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!
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