I just love arm chair DXers that never go to some of the places some of us mad ops do... but to explain a bit I hope.
The day after just before coming home. WX was a bit nicer now.
The plan was to be qrv on 17th, it ended up being 18th... murphy delayed qrv by 24 hrs in the end WX (terrible condx)
and I wrecked my right calf on the beach the previous day pushing
the RV out of the sand so I couldn't walk more that 50 yrds
initially so the delay was not a huge problem. Sea was so rough
they cancelled all sailings that day and even the day I was leaving too... click on the image and look at the scribbled message bottom right!
and only way on and off the island was a £££ flight and luggage was 7kg total!
Cost per qso lets not go there shall we :-)
I was qrp or
as good as anyway with bare KX3 (pa caused way too much interference) and only buddipole antenna meant
working anything long distance would have been hard work but I put
couple F in the log (polar path).
Bigger antennas would have been
wrecked rapidly as the wx was constant above 80kmh and gusting
140kmh I had to go qrt as the worst hit at 1am local time until
5am as the wind was way too strong even if guyed ... it's not
called the roaring 40's for nothing. I did take a dipole but the
trees whipped it about so much that was shredded in seconds after
going up.
This was the day after in a sheltered location.
I discussed condx in the days immediately after with locals and seems that day I fell into a propagation
black hole, shame as would have been fun but I did manage into EU
which qrp isn't bad going.
But I did activate OC-203 !
Was probably frustrating for those that wanted it but the island
can be reached by flights very easily. I am sure I might have
another go along with some other spots further from the mainland
and a ZL9 call.
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