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[John Rayfield]

Thank you, Marty. I am still confused about the timing of the tests but assume more information about that will be forthcoming. Thanks again.

He was on at 04:00 UTC (used to be called GMT).  That's 11:00pm Central Daylight Time.

I was able to copy Lee, but he wasn't real strong.  The propagation between my location and Nikumaroro just wasn't good enough for him to copy me, especially through the pileup of other, much stronger, stations.  I was mobile, so my antenna wasn't nearly as efficient as a longer antenna would be.

John Rayfield, Jr.
W0PM
Springfield, MO

[Friend Weller]

John,

Was Lee working AM or SSB?  With my old Zenith I heard several SSB folks (one really loud and several fainter signals) during 0400 UTC but being my old Zenith, it won't do SSB so all I can do is try and pick out something intelligible.  I have a friend in Ames, IA that is trying to hear Lee as well (on a much nicer, newer, neater rig).

One odd thing I heard was the sudden appearance (re-transmission?) of WWV from 0432 to 0450-ish at 14 mcs.  Came complete with a chirp as the carrier came up, overall not very loud nor stable, and certainly not "official" WWV but right there at 14 mcs.

[Jim M Sivright]

John, if my calculations were correct, I should have heard the broadcasts at 11:oo pm CDT.(Texas time) But when Bob Harmon posted his message that he was listening, it was just after 10:00pm CDT (I think he is in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which is CDT) I don't know if I was an hour late or what. Can someone explain?
Are they going to continue broadcasts for another several days?

Jim S.

[Greg Daspit]

John, if my calculations were correct, I should have heard the broadcasts at 11:oo pm CDT.(Texas time) But when Bob Harmon posted his message that he was listening, it was just after 10:00pm CDT (I think he is in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which is CDT) I don't know if I was an hour late or what. Can someone explain?
Are they going to continue broadcasts for another several days?

Jim S.

The forum clock is on an hour earlier time zone than Iowa

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

Thank you, Marty. I am still confused about the timing of the tests but assume more information about that will be forthcoming. Thanks again.

My pleasure.

It's a great website!

You have to read the dailies and calculate GMT to figure out what is going on, I think.

June 13: "Radio note: There was no radio work last night as there was a glitch in the antenna. Lee expects to try today at 0400 GMT."

But when is "today"?  What time is it?  Beats me.  Someone more adept at figuring out the dateline and GMT offsets probably knows.

[Bruce Thomas]

In a recording on a webpage for DX-World, about 4.5 minutes in length, Lee Paynter can be heard operating T31LP at about 04:00 a.m. EDT today (6/14). Towards the end of the recording there's a very clear QSO with N0UN in Colorado.

4:00 a.m. EDT today was 8:00 a.m. UTC(GMT) today and 8:00 p.m. today on Tarawa, according to this date/time converter.

[Bill Mangus]

This site:

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/sunearth.html

may help visualize day/night and time for your location and Niku.  No lat/long lines but you can get pretty close.  I've found it helpful.

Here's another one with lat/long lines:

http://www.worldtimezone.com/datetime.htm

[John Rayfield]

John, if my calculations were correct, I should have heard the broadcasts at 11:oo pm CDT.(Texas time) But when Bob Harmon posted his message that he was listening, it was just after 10:00pm CDT (I think he is in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which is CDT) I don't know if I was an hour late or what. Can someone explain?
Are they going to continue broadcasts for another several days?

Jim S.

There seems to be a lot of confusion here and it doesn't seem to be getting cleared up, so let me see if I can help.

I'm located in Springfield, MO, so I'm on Central Daylight Time.

According to the information here:  http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Niku8/dailies/niku8dailies.html#n611, Lee would be on the 20 meter band, between 14.280 Mhz and 14.310 Mhz, at 04:00 GMT (GMT is the 'old' name.  Now it's called UTC (Universal Coordinated Time)).

04:00 GMT (UTC) is the same as 11:00 pm Central Daylight Time, 12:00 Midnight Eastern Daylight Time, 10:00 pm Mountain Daylight Time, and 9:00 pm Pacific Daylight Time.

