EJ0PL - Saltee Island EU-103 story ....

Papa Lima DX Group decided to activate Saltee Islands EU-103 this year. We choose April as the best time to visit Little Saltee Island.

There was a lot of preparation that had to be done before activation. Equipment, antennas, power generators, operation tents etc. We intended to carry it out in a   professional manner.

On the 13^th of April, early in the morning we left Dublin and headed to Wexford. At about 10.00am we reached Kilmore Quay and met our boatman with his boat. 

It wasn’t easy to get to the shore for there’s no pier on the island. We were prepared for such an eventuality though and each one of us had special waterproof military trousers with the boots. 

As soon as we put our feet on dry land we started to carry all the equipment from the beach to the operating location. The owner of the island came on the boat shortly after us to show us where we can stay.

 

At around 2.00pm  on Friday first station was ready to go on air. One of us started calling CQ, CQ, CQ, this is EJ0PL IOTA expedition from EU-103 QRZ Please? Signal was spotted on 14MhzSSB. In the meantime the rest of the team assembled other station and antennas.

EJ0PL was fully assembled at around 8.00pm on Friday. We had 3 stations on air. We were operating on 3 different bands /emissions in the same time.

In terms of weather we were very lucky on Friday during landing on the island and assembling station and on Sunday when we had to dismantle everything. Weather was nice. Sunny and cold … but dry! Friday night and Saturday in the morning was the worst. Heavy  wind and rain. Very cold as well. EI4GK tent was in big troubles. In the Saturday afternoon weather improved , still was very cold, especially at night. Temperature was around ZERO. 

Sunday welcomed us with nice sunshine. Last QSO from EU-103 was made at around 2PM on Sunday. We had 48 hours operation from Little Saltee Island. Half day on Friday , all day Saturday and half day on Sunday.

And

5770 QSO in our log

1591 on Friday

3244 during Saturday

935 on Sunday

42292 Phone / 1292 CW / 186 Digital

More statistic on ClubLog.

We are very happy with this result. On Phone and CW as well. For your information our two CW operators are morse code beginners and they managed 1292 QSO on CW running heavy pile-up sometimes.

EJ0PL Little Saltee Island EU-103 team:

EI3KG (SP9UUC) – Michal  (CW/Phone)

EI4GK – Sean (Phone)

EI5JQ (SP9UMI) – Adam (Phone)

EI6KD – Robert (Digi)

EI9KC (SP6ICW) – Ark (CW/Phone)

SP7DPJ – Jacek – (Phone)

SQ7JT – Jurek (Phone)

Thank you for QSOs! CU AGN from another IOTA SOON!