VK9YW 1987 Cocos-Keeling Islands

My trip to Cocos-Keeling was interesting. Cocos is an atoll consisting of numerous small islands and only two populated islan. We operated from a small island across the atoll from the airport island. We lived in a large two-story mansion  that was once the home of the king of Cocos. Our host was the son of the king. Several years before our visit the VK government took the island away from the King. "Our" island was home of the workers who once worked on the coconut plantation. The VK government was going to move them to mainland Australia, but they would not move. Their families had been on the island  since the late 1700s. They are still there and own the land.

Spending time with Jim Smith is interesting. He takes command, but that is not bad. A building was set up for our operation and a tower was in place with a log-periodic beam and a wire antenna for 40m. Sounds okay, the tower had been dropped and the log periodic was missing several rear elements, New elements were on the way. Putting the new elements on the beam was crazy. Jim and our host decided to do the job without lowering the tower or the antenna. Our host spent several hours hanging off the top of the tower trying to position the new elements and boom section. He was up there for 6 hours without a safety belt. He finally did it!.

The rotator quit on us after a couple days and Jim fixed it by using wiring from some junk fan. The first night my amp quit. A 48 volt zener diode blew. The next day our host and I took two huge 24 volt truck batteries and put them in series to replace the zener diode. It did not work, the final was blown. I limped along what about 80 watts the rest of the time. Still had huge pileups and lots of fun, listening up 2 khz. Why work up 2 khz? With my low power I could not keep my spot while working 5-10 khz up. There was a lot of bitching, but I worked a lot of stations. Jim would not let me use his station! It was my first DXpedition and I loved it.

On the way back to Australia we flew around Christmas Island (VK9X), then landed  to pick up more passengers. I took photos from the plane all around the island. The photos gave me the idea to operate from VK9X. I did not operate from VK9X until the early 1990s, because I was a guest op at CY0DXX and CY9DXX with my VE1 buddies.

The operation from VK9X was interesting, but I will only mention how we found a place to operate. Our sleeping quarters were in the visitor quarters at the base of the island. The island rose way up behind our home ... not a good place to operate. The Japanese who operated from there before us stayed in  the same quarters and had their signals blocked in that direction. We went to the island police chief and asked for help. I knew him! He and his family were visiting Cocos Island when Jim and I were there. Jim knew them. They were from his home island and moving to VK9X. The chief took us to some interesting locations. We found a large building at the TOP of the island with a clear shot in all directions! That is the location I used both times I operated from VK9X.

Bob Winn W5KNE (VK9YW) and Jim Smith VK9YS (VK9NS SK), at Cocos-Keeling in 1987

QSL, Photo, Info courtesy of W5KNE