Guest Post: 6m operation from Lesotho – 7P8EI ...by Roger, EI8KN

Thanks to Roger, EI8KN for sending on details of the activity of the 7P8EI team on the 50 MHz band.

6m operation from Lesotho – 7P8EI

From the 19th March to the 31st March 2024, I was fortunate to be part of the thirteen-strong EIDX Group dxpedition to the Kingdom of Lesotho. The callsign was 7P8EI; incorporating the usual Group suffix. We had approximately ten days of operating from the Molengoane Lodge, Nazareth, Lesotho. The locator was KG30VO.

The HF stations achieved around 53,000 contacts during the ten days.

We only had a basic setup for 6m consisting of an IC-7300, running around 60 watts to a Diamond HB9CV. No rotator. Software was MSHV.

We experienced TEP (Trans-Equatorial Propagation) openings on 24th to 27th March, and again on 29th March.

573 contacts in total were made consisting of 481 unique’s.

Thirty-five DXCC were worked, with the majority being in Europe (98%) with Italy the highest country (28%).  Seven stations were worked in Africa, and five in Asia.

Only one G station was worked – G7RAU. Dave must be very happy!

The openings did not extend to EI unfortunately.

Roger Greengrass EI8KN / G4NRG

Lesotho in the log on 28 MHz CW - 27th March 2024

I managed to work the 7P8EI in Lesotho today on 28 MHz CW, my first DX contact in about 12-months!

I have no idea if it's a new country or not on 28 MHz but to be honest, I don't really care. I'm not too bothered about chasing DX but there's just something nice about working Lesotho on CW on 28 MHz. 

The path is shown below. I worked them at about 14:00 UTC so the propagation prediction shows that the contact was possible. In reality, the signal to me was just above the noise... weak but workable.

I was using 100-watts to a vertical half-wave antenna.