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For the next eight hours, the precarious unloading of the Gabriella by slow trips in the pitching dinghy continued, with one wholly unexpected assist. As the hams began setting up the first of four operating sites on a plateau some 100 ft. above the water (but 200 ft. beneath the island's flat top), they heard a warning horn blast from the Gabriella, then a shout on the short-range radio: "Two men are climbing the ladder."
Two frail-looking wooden fishing boats had rounded a rocky point, and their seven occupants were coming ashore. Were they Haitians determined to assert their nation's unsupported 124-year-old claim to the island? Perhaps an advance party of pirates known to seize foreign small craft in the area? No. They pointed to the gear, then to the block and tackle hoisting it and finally to themselves. Stu Greene (WA2MOE), a lawyer from Peekskill, N.Y., managed to bargain in fractured French. The visitors were from Haiti and would help unload the boat for $20. The tenderfoot hams were amazed at how their helpers could toss a 75-lb. equipment box on one shoulder and stride barefoot over the sharp rocks to help set up the stations.
By nightfall the hams were on the air, and the strange ritual of DXing began. "This is KP2A-portable KPl," one of the operators said quietly into a microphone. That call signaled the DXpedition's presence on Navassa. Almost immediately occurred what hams call a pileup. The whole ham world, it seemed, was shouting at Navassa on the same frequency, each foreign operator yelling his call letters phonetically. Apart from the roar of the numerous U.S. hams, the voices of Japanese amateurs were particularly prevalent, mingling in a hummingbird cacophony strange to the Western ear.
Each contact lasted fewer than ten seconds. Each was then logged by the hams on Navassa; when they returned to the mainland, they would send a QSL ("I acknowledge your transmission") card to each operator confirming the contact. The goal is to collect as many of these cards as possible. Some 200 enthusiasts have cards from all 318 "countries."
For six days, 24 hours a day, the rapid-fire transmissions continued. The island's plentiful goats, graceful V-winged birds and night-prowling rats must have been startled by the strange sounds breaking their normal silence: generators that putt-putted like suburban lawnmowers American voices repeating over and over "You are five-nine on Navassa"; the clean, clear whistle of skilled code operators giving similar signal reports to the multitude of distant stations. The men worked in shifts up to six hours long, hunched over logs, struggling to get each plaintive call down accurately.
There were moments of giddy camaraderie in the island's intense heat. When the Jamaican crew captured a goat, Ackley stuck a microphone in its face and elicited an obliging baaa. A ham in England laughed back.