yl.beam #145 Oct. 2025

 yl.beam #145 Oct. 2025

Contents

• 2 Lady operators at E51MWA  Manihiki Atoll in the North Cook Islands
• Violetta Latham KN2P
• SYLRA (Scandinavian Young Ladies Radio Amateurs)  2026
• Kosovo
• Anne, OH2YL and Marko, OH2LGW - Z68YL & Z68OM – Kosovo  May 20-30, 2025
• Cows, Coax, and Kosovo:  The Z68YL/Z68OM DXpedition Adventure!
• Anne Landers VK7BYL (SK) & Tasmania Lighthouse, ILLW weekend 2019
• Contact & Calendar

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Manihiki is an atoll in the northern group of the Cook Islands known informally as the "Island of Pearls", approximately 1,299 kilometres north of the capital island of Rarotonga, making it one of the most remote inhabitations in the Pacific Ocean.

2 Lady operators at E51MWA  Manihiki Atoll in the North Cook Islands
October 9-20, 2025.
DXCC #68 Most Wanted   IOTA: OC-014  CQ ZONE: 32  Locator: AH99
A team of six operators will operate CW, SSB, and FT8.
Five of the operators are from the Western Washington DX Club and together operated as T88WA on Babeldaob Island, Palau and H44WA on Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands.
The team members include Robert Fanfant, N7QT who is a veteran of many DXpeditions; YL Robin Amundson, WA7CPA; Jack Prendergast, N7JP; James McDonald, KC7EFP, and Brian Moran N9ADG. We proudly introduce our sixth team member, Violetta Latham, KN2P, a 21-year-old YL, an up-and-coming SSB contester, a pilot and flight instructor, and organizer of K3LR Team Exuberance.
Following our project Violetta will fly directly to PJ2T for an all-youth contest. Violetta and Robin will team up on the operating schedule. We believe it will be a unique pairing of two YL’s on the same operating schedule rotation on a mixed team DXpedition. Please see our website E51MWA for more information.
  https://www.m0urx.com/e51mwa-north-cook-islands/


Violetta Latham KN2P is a 20-year-old Extra Class ham with more big station experience under her belt than many operators twice her age. A commercial pilot, flight instructor, and aircraft mechanic apprentice, Violetta's days oscillate between runways and radios. Licensed since she was nine—thanks to a sibling competition organised by her father—she’s grown from a childhood in a Mennonite-Amish household with no internet to flying jets and working pileups from the Caribbean.
She’s operated from top-tier contesting stations like PJ2T, W3LPL, and K3LR as part of Team Exuberance, where she built deep ties with other rising stars like Marty NN1C and Levi K6JO. Her DXpedition résumé is growing fast: recent ops from St. Lucia (J62K), upcoming activation of the North Cook Islands (E51MWA), and a fully youth-led contest effort from PJ2T - CQ WW SSB 2025 October 24-26.
Contesting is her passion—especially phone on 10 meters, where she thrives in fast-paced pile-ups and unexpected openings, like the middle-of-the-night path to Australia from St. Lucia. Whether she's navigating DXpedition logistics or logging over-night contest shifts in unfamiliar time zones, Violetta is making a name for herself in the next generation of operators.   https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/young-and-gifted-from-the-cockpit-to-the-contest-pileup.965991/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ADNB20Y4kY&t=72s    , Q5 Worldwide Ham Radio
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SYLRA (Scandinavian Young Ladies Radio Amateurs)  2026
Welcome to the SYLRA meeting on Fårö, Gotland 3-6 September 2026
Fårö is located north of the Gotland mainland and is reached by road ferry. Fårö is known for its strange nature, its rauks, its history, and of course Ingemar Bergman.
If you can stay a little longer than the meeting itself, Gotland is worth exploring.
You can get to Gotland by car ferry from either Oskarshamn or Nynäshamn to Visby. You can also fly to Visby. If you are not bringing your own car, or renting a car, we will arrange for you to be picked up from the boat or airport.
The meeting will take place at Fårö Conference, where there are various accommodation options. The voluntary radio organization, FRO, uses the venue as a training facility, so there will be radio equipment and antennas on site.
Please respond to Interest SURVEY, (open from Sept. 20th to Okt. 26th) on website
https://sylra.is/index.php/sylra-2026
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Kosovo
The Republic of Kosovo, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It is bordered by Albania to the southwest, Montenegro to the west, Serbia to the north and east, and North Macedonia to the southeast.
Pristina became the capital of Kosovo in 1947,  Pristina  continued to serve as the capital of Kosovo after its 2008 independence from Serbia.
As the newest capital city in Europe, Pristina has the physical remnants of  the old and new periods.  The further you go from the centre, the less likely you will be to hear English spoken. However, most people from Pristina, especially young people, speak a little English, German is the next most widely spoken foreign language. Ties between the Kosovo Albanian diaspora in Germany and Switzerland and Kosovo are very strong, as many older Kosovo Albanians have lived and worked in Germany and Switzerland.
Kosovo is predominantly Muslim.
January 2018: Kosovo was officially designated a DXCC entity.


