In memory of LCRA president William Elasmar HK3RQ right and Cali district LCRA president Jose Saouda HK5BFJ, Left. ARRL president Bob Denniston W0DX, center. William was a prominent surgeon in Bogotá who almost died from his wounds and injuries when he fell off Malpelo Island during the landing. William was a superb CW op and contester. Jose was the owner of a major textile fabrication corporation in Colombia.
Dale Steiter W4DQS was an outstanding CW operator and top of the DXCC at the time. Dale was a contractor to NASA working in Cocoa Beach, Florida at the time of the expedition. What you see written into Dale's face was utter fatigue after many grueling days spent on Malpelo.
Carlos Fonseca - TI2CF - HK3VA
Carlos would go with me to 1N2A Marco Neutral Zone in the Amazon jungle just two months later. In late 1969 Carlos and I operated K6GS/HK0 San Andres Island and in 1970 we would team up again for TI9CF Cocos Island. Carlos is a graduate of Catholic University in Washington DC. At the time of the Malpelo expedition he was the Civil Attaché at the Costa Rican Embassy in Bogotá.
Gab - HK3HY
Raul HK3BM
The strong-arm of the expedition. A fine young man with absolutely super human strength. He was the son of HK5ACI. This was his second expedition to Malpelo. During the first expedition in 1961, he and his father could only go up about 20 feet onto the rock and therefore the expedition only had propagation to South America. Very few contacts were actually made. His brother also was a member of the expedition.
To the left is HK5ACI, Luis and to the right with the straw hat is Gab, HK3HY. Luis was the architect for the expedition. He designed and later fabricated the 25 foot boom, the tables and chairs and was the logistics arm of the operation from Cali, Colombia. In spit of his large size, he was able to scale Malpelo. It was he and his sons who had gone to Malpelo first in 1961 for the first DXpedition to Malpelo Island.
AN INTERESTING STORY
On the last day of the expedition the author K6JGS/HK3 was operating the SSB station but finding no one coming back from repeated CQ calls from HK0TU. So in trying to understand if there was a problem, he broke into a rag chew on 20 meter phone and asked for a signal report. The rag chewers in the mid-west kindly gave a 5-9 +20db report and asked about the strange callsign of HK0TU. They wanted to know where the station was located. The reply was that it was on Malpelo located on a remote island in the Pacific Ocean 300 miles from Colombia. The two gents in the mid-west then replied thanks and went on with their leisurely rag chew. They had absolutely no interest in DX nor did they care to rag chew with some DXpeditioners on some remote island they'd never even heard of. More CQ calls from HK0TU were made. With 45 minutes of continuously calling CQ and no returns, the HK0TU SSB station went idle for the next two or three hours. This occurred about 2:00 PM EST. One of the rarest islands in the world was on the air and could not interest anyone to call them after calling CQ for over an hour. Conditions were good, but no one was interested. Those who needed Malpelo had already worked it. Now they were off looking for other new DXCC countries.
K1ZM Footnotes from his post on the topband reflector:
I should note that the 1969 160m Dxpedition to HK0TU included Bob
Dennison, W0DX and Dale Strieter, W4DQS along with HK3RQ and Enos
W4VPD. Of course, Bob served as ARRL President and was later
known as VP2VI until he passed away recently. Dale is known today
as W4QM and can often be heard operating at Diego Garcia, Chagos,
as VQ9QM.
Interestingly, the HK0TU side of
this contact was also beset with its own "challenges" -
which W1BB tells this way:
"Tragedy nearly struck during landing operations on the
dangerous rocky cliffs, when two men were washed overboard,
requiring hospitalization for one. In the ensuing excitement,
their generator was lost in the dark, their 160M rig had a bum
antenna relay and wouldn't work. Imagine after all that, putting
up a 700' longwire antenna in the DARK - but they did.
Dale sez "I loaded the Ant to
the Tx, called CQ and it was thrilling to have K1PBW/8 come back
at 0615Z - next was W3FE, then W1BB for his DXCC/160M. After
that, Bob operated until the band folded. All together 28 qso's
were made on 160M including W2EQS, W9PNE (with his 5 watter!)
W8GDQ and others - not too many.
W0DX was able to contact his home station on 160, 80 and 40.....
Considering everything, a MARVELOUS piece of Dx'ing. A real
resounding FIRST, EVER on 160M!"
QSL from the estate of W1EOA
Photos and Story from W4PUL