Ham to provide comms for Overland Challenge Finals

Anton Matthee, ZS2AAY/6, will be doing the communications for the Overland Challenge 2005.

The Overland Challenge is a competition that promotes responsible and environmental friendly Overlanding in Southern Africa. The finalists will do an East to West crossing of Southern Africa and has started yesterday from the Tswaing crater north of Pretoria.

The convoy of 11 cars and 23 people will route via Beira in Mozambique, Lake Malawi, Zambia and Botswana to Swakopmund in Namibia from 8 to 23 October 2005 on their epic 7 000 km journey.

Progress and position reports will be sent daily from the convoy by using HF Pactor via the ZS5S (Joost) and ZS6JDE (Hannes) gateways. Research is being done during the trip to measure the accuracy of current propagation and frequency forecasts and the use of HF Pactor related communication from mobile stations over long hops. Position reports are generated to relay the co-ordinates from his GPS to the FindU APRS database each time they connect.

Anton is using a mobile station consisting of an ICOM 706, ICOM AH-4 ATU and a 108 inch whip. The data translation is being done by a PTC II Pro HF radio modem. "Airmail" software is used as an email client and to send position reports. The same software is used to generate real time propagation forecasts. Successful tests were conducted during July and August 2005 from the Makgadikgadi Pans in Botswana.

The finals for next year's Overland Challenge will do further Ham related research whilst following in the footsteps of Dr David Livingstone from the origin of the Zambezi on the DRC border to its mouth in Mozambique. Anybody can join in on a virtual trip by reading the progress reports and viewing the convoy's current position on their website at www.OverlandChallenge.co.za.

Clubs can book Anton on anton@OverlandChallenge.co.za for a talk wherein he will share their research findings and experiences of the finals.

Courtesy of The South African Radio League

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