CAMEL TROPHY I was one of the Team members that provided communications for the Camel Trophy Expedition from remote parts of the world, including Sabah Malaysia, Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, Belize, El-Salvador. Twenty teams from around the world compete in a 1'000 Mile drive through Jungle and Desert terrain for the coveted Camel Trophy. Besides the teams there are a fleet of support crews in another twenty vehicles all followed by some 250 or so Press Radio and Television journalists. Our Job was to provide the local and global communications for these people - quite a task. Amateur Radio was not forgotten either - we always took a 25Mtr portable tower and selection of beam and wire antennas! Over the 5 Years I was involved we operated as G4SMC/8R1, G4SMC/9M6, G4SMC/LU,G4SMC/CE1, V31RD.
JY7SIX In 1994 I was invited to join the team of JY7SIX a Dxpedition to put Jordan on 6 Metres for the first time. Whilst there I also found time to operate under my own call on HF as JY8ED.
9M0C I was proud to be involved in the organising of this UK operation. We made over 65000 QSO's in just 12 days from Palau Layang Layang in the Spratly Islands. My main operating responsibility was the 160 and 80 metre LF bands. We gave many people their first ever 160 Metre qso, struggling through S9 plus QRN and noise on the Island.
D68C I am one of the five founder members of the “5 Star Dxpeditioners group” who organised the February 2001 D68C Dxpedition. Our first expedition had been to 9M0C Spratly Island. For D68C I was elected Antenna King with responsibilities for the choice, design and layout of the antenna systems. We took 30 operators and 7 tons of equipment in a 20ft container. The aim was to give everyone the chance to work D68C on all bands from 160 metres to 6 metres – even the little pistols. The Dxpedition was an outstanding success, and set the all time world record for number of qso’s achieved on a Dxpedition - in excess of 168,000!
3B9C The Rodrigues Island Dxpedition took place in March 2004. We made more than 153,000 qso's. I was pleased to once again take on the responsibility of “Antenna King” for this Dxpedition. Quite a job when you realise we had 16 stations on air at the same time with Arrays for 6 Metres EME through to 160 Metres LF.
On 160 metres we ran a Titanex V160S within metres of the sea. Our only problem was adjusting resonance for high and low tide. However as you can imagine the vertical worked superbly that close to the ocean.