FO/KH0PR – French Polynesia IOTA tour

Just worked FO/KH0PR - on 28MhzCW! Local time 19:34 uff This time from OC-238. Looks like higher bands are starting to open for Autumn/Winter 2013 season! Working Pacific on 10m in the evening here is a good sight! Stay tuned!

Good DX - Nauru

A few good QSOs made today on the bands. Early in the morning managed new band with XZ1Z on 15mCW. SWL` them on 12 and 17 but without luck. Yuki JH1NBN is now active from Nauru as C21BN. When I was beside my radio he was active on 21Mhz - (did not copy him from my QTH) and on 14Mhz - same story - NIL .... Decided to give a try from our club station EI0PL - Full size 3 element Yagi on 20m is doing great job! Managed QSO in simplex! He was very weak, only stations well prepared , with good antennas are able to receive his 100W and wire antenna. This is how this works. Nauru is difficult from West EU to reach. New DXCC for me.
On the end did some CQ on 12m. About 50 QSO made on 24Mhz CW. Enjoyed great NA opening on this band.

Good Man Zorro and Champ too - XZ1Z

Zorro, JH1AJT, is active once again as XZ1Z from Myanmar and EI9KC is more than happy to manage QSO last night on 30m as new DXCC worked in CW and on 30m as well. Massive pile-up but .... on the other side very experienced Operator! Pleasure to work! 

Hmm. Look like I`ve worked E21EIC as XZ1Z ... to be honest .... never heard Zorro JH1AJT on CW but Champ E21EIC is a CW Master. Not really important for me who gave me new CW slot. Two way QSO done, I am in the log. Good Luck!

CW split - up by .... numbers !

HP0INT Invoker Team is doing now great job by activating few IOTAs from Panama. Already in my log from NA-071 / NA-170 / NA-202 / NA-203. Great and experienced operators! Not first timers. Always pleasure to work them but this morning I was shocked! When I was tried to work them from NA-203 Iguana Island on 30mCW early in the morning here - operator on the other side started calling stations by ... NUMBERS

I did it by say no more ...

Brief visit to EU-007 Great Blasket Island for IOTA Contest 2014

EJ0PL will operate from Great Blasket Island EU-007 for IOTA Contest in 2014. Members of Papa Lima DX-Group are familiar with location on Blaskets but we had to see few thing before end of season this year. It will be almost mission impossible to visit EU-007 after summer season. So we decided to take a chance yesterday and visit Island before it will be too late this year.

This time we had a boat from Dingle , not from Dún Chaoin (Dunquin). Trip from Dingle is much longer about 1h. Distance is about 18km. But we were able to see Fungi dolphin on the way to Blaskets! As you can see .... not so many people on the boat ....

Landing on Great Blasket Island is not so easy. We had to be transfer into a dinghy to step on the pier. Weather was nice but boatman said stay close because weather forecast is not so good and if he blow the horn we have to return to the boat as soon as possible. We had about 3h on the Great Blasket. Plan was .... find better QTH than we had last times .....

Great Blasket Island has no good spot to built station. Terrain is not flat and if we want to have 360 degrees open area we have walk about 2.5km for best spot. It will be no possible with 1 tone of equipment! Compromise has to be made ...

Many plans has to be made. One of them will be "transport" on the Island. This is not Inishmore! We can`t rent a car :) We can`t bring car ... Can we use this digger ? Perhaps we can ... One of our Member has "Gold hands" no job too small :)

Checking 3G coverage. As it will be great to be able upload our log in real time like we did it on EU-006. Signal was good!

Our QTH for IOTA Contest 2014 has been found! We had to check ground there. As this Island is different than Inishmore ...

It is time to go back. Boat is waiting for us. We had good time on the Island. It was good to see old Great Blasket still in good shape. Weather was perfect. We know how it can be when is rain here! A lots of plans has to be made before we can land on this Island again. Stay tuned!