Anne, OH2YL and Marko, OH2LGW - Z68YL & Z68OM – Kosovo  May 20-30, 2025

Cows, Coax, and Kosovo:  The Z68YL/Z68OM DXpedition Adventure!
by Jari Perkiömäki OH6BG
The dream of a joint DXpedition to Kosovo, first sparked way back in late 2018, finally sprang to life on May 20-30, 2025, for Finnish radio amateurs Anne (OH2YL, operating as Z68YL) and Marko (OH2LGW/ON9MP, operating as Z68OM). After COVID-19 delays and even a work-related postponement for Marko (which saw Anne embark on a solo mission to Liechtenstein in April 2024 as HB0/OH2YL), the stars aligned for a thrilling ten-day operating blitz from the heart of the Balkans.
 "It felt like an eternity in the making!" Marko shared, "but we were absolutely driven to light up the bands with Z6 for hams everywhere." And they weren't just making contacts; they were delivering the QSLs at lightning speed: every QSO uploaded to Logbook of the World (LoTW) within 24 hours– no waiting, no fees!

The Long Road to Pristina
Planning for this particular adventure kicked into high gear in spring 2024, with the duo navigating work schedules to carve out a precious window in late May 2025. Add travel days from two different countries (Anne from Finland, Marko from Belgium), plus essential setup and tear-down time, and it was a significant undertaking. Anne even found herself patiently waiting for Marko's arrival over a weekend just north of Pristina.
But no DXpedition is a two-person show. An "exceptional support team," as Anne and Marko call them, was assembled. Martti OH2BH provided crucial initial support, while local ham Driton Z61DX was their invaluable man on the ground in Kosovo. Back in Finland, Jari OH6QU and Jari OH6BG offered vital technical assistance and crunched HF propagation forecasts, even monitoring their transmissions in real-time. "Their guidance on band openings and quick trouble shooting was absolutely first-class," they say. "We couldn't have done it without them."
Operating with two stations sharing antennas, they cleverly implemented a shift system. "We made sure each of us got a full 8-hour sleep every other night," Anne explains. "It helped manage the sleep debt, though there was still plenty of that!"

The QTH: Beauty and the Beast(s)
Finding the perfect operating spot is always a challenge. Their initial find looked promising online, but a pre-expedition scout by Driton Z61DX revealed a cramped yard. Panic? A little. But a new, even better QTH was quickly secured just 3km (or 2 miles) away, located at a lofty 1200 meters (or 4000 ft) above sea level. "The location was fantastic for working Japan and the USA, our main targets," Marko noted. "And having a restaurant with excellent, affordable food just across the road was a definite bonus!"
However, this idyllic spot came with its own unique set of challenges. As Anne bluntly puts it: "Animals just roam everywhere!" The spacious surroundings, perfect for antenna setups, were also prime grazing land for herds of cows and sheep.

When Cows Attack
DXpeditions usually come with unexpected hurdles. For Anne and Marko, these included strong winds (which snapped a dipole support pole), the ever-present QRM, and a few power cuts. "We had a generator for the first long outage," Marko recalls, "but Murphy's Law dictated it wasn't onsite for the next five-hour blackout!"
But the cows... oh, the cows. Anne’s brief summary: "Cows love coax!"
Early in the DXpedition, during one of Anne's SSB shifts, they heard distinct mooing very close by. "Suddenly, the SPE amplifier screamed with a high SWR alarm, and the radio went dead!" Marko says.
Racing outside, they found a herd of cows inside their antenna field. The damage? Two critical feedlines – for the EFHW wire antenna and the 6M dipole – had been chewed clean through.
"For a moment, we were speechless," Anne admits. "With limited spare cable, we genuinely
thought, 'Is this the end of the DXpedition?'"
But Finnish "Sisu" (grit and perseverance) kicked in. They recalculated their cable runs, and Marko managed to repair the EFHW feedline. The 60M dipole cable was thankfully intact. A new "OH2YL special" vertical was quickly put up in a (supposedly) fenced-off area. The 6M operations had to shift to the less-than-ideal EFHW. Their friendly landlord, a true hero, even provided protective piping for the cables.
The animal adventures didn't end there. Despite the new vertical being in a 20m x 10m (65ft x 33ft) "protected" area, the cows found a way in and destroyed the vertical's ground radials. So much for that vertical! Even local youths on dirt bikes and ATVs added to the QTH's lively atmosphere, making Anne and Marko "local celebrities," as Anne heard in the nearby restaurant. This fame even led to a tense moment when an uninformed co-land owner demanded they leave, a situation thankfully resolved with the help of their landlord and a translation app.
The high QRM levels, likely made worse by "Chinese LED lights" as Anne suspects, plagued their operation. "CW was pretty much impossible," she states, with noise levels often hitting S5-S9. The 160M band was restricted to FT8 only due to the S9 noise. "And 6 meters," Marko adds, "was a game of long, tedious watchful waiting, which definitely ate into our total QSO count."
Statistics  Total Qs: 9801, Unique Qs: 4603, Countries: 117
https://www.dx-world.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Kosovo-Z68YL-Z68OM-Story-by-OH6BG.pdf
*****

