North Atlantic Ocean

Operating from Bonaire as PJ4VHF

My prime focus on VHF from Bonaire has been trans-oceanic ducting. There is not much 2m SSB activity around the Caribbean, but a lot of stations can be worked through 2m FM repeaters. Puerto Rico (KP4) and the US Virgin Islands (KP2) were relatively common until Hurricane Maria in 2017 destroyed most of the repeaters there. Jamaica was another hot spot of activity. A pair of 12-element Directive Systems yagis were used for vertical polarization. That tower also housed the 70cm crossed yagi and the 1296 horizontal yagi.

Cape Verde to Bonaire - 4,694km (2,917 miles)

The high point of trans-oceanic ducting was on the evening of May 6, 2015 when the D4C/B beacon was copied load and clear from Cape Verde Islands. The beacon signal was about 10dB out of the noise on CW. The D4C/B beacon at that time ran 20W into a 5-element yagi. The station at PJ4VHF was the pair of 13-element Cushcraft 13B2 yagis seen above and a Kenwood TS-2000. The beacon then was a simple beacon without any QSO capability. The D4C site is a contest station that is unmanned much of the time. It has since been upgraded to a fully remote-controlled voice and digital mode remote base so two-way contacts are hoped for the next time the band opens. I also built a pair of 600W amplifiers in 2016 based on the Larcan IPA2. One of these amps remained on Bonaire, the other was sent to D4C for teh beacon/remote base use. These amplifiers are rated at 100% duty cycle, 24/7/365

That June Fred NP2X received signals from a German ham visiting Cape Verde one night, and a couple of nights later he was heard by the German visitor on D4, but unfortunately no two-way contact was made.

Upgraded dedicated Trans Atlantic 2m station on Bonaire

I installed the new fixed large vertical array yagi system at the TWR AM radio station transmitter site in early 2018 where I work as a broadcast engineer. Except for a 440kW medium wave transmitter, this site is radio quiet with buried power lines. The antenna array consists of eight 5-element yagis designed by Lionel VE7BQH. They are stacked vertically in a 1x8 stack resulting in an e-plane -3dB beamwidth of 55 degrees. This lobe encompasses Portugal to Senegal. Remote base capability is being added to this station with 600W RF out. This station when complete is to be based on a Flex 6400 radio, transverter, and 600W 2m amp. It may also get 70cm capability with 150 watts into a vertical stack of four 70cm yagis beamed on D4.