This chart gives us a good idea why we had so much trouble making QSOs. The green plot on this HFTA graph shows the performance of the 5-element 20m yagi at 60 feet over the 330 degree path to the US, overlayed on the statistical arrival angle information. Note that the Figure of Merit for this antenna is 0.9. The light blue plot is the performance of the same 5-element yagi, also at 60 feet, but over flat terrain. FoM for this antenna is 12.1. This tells us we should expect to be an average of 11.2 db weaker into the US than if we had flat terrain. The red and dark blue plots show the improvement that might be achieved if the antenna could be raised to 120 and 180 feet, respectively. The best we can do is still almost 5 db down from the same antenna only 60 feet above flat terrain.

I really wanted to know why we had such a hard time hearing and working th US and Europe during the contest. This is the terrain profile at 330 degrees - toward the center of the US. Note the obvious - there is a rise of 400 feet over a distance of 2000 feet. This hill will clearly block signal paths to the US.

A Jibiru stork makes a close-up appearance just before I put the photo gear away . . .

Hyacinth macaw at twilight with a little fill flash to help . . .

A Toco toucan sighting! Very nice.

Wings drying in the warm sun.

Sunrise on the last day . . . 1

Nicely posed bird in a bush.

Monkey climbing the trees.

Stork in calm water.

Finally . . . this is not a bird. A fairly large monkey . . . she had a whole family she was caring for.

This little reptile was very shy and very fast! I had to chase him through the brush for about 15 minutes before I was able to capture this shot.

There were lots of these around the lodge. They seem to be quite similar to the common finches we see all the time at home in New England.

Flight . . . 7

Flight . . . 6

Flight . . . 5

Flight . . . 4

Flight . . . 3

Flight . . . 2

Ok . . . here are some flight shots that seemed to come out alright . . .

And a picture-perfect landing.

Stork in flight . . .

Tiger stork . . .

And off to a photo session with another photographer, no doubt.

Another successful takeoff . . .

Wood stork gets ready for flight . . .

Lots of these purple flowers.

Cattle near the lodge included this fella.

Storks on the move.

Could you pose any better for me?

Hyacinth macaw fluffs his wings.

Nice sharp Jabiru stork in flight . . .

Birds and sun.

Wow! That's a nice shot.

The sky was clear and the moon was beautiful.

Sunrise . . . 4

Sunrise . . . 3

Sunrise . . . 2

The next opportunity to take pictures after a beautiful sunset is an even more beautiful sunrise. We trekked to the "short" observation tower near the lodge to see how the wildlife awakens. This was the sunrise from that location . . .

And the birds watch as the sun drops behind below the horizon . . .

Sunset continues . . .

Oy . . . another sunset . . .

Capabara on the move.

Capabara were very plentiful around the lodge.

Does this stork fear the Caimans resting nearby?

They were everywhere . . .

The water in this particular was chock full of fish. And the caimans knew it.

Every stork picture can be interesting!

A hawk seeking prey . . .

A typical view of the flooded savannah. This shot was taken on the way to our horseback safari. The horse ranch is in the background.

Piranha make a nice snack . . .

Those holes at the nose end are just made for teeth to clear through!

I estimate a total of nearly 80 teeth!

A caiman rests - waiting for the next meal to swim by.

A tiger stork looks skyward.

I think this is called a tiger stork.

Dead trees are favorite perches for many, many species. They also make for very nice photo ops.

This brown guy was very nicely perched in the top of the bush.

A wood stork looking for a new perch.

My favorite photography challenge on this trip was capturing nice sharp images of birds in flight. I started by trying to get good images against the clear, blue sky background. The camera is able to focus on the subject much easier without distractions in the background. But . . . nice flight shots with interesting backgrounds make for more interesting photos. Lots to learn about how to take good pix!

Not sure what this one is . . .

Thanks to Dick Norton, N6AA, we now have a positive ID on this guy - a Buff-necked Ibis!

Hawks and falcons were plentiful.

This pretty bird was quite common, but is sure made a loud noise. These guys were helpful in getting us up for the 0600 daily breakfasts.

Hyacinth macaws were roosing just outside the lodge . . .

A nice sunset . . .

Sunset or sunrise?

A pair of hyacinth macaws on a fly-by. This photo needs a little tweaking . . . look for an improved version soon.

Capabara - the world's largest species of rodent.

The Caimans were everywhere . . . clearly a purpose-built animal.

A wood stork taking a stroll.

Jabiru stork - guarding the nest.

