December 2015

P5/3Z9DX in North Korea is in the log!  I can hardly believe it ... but ... this afternoon while working in the office/shack, Logger32’s jingle bells alerted me to a new one on DXcluster.  Dom P5/3Z9DX had been spotted on 21222 kHz by a kind Chinese ham (what a star!).   It took but a moment to click the colour-coded spot on the band map (thereby QSYing the K3 to the frequency, switching the radio to USB, and tuning the amp to its nearest preset giving about 800 watts out), grab my headphones and fist mike, and turn the rusty old tribander in the general direction of Korea (320 degrees from here).  As the beam swang inexorably around from South to East and on through North, I heard a man’s voice come out of the murk, calling weakly “See queue see queue - papa five stroke three zulu nine david x-ray - papa five stroke three zulu nine david x-ray”.  Wow!  Could it be true?  

Dom was due in Pyongyang this week.  He (and many others) had been trying for ages to gain permission for an amateur operation from the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, working patiently to convince the North Korean authorities that this operation would be good for international relations.  He announced in October that he had permission for a limited operation in January/February 2016, running 100 watts to a vertical, SSB only, on 3 HF bands.  We were told that, prior to the main trip, he had to take his radio over for an official government inspection, leaving it behind until Jan/Feb.  I guessed that ‘inspection’ might involve operating the radio briefly to demonstrate its function, sometime before christmas, and said exactly that to my friend Holger ZL3IO last night at a family meal out in town.

Naturally I started calling him, giving my callsign once phonetically then listening for a response.  Almost immediately a familiar VK voice popped up on frequency to ask “Do you think it’s real?”.  To be honest I wasn’t sure but rather than respond or get wound up by the intrusion, I simply continued calling on the tried and trusted WFWL principle - Work First Worry Later.  A moment later, I heard Dom say “zulu lima zulu lima” so I called him again, twice.  He came back with “zulu lima two?”, at which point I could feel my heart pumping fast with a massive adrenaline rush.  I called again maybe three or four times in succession with short listening breaks: Dom was listening patiently for me but just couldn’t catch my suffix, then I heard him say “zulu lima two - sorry, you’re too weak, try again in a few minutes” so I duly shut up to give others their chance.  His signal was coming and going in QSB, peaking about S3 but only for a few brief seconds at a time. 

The little voice in my head told me “Breathe deeply, Gary.  Calm down.  Hold your nerve.  QRX ... and listen harder.”

Timing my next call carefully, I waited for his CQ to coincide with a strengthening signal about two minutes later and called again. This time he got “zulu lima two victor foxtrot”, then “zulu lima two victor foxtrot bravo five nine”.  By now in a bit of a flap, I sensed this one almost slipping out my grasp so I tried “zulu lima two it-ah-lee - italy - italy - foxtrot bravo - three by three - three by three - zulu lima two it-a-ly foxtrot bravo” ... and joy-oh-joy he came right back, surfing a handy wave of QSB with “roger - zulu lima two india foxtrot bravo five nine - congratulations on the first QSO”.  And that was that.

A little involuntary yelp of joy escaped my lips as I hit the enter button to log it.

Within about 20 minutes of first hearing him, his signal submerged completely beneath the noise here.  I belatedly started the audio recorder and heard a couple of ZLs, VKs, JAs, BAs, YBs and at least one (presumably left coast) W getting through but I was straining to hear Dom rather than monitoring his pileup.  

As far as I could hear, the pileup was remarkably restrained and well-behaved given the extreme rarity of P5 (top of the most-wanted lists).  After he went split listening up 5, on his frequency I heard a couple of tuner-uppers, the odd wrong-VFO caller followed by a succinct admonition from a kop, oh and an unidentified VK saying “More power VK, more power - 5 kilowatts!” then chatting to a mate, telling him that there were lots of callers (!), but mostly it was just white noise with the odd partial syllable from Dom.  It was certainly not the sheer bedlam that we had been expecting, presumably because of the early activation, weak signals and 15m propagation at that time of day being limited to the Pacific region, but possibly because all the usual culprits were in the pileup, desperately calling for their new one.

As I compose these words five hours later, I’m still grinning like a Cheshire cat. Thanks Dom for the most wonderful christmas present.  Within a few days I hope to see the QSO listed on Club Log, and I’ll definitely be sending a few $ through OQRS as a grateful contribution towards Dom’s costs, and hoping for a rapid confirmation.  I may well join the pileups in Jan/Feb too but not on 15m, and not if I hear the deserving patiently (or desperately!) seeking their first ever P5 QSOs, which seems likely.

UPDATE: looks like it’s for real alright. According to DX World, Dom has been operating from a temporary setup with  a vertical lashed to a fence post among the government buildings in the capital city Pyongyang.  He came on air at 00:03z so this would have been one of his very first QSOs. He has high local noise, even higher on the other bands hence why he turned up on 15m.

FURTHER UPDATE: somehow Dom managed to compose a computer log under the watchful eyes of the DPRK armed guards and has uploaded it to Club Log already.