RTTY contest log.

73

Maurice, F5NQL, Internet communication for FT5GA.

The FT5GA crew continues to try satisfying the international Ham radio community.

The propagation is very changeable, in these equinox and higher sunspots times.

Two rigs fell down some days ago. Now one is again in order but the second have to be repaired when coming back home, because of new parts missing on Gloriosos.

By the way, three stations are on the air as often as possible.

On next weekend, the crew will enter the CQ WW DX RTTY contest, in Multi/single class.

The two other stations CW/SSB will be also on the air.

We have now 14 days of traffic to do . We hope more quiet pile ups for these two weeks.

The logs are received at F5CQ??s every evening and uploaded in the row at : http://www.clublog.org/charts/?c=FT5GA

The operators have confirmed to us once again the loss of time with unruly operators. Some other seem death for they have to repeat very often their callsigns to get confirmation of the QSO.

Listen the operators sending information or instructions !

About the QSOs/QSL, Didier, F5OGL, team leader and Rafik/F5CQ webmaster are receiving complaints about wrong callsigns or more. As it was said in a previous message, no answer will be give to these messages.

If there are problems, they will be solved when the future QSL??ing operation after FT5GA return.

We say once again that the cuts, which are systematically denounced on the clusters, are service imperatives, for maintenance. During these times, no AC nor DC is available, and at these moments the operators are doing service job, especially doing the generator maintenance.
These mandatory cuts are used also by the crew, during their very short spartime to study the Traffic instructions written upon pilots observations. It??s essential to make the most of you satisfie.

73

Didier, F5OGL, FT5GA team leader and QSL manager.

From Maurice, F5NQL:

Yesterday about the pirates who make QSO??s on the FT5GA frequencies , even with the same callsign, a typo was made . You had to read : ??so we cannot consider their QSO??s indeed.? , and not ??we can?.

Apologises!

73

Informations via Maurice, F5NQL, Communications Internet par mail

for FT5GA.

1st) from RAFIK, F5CQ, webmaster

The log book is online and updated at 2009-09-21 04:17utc, last QSO recorded among a total of 12699

The 485 missing 40m CW QSO??s, in the preview updating have been corrected and merged in the database.
http://www.clublog.org/charts/?c=FT5GA

We regret to confirm that pirates are operating with the FT5GA callsign on or around the original frequencies, so we can consider their QSO??s indeed.

If your QSO is not online, it will be quite sure you have been cheated, by those bad boys. We suggest you retry contacts.

73 de Rafik, F5CQ – Webmaster

———

2nd) From Didier, F5OGL, team-leader.

Following some complaints forwarded by Lee, ZL2AL, about the SSTV sub-band in the IARU band plan, the crew has confirmed that they never listen between 14240 to 14260.

The frequencies used are those announced at : http://glorieuses2008.free.fr/index-f.htm and the splits follow strictly the IARU bandplan for the zone.

They cannot be responsible of the indicipline of some operators, sending too high or too low or of those who are jamming and jamming the bands.

73

Didier, F5OGL.

Informations via Maurice, F5NQL, Communications Internet par mail

for FT5GA.

Thanks for considering, keep up the good work, and enjoy!

—

Didier/F5OGL had some difficulties to join the team by satellite cell phone. The link was not reliable enough, with numerous cuts. The logs were transmit not very easily.

The last log uploaded at : http://www.clublog.org/charts/?c=FT5GA contains 10416 QSO and the last one was recorded on September 20th at 11:04 utc.

About 500 QSO are missing, for the date/time are not correct. I??ve not uploaded them to avoid disturbing on the ‘best time to work FT5GA’ page.

I??m waiting for some more information about the time track; when corrected, these 500 QSO will be add on the logsearch page.

I??m receiving a lot of complaints about QSO??s made on 40m and 17m.

After checking, I discovered that a lot of them were not made with the FT5GA crew, but were QSO??s with pirate stations who are jamming the bands.

73 de Rafik, F5CQ Webmaster

*************

From DIDIER, F5OGL, Gloriosos 2009 ?? FT5GA ?? team leader, September 21th

Today there will be an AC cut of several hours to do the maintenance on the only one generator active on the island. Unfortunately, the second broke down at the end of the last week.

The crew will spend this time to check the antennas and reinforce their guys and anchored.

Two of the four transceivers are temporarily out of order ; the operators will do the maintenance of them also.

They have tried the 160m band but the conditions and the propagation are atrocious.

Tomorrow, Jeff, F6AOJ will transmit, some new traffic instructions to use the more efficient propagation tracks by band and continent.

The satellite digit link use seems to be better from this morning , so we will try to upload the logs every day.

For the Digital fans, F8CRS will put FT5GA on the air during the next CQ WW DX RTTY (Sept 26&27).

Even if the discipline becomes better, the crew members inform that too much time is lost repeating the callsigns heard with holders who do not confirm or who confirm after several times. Please listen to the operators.

73

F5OGL Didier ?? Team leader de Glorieuses 2009-09-21

Informations via Maurice, F5NQL, Communications Internet par mail

for FT5GA.

1st) check you are in the log. The log could be put online several days after your QSO)

2nd) You can try to make another QSO.

3rd) On your QSL card, add a little post-it with your observations and send it to the QSL manager.

Claimings by mail to F5CQ and other inquiries to FT5GA crew ( included F5OGL, operators on Gloriosos, pilots and F5NQL will not be answered.

About the propagation :

Bernie, W3UR informed us that Bob, N6TV has put online on his website the propagation tables calculated by Dean N6BV : http://www.kkn.net/~n6tv/ft5ga_prop.pdf.

Logs:

Rafik (who is also in Strasbourg) wait for a new batch of logs today, which he will put online as soon as possible.

That??s all folks for to-day from F5NQL who will drive to home from Strasbourg, where he attended yesterday the Clipperton DX Club Convention..

73

Maurice, F5NQL, Internet communication for FT5GA.

On September 17, 2009

Yesterday, the day was devoted to assembling solid air. The wind is strong enough there. The three Spiderbeams are operational and the V40 and V80.
Having started its activity around 19:00 on 30 meters and 20 meters, the team managed to find a good spread on the U.S., which was not a foregone conclusion. The spread was excellent on Europe.
During the night, the spread has been very changeable and zero to 03h00 and then returned to 04h30 on 40 meters.
This morning, two stations were active on 18 SSB and 21 CW. Other operators have set up the V160 and all K9AY.
This afternoon, three stations were active on 24 CW, 21 SSB and 21 CW.
The first logs arrived and found at: http://www.clublog.org/charts/?c=FT5GA
A priori, they will be uploaded every day or every two days.
Remember their hours of mandatory cuts.
That night, they expected to be active on 30, 40, 80 and 160 meters under the propagation observed.

73′s F5OGL Didier – team leader Glorious 2009

73′s de Didier, F5OGL – Gloriosos 2009 team leader