Now we have traveled to the Pantanal - region that is south of the Amazon. Rainfall during the rainy season flows southward from the Amazon region, and collects in the Pantanal. Wildlife is incredibly abundant all year round. Our visit was during the dry season. Plenty of wildlife to see. All of the wildlife photos in this section were taken in open areas - none of the animals are domesticated; they are all wild and free.

A gull flies by during our Florianopolis boat trip.

Horseback riding on the dunes.

More sunrise . . . all in Florianopolis at the resort on the beach.

Sunrise again . . .

Sunrise . . .

A sunrise off the beach at Costao do Santinho

This blog entry is from our lodge in the Pantanal. Unfortunately, the internet connection is not enough to upload even one photo.

We've had an incredible week here seeing all the wildlife of the region. Some of the photos will be posted here when I get back to Boston.

Will try to post when we can!

More when I have time! I have plenty of pix of the boat tour we went on and the awards ceremony and dinner. Please be patient. We are off to the Pantanal region in the morning. No idea what kind of internet access we will have.

The L4 made a good table for the L4B above.

Churasscuria!!!! Deliscioso!

Team in the shack.

This is the humongous soldering iron that we did connectors with. At one point, we wanted to add a wire to an 8-pin DIN, but this soldering iron would turn the connector to a blob of plastic, so we didn't efven try it.

More failed parts.

Gena operating the Mark V with the special laptop arrangement.

Exploded L4B power supply. It was nice to have that spare . . .

K1IR and UA9MA flank the PY2WC family [daughter missing from photo]

Master BBQ artist - Javier!

This was about 20 minutes after we started setting up. There was no station when we arrived, so we started to build one.

View of the backyard from the shack.

A couple more towers.

First glimpse of the house and a tower.

WX0B StackMatch used as basic antenna switch. Item failed 8 hours into the contest. Smoke was emitted.

UA9MA PY2WC K1IR

Ok, there is a lot to tell. Unfortunately, there will be no pictures until Sunday afternoon or night. I am in the open-air shack at PY2WC right now. Our contest call is PW2C. We are now nine and a half hours into the contest. We have about 450 contacts in the log. Those of you who know something about radio contests have already reached the correct conclusion. We are not doing very well. It has been a tough couple of days.

Here is a kind of log of our time since we left the Costao do Santinho resort in Florianopolis . . . times are local time in Brasil . . .

1100-0400 . . . Jim cannot get much sleep for some reason. So, it was easy to be up in plenty of time to get ready to fly to Sao Paulo with Gena [my partner from Siberia] and Waldir [our station host in Sao Paulo]. [shuttle photo]

0500 . . . We meet in the hotel lobby to get the shuttle to the airport. Although the shuttle is there, the driver is running on Brasilian time. We are supposed to leave at 0530, but we are still waiting at 0600. Getting nervous about missing the 0730 flight. We are expecting a 45 minute drive, at least. Finally, another passenger shows up. She looks like she might have been hired to do a single night job at the resort [you know what I mean, I hope]. We leave and she gets dropped off at an apartment along the way.

0700 . . . We finally arrive at the airport. Waldir checks us in and learns that our flight may not fly due to some airplane problem. But, there is good news a moment later. They will fly the plane to the other Sao Paulo airport - the one where Javier is NOT waiting for us. Waldir calls and lets Javier know he needs to meet us at the other airport - not good news for Javier, who is well aware of the kind of traffic he will encounter along the way. But he is aware of one more thing . . . Waldirs car, the one he is driving, is not permitted to be driven inside city limits today due to fuel consumption regulations. Javier will have to take the long way around. That is not minor in Sao Paulo . . .

0830 . . . Our flight arrives in Sao Paulo. Luggage intact. Javier only a few minutes away. He arrives and we load up the car and head into the traffic [loading car and Sao Paulo traffic photos].

1030 . . . Two hours later, we emerge from the traffic to head up into the mountains. Along the way, Javier and Waldir tell us all about the incredible pollution that is generated by the Sao Paulo population - 17,000,000 people. Much of it ends up in the air and in the river we are now passing as we head into the country. When the river goes over a waterfall near here, a kind of erie foam is created on top of the water. The foam covers much of the river for miles. It is incredible to look at [foam photos]. Good thing for you I cannot post the smell for you to experience. We will leave it at that.

1100 . . . Finally! The station is in sight. We have been driving up and through some nice mountains and suddenly the PY2WC towers are in sight. We pull into the driveway and hop out to see the home we will be staying at for the next three days. A quick tour confirms that it is a GREAT summer house. Equipped with multiple bedrooms, a pool, a fantastic barbeque pit [plus a wood-fired oven] and of course the separated ham shack. [photos of Waldirs beautiful country home here!]