Last night (6-13-15, in Missouri), I was able to hear Lee on 14.295 Mhz, SSB, at between about 11:00 pm to 11:30 pm, Central Daylight Time.  I had to run a service call (I work on commercial communications systems for a living) and I have an HF transceiver in my truck.  I tried working him, but could not, although I could hear him.  There were a LOT of other stations attempting to work him, too, with much stronger signals into Nikumaroro, which covered me up completely.  I'm sure that many of those other stations were running a lot of transmitter power, at least 1000 watts, and probably more.  My HF transceiver runs a maximum of 100 watts.  The propagation just wasn't very good, either, between my location and Nikumaroro, although it seemed to be improving slightly, as the time neared 11:30 pm CDT (which is when I reached my destination and had to leave the radio).  On an RS scale (Readability and Signal Strength, from 1 to 9, weakest to strongest), I would have given him a report of 54 to 55, with quite a bit of static on my end.

Lee stated that, currently, he's limited to the 20 meter band (14 Mhz), but that he plans on getting up antennas for the 75 meter band (3.5 to 4.0 Mhz) and the 40 meter band (7.0 to 7.3 Mhz) sometime over the next few days.

John - W0PM
Springfield, MO

[Clarence Carlson]

I also heard Lee starting at 11 pm CDT. The signal was somewhat weak but very readable here and I heard him make contacts into Florida and Puerto Rico. He mentioned that he would be also trying the 80 and 40 meters bands later, so there will be other frequencies to look for at some point. Several contacts asked if he was going to work "split" in the future. If he does this will mean that he will be transmitting on one frequency, as an example 14.285 and will likely be "listening up" about 5 kHz or about 14.290. This moves the folks calling him away from his primary frequency making him easier to copy. In the ham radio world his presence on Nikumoro is a Very Big Deal. For most hams, this represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a contact with the island, so expect bedlam whenever he is on in the future.

[Jim M Sivright]

There still  seems to be some misunderstandings/miscalculations of the broadcast time issue. I am going to try and simplify and if I have my facts wrong, please correct me. First of all, 04:00GMT is 04:00 GMT, the days do not matter, it is the time of the 24 hour day. And since island time is GMT +12 all you have to do to figure out local island time, you can just change the am to pm,(04:00 is 4 hours after midnight, similar to military time.). The broadcasts are scheduled at 04:00GMT, which translates to 4:00 pm island time(+12 hours).  Now, from there one has to calculate how many hours to your location. The way I calculate, 4:00pm island time is going to be 11:00pm CDT(Texas) 12:00midnight EDT and since I guess forum time appears to be on MDT, it would be 10:00pm forum time. Bob Harmon who is on CDT(Iowa) reported hearing broadcasts at just after 10:pm which bears out my facts.
I meant this to simplify, I hope it helps.

Jim S.
#1938R

[John Rayfield]

I also heard Lee starting at 11 pm CDT. The signal was somewhat weak but very readable here and I heard him make contacts into Florida and Puerto Rico. He mentioned that he would be also trying the 80 and 40 meters bands later, so there will be other frequencies to look for at some point. Several contacts asked if he was going to work "split" in the future. If he does this will mean that he will be transmitting on one frequency, as an example 14.285 and will likely be "listening up" about 5 kHz or about 14.290. This moves the folks calling him away from his primary frequency making him easier to copy. In the ham radio world his presence on Nikumoro is a Very Big Deal. For most hams, this represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a contact with the island, so expect bedlam whenever he is on in the future.

I've never run split mode, but just figured out that it's extremely easy on my Yaesu FT920.  Cool.  I'm ready!  :-)

John - W0PM
Springfield, MO

[Susan Powers]

Thank you, Jim, John, Marty and Bruce! Your explanations have really been helpful. Not sure I will be able to hear Lee on what I have but just knowing others can pick him up is so exciting. I hope all of you who do hear the transmissions will keep the rest of us informed. Again, this is so exciting!

[Col McGowan]

Hello to all

I run the DX-World website and think this may be of interest:

http://www.dx-world.net/t31lp-nikumaroro-island-oc-043/

After about 2:00 mins you an hear Lee well

http://audioboom.com/boos/3279876-t31lp-20ssb

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

Hello to all

I run the DX-World website and think this may be of interest:

http://www.dx-world.net/t31lp-nikumaroro-island-oc-043/

After about 2:00 mins you an hear Lee well

http://audioboom.com/boos/3279876-t31lp-20ssb

Wow!  Takes a trained ear to pick out what is going on. 

Nice recording.  Thanks for bringing bringing it to our attention.

[Larissa Williams]

Hello to all

I run the DX-World website and think this may be of interest:

http://www.dx-world.net/t31lp-nikumaroro-island-oc-043/

After about 2:00 mins you an hear Lee well

http://audioboom.com/boos/3279876-t31lp-20ssb

You are my hero right now! All my listening last night via http://108.35.142.166:8902/ brought me nothing from the island. I appreciate you taking the time to post this for us.