Kalaupapa 2011 DXpedition

Kalawao County

August 25-29, 2011

From August 25 to 29, 2011, five Oahu hams visited Kalaupapa peninsula and settlement on Molokai to participate in the 2011 Hawaii QSO Party, activating one of the smallest and rarest counties in the U.S., Kalawao County.

Joe Speroni AH0A, Kimo Chun KH7U, Ron Hashiro AH6RH, Bev Yuen AH6NF, and Jim Yuen WH6GS, all members of the Ko`olau Amateur Radio Club, spent many months planning the trip not only to operate there, but to assist the National Park Service and Department of Health staffs in setting up ham radio emergency communications capability.

During the tsunami alert following the earthquake in Japan on March 11, 2011, residents of Kalaupapa had to be evacuated in the middle of the night to higher ground on the peninsula with little connection with the outside world. This sparked the interest in having ham radio as a backup communications plan. Although some residents were hams in the 1940-50's, and possibly into the 1980s, there have been no hams living there in recent years.

Working with the FCC and ARRL, Joe AH0A was able to conduct a remote-VE test session.  Three Kalaupapa staff are now newly-licensed ham radio operators:  Steve Prokop WH6DTS (General), Lionel Kaawaloa WH6DTZ (Tech) and Rafael Torres WH6DUP (Tech).

For the HI QSO Party, we set up on the Paschoal Hall (auditorium) lanai in the center of town with vertical antennas in the open field next to the hall.  All antennas were mounted on collapsible fiberglass poles :
    * SteppIR, BigIR vertical (10-40 meters)
    * 20 meter vertical dipole (home brew)
    * All band vertical (10-40 meters)(homebrew by NH7XL)
    * Off-center-fed dipole at about 25 feet
Our rigs were:
    * Kenwood, TS-480SAT transceiver with an Elecraft KPA500 amplifier.
    * Icom IC-7200 transceiver, running barefoot.
    * We kept another Kenwood TS-480 as backup.

Both stations were on the air Friday afternoon, ready for the HI QSO Party at 6:00 PM Friday evening, operating multi-multi as KH7Q.  20 meters was open to the mainland, then later to Europe.  Forty meters was only marginal.  By about 11 PM the bands were slow so we shut down for some rest.  But, we were back before dawn on Saturday morning and on 20 meters for the morning opening to Europe and the US mainland.  Fifteen meters opened later in the morning/afternoon, but there was not much on 10 meters.  We worked both SSB and CW during the day from our main station with the amp.  The second station running barefoot was less effective.

We encouraged residents to visit our stations and to see what ham radio was all about.  A couple of them even operated.   Thanks to those who were calling us for being patient with these inexperienced operators.   We always had someone there to explain what the operators were doing.  And, each of our stations had 2 headphones and external speakers to accommodate guests.  One of the residents who had not been on the radio for more than 40 years took the mic and was delighted to again be on the air after so many years.

We finished with more than 850 QSOs, contacting 47 US states and 42 countries as well as all continents except Antarctica.  We were on 15, 20 and 40 meters, and a little on 10 meters, mostly SSB, but also CW.  We took time to attend church services at historic Siloama church, spent a few hours fishing and walked around the town to take a few photos. On Monday, we installed two UHF/VHF radios in vehicles, checked connectivity with repeaters on other islands and worked with the new hams there to get them on the air and familiar with their new equipment.

Although our total number of QSOs was lower than we would have liked,  we were pleased with our overall results.  We left with plans to come back to assist the residents with more ham radio training and to activate Kalawao County again soon.  Hopefully, it will not be long before we get back.

We are grateful to the staff of the Kalaupapa National Historical Park and the State of Hawaii, Dep’t of Health for their assistance and hospitality.   Without their support, this trip would not have been possible.  Also, thanks to the residents of Kalaupapa for their warm welcome.  We also thank numerous KARC members and others who provided equipment, advice and assistance to the group.

QSL via KH7Q or AH6NF (QSL manager for KH7Q).


Bev AH6NF
Jim WH6GS
Sept, 2011


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