In my next installment, I will give you the details of everything that went on during the setup time on Friday afternoon and evening.

73 for now!

It's 5:00 local time, and I am waiting in the resort lobby for my international partner UA9MA and our host to arrive. We will take a shuttle bus to the airport and fly back to Sao Paulo for the contest. I am pretty concerned about the station situation. We plan to run multi-single with a few stations setup. But, there is no computer network, no logging software installed, no internet or rf packet connection for dx spots, and the primary 20m antenna is not working; swr is infinite. I think we have a huge challenge in the next 24 hours before the contest starts. Waldir just arrived. we will be on our way soon.

Yesterday we had the opening ceremonies and a beautiful kickoff dinner. Unfortunately, I don't have time to post the photos now. I don't think that will be happening on the dial-up connection at the PW2C station. So . . . I expect that the next time you will see some updates here will be on Sunday when we return to the resort for the conclusion of WRTC 2006.

73 and GL to all in the contest!

Remember to work us on all bands and all modes . . . . .

PW2C PW2C PW2C PW2C PW2C PW2C PW2C PW2C PW2C PW2C PW2C PW2C

WA1S K2DO Sue

Who do you know? [3]

N6AA and K3LR considering the possibilities the weekend might bring!

More food!

Time to eat . . . again?

Who do you know? [2]

Who do you know? [1]

Sue in a nice trot along the beach.

Can you tell we were having a good time?

What!?!? A side trip to the Sahara? No . . . the horseback trail took us out to the beach via these beautiful sand dunes.

K2DO and N2GA joined us for this outing. It was a fantastic way to spend the afternoon.

Horseback riding seemed like a great thing to do on Wednesday aftrnoon. Here we are about to get Sue into the saddle.

My friend in the garden just outside the main restaurant.

I ran int Vitor PY2NY on the climb back down.

The flag that you could just make out from the base is quite visible when you are standing right next to it!

Nice views from way up there! I was a good 45 minute hike, and some parts were pretty steep.

So did K1ZM!

K1IR climbed the big mountain to capture the view.

Day 2 sunrise . . . very nice! [shot 5]

Day 2 sunrise . . . very nice! [shot 4]

Day 2 sunrise . . . very nice! [shot 3]

Day 2 sunrise . . . very nice! [shot 3]

Day 2 sunrise . . . very nice! [shot 2]

Day 2 sunrise . . . very nice! [shot 1]

Team LZ!

Trying out the WRTC Headquarters station PP5WRTC. The European pileup on 15m was a nice surprise!

One of the hardest working organizers I have ever seen - Thomas, PY2ZXU/SM0CXU. He has been doing a fabulous job

Sunrise over the ocean on day one.

Nice surf!

K1IR's wife Sue on the rocks by the sea.

K1ZM, PY5EG, EY8MM, K1LZ, LZ2XX

Familiar faces as soon as we arrived. (around the table L-R) SM3CER, LZ2??, K5ZD, Andy [K5ZD son], Sue [K1IR wife], Tom W2SC, Kathe Ka1JJR [W2SC wife], EY8MM LZ2CQ

Here is the sign welcoming us at the resort check-in desk. Very professional . . . a good sign!

People ar earriving every few hours. It's a great experience seeing famous contest ops from all over the world. The formal program starts this evening, so we expect everyone to be here by the end of the day.

Finally . . . the taxi is ready to help us start our journey.

Bags and Mark V ready to leave Sudbury, MA!

PY2WC and K1IR exchange gifts in Sao Paulo.

Florianopolis Airport welcomes us

The trip down was a little bit rough. The trouble started right in our driveway in Sudbury when Sue and I got into the taxi to go to the bus station for the airport. As the taxi driver was backing out of our driveway, we hit a tree - firmly! This must have been a coomon experience for this driver, because he just pulled forward a few feet, revealing the large gash at the base of the tree. He said, "Don't worry . . . I'm not." And away we went to the bus station. Upon arrival at the bus station, a quick inspection showed no damage had been inflicted on the 15-year old station wagon.

The Bus ride to Logan was smooth and fast - thanks to the Ted Williams tunnel.

Next, it was on to Florianopolis, Brasil - via Dallas and Sao Paulo. We had paid reservations and a document you may never have seen before called a Prepaid Ticket Advice. The ticket agent who was checking us in informed us that she could not issue our tickets because American no longer has a cross-ticketing agreement with Varig, our carrier from Sao Paulo to Florianopolis. American had cancelled that agreement just one day earlier due to the major financial crisis Varig is facing. After standing at the ticket desk for almost a full hour, the problem was resolved with a change to another airline - TAM.

