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!

HC2IWM/8 Galapagos Islands

Not many direct QSL received last time. Today nice surprise in my box ... HC2IWM/8 QSL card from Daniel and confirmation of his recent activity from SA-004. Three new bands! Thanks Daniel!

Summer is over ... get ready for Autumn

Today sunset ... and my antenna ...

Be prepared for Autumn 2013 , a lot of DX-Pedition are announced! A few new DXCC on my list :)

And now just worked Ray VR2UW as New Country on 30 and 40m ! 

Higher bands are awakening ....

Last few days condition on higher bands improved. 10m is not fully open but 12m is doing well during evenings. Did some QSOs to fill the gaps. Good to see E44PM back in Palestine! Not new one for me but new on LoTW. And very fast QSLer. Last night I was surprised when calling CQ on 15mCW I did few QSOs , mainly USA when strange call-sign showed up in the noise. Did not copy at first time but after several attempts finally copied ... JH8GEU Shiro gave me a call! ... Why surprise? Never seen Japan station on 21Mhz at 22:32 local time here! Looks like bands are awakening for autumn 2013 :) A lot of great DX-Peditions are planned!

Burma - Republic of the Union of Myanmar

Myanmar is not so often a visitor on HAM bands. Soon will be my 3`rd anniversary as licensed HAM radio operator EI9KC and to be honest never had a chance work or listen station from Burma. Today happily logged XZ1Z Zorro (JH1AJT) - legend of Amateur Radio - SP7IDX Waldi said this to me. Zorro is currently in there with a humanitary mission. He was active last few days on the frequencies. I had no spare time for the radio. But today weather is disaster and is nice to sit down beside the radio and have some challenge to work him while he is there in Myanmar. Signal was not so strong. On the beginning was nothing when first spots showed up. This direction is not easy from us here EI and always is better at the end of the day local time here. I was not sure if he will be still active. In his QTH is deep night and sunrise will be soon. But he was QRV. 20m SSB not my favourite mode but no choice! Split 5-20 is like lottery. After several calls logged! Brand new DXCC for me and much appreciated. Thanks JH1AJT for New One for many of us and it is good to see first licensed station active from Myanmar after long time. 73 and Good Luck!

40 CQ zones confirmed on eQSL!

Many thanks to Robert ST2AR for his recent upload to eQSL. His zone (34) was my only one missing to complete all CQ Zones on eQSL. Two years ago I was asking Robert to consider upload his logs to eQSL and he told me he will do it some day. He kept his promise! All CQ Zones now confirmed on eQSL.

Libya welcome in my log as new DXCC

Late last night DX-Cluster spots shows 5A1AL Abubaker is acticve on 20m SSB. Seen some spots from EI staions, decided to give a try as I haven`t got any Libya stations in my log. Signal was not so strong and was up and down. Some QRM did not help. But luckily managed 2-way QSO! New DXCC for me on HF! QSL his DL call-sign DL1AL. Many thanks Abubaker to bring 5A prefix back on Air!