Tradition is not preserving the ashes but passing on the flame.  
Silent Key   Anne Landers VK7BYL 
It is with sadness that I announce that Anne Landers VK7BYL passed away on 29th July 2025.  Anne with the callsign of VK7LY, was a foundation member of ALARA and joined in many of the early 80m nets.  Anne loved to write poetry and had her collection published in "Luminosity" which was based on her time living at a lighthouse.  In later years she settled in Penguin Tasmania and was an active member of the local radio club as well as on their 2m nets.   ALARA  6 Aug 2025  


Tasmania Lighthouse, ILLW weekend 2019
Repeat: yl.beam # 79 feb 2020 (from:  ALARA Newsletter Issue 171 OCTOBER 2019)
Anne, VK7BYL, and Shirl, VK7HSC, were active for the International Lighthouse and
Lightship Weekend. August 2019. Here is Anne’s report “A heckling of hams” or “An astonishment of amateurs” Both could describe the gathering at Low Head in Tasmania for the ILLW weekend which this year coincided with the RD contest.
Shirley and I set out on Saturday morning for what was for both of us the unknown (as neither of us had been out for some years); a weekend at Low Head in the company of several others. We were promised a warm house, good food and great company and all we had to do was to take a dessert or two and ourselves.
Despite a forecast of snow and cold both days turned out to be out of the box, particularly Saturday, with blue skies, very little wind, several whale sightings and penguins at the gate.
The radio gear was in a sun-room at the rear of the house and gear supplied by Ross
VK7ALH was everywhere. Mostly we used a Kenwood 950 or something similar. The
antenna setup was impressive with a heavy-duty H-frame mast in 3 extendable sections mounted permanently on a trailer and cranked up to carry a trap dipole from 160 through to I don’t know what. I think I need to get back to study and wake up the brain which has suffered a bit through illness.
Conditions I thought were disappointing with not many contacts on either RD or ILLW. The bands seemed very quiet and the furthest DX was West Australia which we also worked on VK7RAA on our way home anyway.
However the weekend was great fun, the scallop pies were out of this world with a full feed of Tassie scallops in each one. The company was great. The tall tales bouncing around the room had to be heard to be believed. The weather held up and only started breaking up late Sunday. All round it was a great weekend.
Present were Geoffrey VK7GW and xyl Jenny, Leigh VK7FLAR, Roger VK2RO, Gavin
VK7VTX, Andrew VK7DW, Roscoe VK7ALH, Peter VK7KPC and xyl Kay visited and a
couple of tourists dropped in.
On Sunday at noon volunteers fired up the foghorn and for 15 minutes at regular intervals we were deafened and entertained by a very loud noise. All radio was abandoned and conversation limited to the gaps as foghorn blasts, which can be heard for 20 miles or so out to sea, overrode everything. Sound in decibels? LOUD! 33 Anne VK7BYL
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Calendar October 2025
Oct 4 5       JLRS (Japan Ladies Radio Society) Contest – CW 1st weekend Oct
Oct 4 - 5     82nd Oceania DX (OCDX) contest Phone (SSB)
Oct 4 - 10   World Space Week (2025) Sat – Fri. Theme: Living in Space
Oct 14         Ada Lovelace Day 2025  Tuesday Founded in 2009.   

Oct 17 - 19  JOTA Jamboree on the Air Scouts
Oct 18 - 20  YLRL - DX/NA-YL Anniversary Contest  SSB/CW/Digital; 1400 - 0200 UTC
Oct 31          Halloween (Eve of All Hallows) Witches-on-the-Air