Bags were checked - including the FT-1000MP I was bringing to our host for the contest, Waldir PY2WC.

Next issue was a very late departure out of Boston. Various delays caused us to leave about an hour late. So, our late arrival into Dallas would make our connection to Sao Paulo very difficult.

In Dallas, we ran like hell. And, we made the plane. Last ones on-board. But, we were convinced there was no way our bags could have made it, too. Nine hours and 38 minutes later [an overnight flight] we arrived in Sao Paulo. This was a good flight with only a few sleep interruptions from a loud snorer and a few frustrated babies.

Our luggage did arrive with us . . . this was great news. And passing through immigration and customs in Sao Paulo was a breeze. Waldir's new FT-1000MP Mark V was safely in the country . . . duty-free!

Our hosts, who live in the Sao Paulo area, were kind enough to meet us at the airport and take possession of the Mark V. After exchanging some small welcome gifts, we sat down for a nice Brasilian coffee with Waldir and Javier. And then on to Florianopolis, where we were met by WRTC's designated tour company for a shuttle ride to the hotel. Arrival at the hotel was at around 2pm local time in Brasil. the journey was finally over.

We checked into our nice room with lots of amenities - including high-speed internet - but soon found that we were not happy with the location. We elected to take another room with a nice ocean view, but we were surprised to find out that there was no internet in that room. So . . . all my posts will be from the hotel lobby via a wireless connection instead of the convenience of our room.

Lots of guys have been coming in since we arrived and we had a nice dinner with WRTC Chairman PY5EG and many others. Many sightings of famous contesters have already been recorded. Including lots of YCCC'ers.

Oms and Krassy celebrate life in Boston

Prep Started a Long Time Ago

Waaaaay back in 2005 or maybe earlier, I started thinking about WRTC 2006. It didn't take much to get that thinking started, since my good friends, Krassy K1LZ and Oms PY5EG, were already working hard on the Brasilian version of WRTC.

How to take part in WRTC? Well, traditionally there are several different roles you can have at WRTC: Competitor [a selected team member in the two-man team competition, Referee [an official who makes sure the rules are followed by the Competitors] or Spectator [a visitor who attends to observe and enjoy the event]. It didn't take long for me to figure out that what I really wanted was a participating role, as opposed to a role as an onlooker. But . . . I was not going to qualify for the two-man team competition with my contesting resume. So, that left the option of applying for a referee spot. But, the Brasilians must have been thinking about contesters like me . . . they came up with a new idea for 2006. They created a new operating category - the Multi-National, Multi-Single category. This category was designed to give more opportunities for qualified ops to take part in the contest from Brasil, and with my experience and achievements as a Multi-Single Team Leader, it was perfect for me. So, I applied.

Good news was received some months later when I was notified that I'd been placed on a MS MN team. Our station host is Waldir PY2WC and my international partner is Gena UA9MA. We will also have the assistance of Javier, Waldir's assistant, and several other PY ops.

For the past month or so, we've been doing some planning for the operation. We started out with our travel schedules, and eventually worked our way into discussions about the station setup and our plans for operating.

To augment the station, I am going to bring along a Yaesu FT1000MP for Waldir's station. He also has a 756Pro and lots of other gear. The station has two ttowers with monobanders in place.

My wife Sue and I will be departing Boston for Brasil on Sunday July 2, 2006. We will head immediately to the center of all WRTC activities - Florianopolis - a coastal island city in the Brasilian state of Santa Caterina. We will enjoy the hospitality of the Brasilian hams who have put together this fantastic event through Friday July 7, 2006 when we will fly out to PY2WC in Sao Paulo for the contest itself. When the contest is over on Sunday, we will watch the World Cup Final Match - likely to include Brasil as one of the competitors - and head back to Florianopolis for announcement of the WRTC winners and the closing ceremonies.

Sue and I have extended our trip to include an excursion to the Pantanal - one of the largest swampy wildlife refuges in the world. This area includes a large portion of the Brasilian state of Mato Grosso. We will be staying at an 'eco-lodge' in the region and taking part in a variety of activities that allow observation and interaction with the wildlife of the Pantanal. I am bringing photo gear, and plan to come home with lots of photos.

So, today's Friday and we're in the process of closing out the last of our work commitments before we can get focused on packing and preparing for the trip.

See you from Florianopolis!