EJ1Y / EJ0PL Blasket Experience 2014

Moving boxes from pier on the Island

Papa Lima DX-Group was active from EU-007 for IOTA Contest 2014 and DX-pedition. We decided "Blaskets" last year shortly after our EU-006 DX-Pedition. But this time activation from Blasket will be different.

Some of our members ativated Great Blasket Island few times. For example it was my 4`th visit on the Island this year and I was active 2 times already from EU-007. We know what we had to do on the Island to get better - North America open  direction.

Easiest way will be stay in "old village" , close to landing pier and here you go. But this location is closed to North West. To prepare better QTH on the Island we had to visit Great Blasket Island in September last year ..... 

Another QUAD run ready to go

Landing pier on the Island was about 1KM away from our chosen QTH. Carry all equipment by hand was
not the option (too heavy , too far , too many  , too long) Quad was the only one option we could afford. Several trips by Quad and the trailer did a job. All our stuff finally landed on our site. Hard job, hard day. From a Vans to a pier , from pier to dinghy , from dingy to a boat , from a boat to dinghy, from dinghy to a pier, from pier to possible Quad loading area, to a Quad then , then push the Quad on the hill , then ..... We had approx 1 Tone of equipment with us .....

Radio shack tent

First job was to organize tent for all our boxes and personal belongings. This tent will be later our radio shack. Afterwards personal tents were organized and kitchen area too. That was it for first day - it was Thursday 24`th July. Next day was planned for antenna set-up. First erected antenna was Hexbeam (SP7IDX version) 6 bands 20M-6M. Then 2 x Yagi Both our Yagi were 3 bands and 3 elements on 10M masts. No Inverted V this time. All sorted by verticals with good radials. So we had verticals for 30M / 40M and 80M all single banded

EJ1Y / EJ0PL QTH

The biggest vertical on the picture here is 80M , the smallest 30M ... no enough room on the picture to show all antennas , our site was big enough to play with them at the good distance one from each other.
Second day finished with all erected antennas and work on radio shack to set-up stations, network connections, computers, internet, band filters , etc, etc. Another busy day but we had to make sure all is working. IOTA Contest tomorrow!

EI5JQ and EI9FBB running IOTA Contest 2014

EJ1Y was our Contest call in IOTA Contest 2014. EU-007 of course! It was 2`nd time when this call-sign went on air. First time was last year from EU-006. On IOTA Contest we had 2h operation shifts. I was on RUN station to call CQ and also on MULTs station to chase Multipliers. Great fun all 24h Several things we changed this year as we are getting more experience in Contesting. But contesting from the Island on DX-Pedition can be challenge. For example if in the middle of the night we are loosing one rotator or power in the shack caused by unknown circumstances.

EI3GK , EI9FBB , F5JTV enjoying rest after contest

After contest we changed our call to EJ0PL. Kind of relaxing operation from Great Blasket Island - EU-007 on several bands and modes. Dave EI9FBB was our designated 6M operator and he was watching this band so often. Probably first time ever RTTY signal was transmitted from Great Blasket Island. Not much , but about 150 QSOs were made on Digi. All statistics are available on ClubLog. I was enjoying CW and SSB call from EU-007. One night , all night long I had great pile-up on SSB from USA, worked few hundreds stations on the other side of Atlantic Ocean, many West Coast as well.

EI9KC on SSB from EU-007

We did almost 2700 QSOs during IOTA Contest, 15359 after that as EJ0PL in just 4 days. Great results. We hope many radio operators got New IOTA or bands slots. I had pleasure to be active on EJ0PL for 33h in total with 2147 QSOs (CW and SSB) I wish to have same signals from Japan as we had on the Island .... It was open sea path into Japan ... can you imagine Japan signals be strongest on 40M than EU ?

Time to go QRT soon. Day before departure we put down few antennas with only Hexbeam and 30M and 40M verticals left for the night. EJ0PL went QRT shortly after midnight 31.07.2014 Departure went much quicker than arrival but was hard too.

HARD Core departure from Great Blasket

Only light stuff went this way. We had some time before QUAD driver arrives and decided to do some training before we go to Rockall EU-189 someday hihi :) Anyone interested ?
During all our stay on the Island we were blessed by great weather. Ok maybe on the beginning was foggy and wet but acceptable , rest of our stay was fantastic. Last day before departure we had rain but that time we still had our big radio shack tent with us. All boxes with equipment were protected against rain but it was unnecessary. Departure day was dry!

Boat arrives in Ventry

UFF ... it is over , our boat reached pier in Ventry near Dingle. All safe and dry .... Do you know what our boatman said on the end ? "I hope I will NOT see you again" .....

On the end more picture from EJ1Y / EJ0PL from Great Blasket Island EU-007 2014 are here :

Flickr.com

And also we had website running which can be visited here EJ0PL2014
QSL card will be designed soon. And maybe by the end of the year video from EU-007 will be available. Stay tune! Thanks for QSOs 73!