Our base of operations for the Tobago DXpedition was the "Caricey Cottage," a vacation villa located in the Bon Accord Development in Tobago. "Caricey (pronounced CAREEJAY) Cottage" offers comfortable living quarters and a private swimming pool. This villa has been used by ham radio operators on other DXpeditions. You may rent it for your own DXpedition through Villas of Tobago.

Since our operation was a holiday DXpedition, we kept our station simple!

Station Equipment:

Kenwood TS-570D with PS-53 Power Supply General purpose amateur radio transceiver. 10 m to 160 m coverage. SSB, AM, FM, CW, and FSK operating modes. 100 watts input power. 16-bit AF-stage Digital Signal Processor Automatic antenna tuner Built-in keyer Computer interface Shown here as set up in the operating position on the back porch of the Caricey Cottage, along with Diamond SWR meter, Heil headset / boom microphone, Bencher paddle, and laptop computer for logging.

Antenna:

Butternut Model HF6V-X Six Band Vertical Antenna
• Six-band vertical antenna for 80, 40, 30, 20, 15 and 10 meters.

Operating Accessories:

W6ELProp
• Free propagation prediction software.
  • Predicts ionospheric (sky-wave) propagation between any two locations on earth
  • Calculates and charts MUF, signal levels, signal-to-noise ratios, and predicted availabilities of strongest ionopheric modes
  • Supports frequencies between 3 and 30 MHz
  • Free when used for noncommercial purposes

  N1MM Logger

• Free contest logger.
  • Full-featured DXpedition logging capabilties
  • Interface to radio, including PTT and CW
  • Interface to Buckmaster Call Sign database
  • N1MMLogger Discussion Group