G3VRE portable. Photos by Alexei 2E0XBISporadic E
Ten Metre beacons by G3YBT The time is
04:16:54
Today's date is
Wednesday 9
July,2008.
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time is
09/07/2008 04:16:54.
We traveled down independently of each other in 3 cars. We found the quay side booking office for the boat to Lundy Island. The blackboard outside confirmed the fact that the sailing was cancelled. The wind indeed was very high and the sea state was said to be very rough. We confirmed the weight limit and then set about trying to lighten the load. Most of the team elected to take most of their personal belongings, which left very little weight allowance for all the kit. 70Kg is not a lot for a team of 7 people!. We managed to get the dipoles and FT990 hf transciever in. This together with my Yeasu FT847, a couple of morse keys and some coax was the only equipment taken.
We were bused to some wind swept headland which acted as a make shift heliport. Around the corner was a shedthing which had been converted into a tea room. Some of us took shelter from the wind with a strong cup of tea. Whilst drinking it we noticed the shedthing was anchored down with steel cable as if it was a tent. The wind was clearly not unusual. After an hour the helicopter arrived. It was a very nice shade of metallic blue a colour you would normally associate with some prestige car. We had the mandatory safety brief and then embarked on the 8 minute flight. The helicopter shuttled backwards and forwards about 10 times with the kit coming over in the last 2 flights. By which time the guys on the first flight had become well acquainted with the local ale.
We explored the Island. The old light was at the high spot on the island.
It fell into disuse, as the light was too high. The new lighthouses on the
island are short and at sea level to keep them out of the fog. It was the season for the seal pups to
be born. We also saw some of the small deer imported from Japan and
thousands of rabbits and hundreds of sheep. There were also some very
nimble goats going up and down the side of the cliffs.
One afternoon an RAF rescue helicopter landed and deposited a small group of very fit men who proceeded to climb up and down the cliffs for a couple of days before being air lifted off again. Strange sort of job! But I suppose some one has to do it! Beats sitting in front of a computer all day.
On the first day we got the rigs all connected. We laid the trapped dipole along the top of a 2m high hall. We were amazed how well It worked. When we got it into the air using an inverted V configuration all the signals came up by 20db.We had managed to borrow some scaffolding poles from the island maintenance staff. The maintenance manager also arranged for the use of one of the farmer's fields and managed to move the sheet into the next files.
As we had travelled so light we had to scrounge what we needed from the
island maintenance store. The maintenance manager was very helpful. He is
used to several "radio" trips a year. One evening towards the end of our
stay he showed us, whilst in the pub, a picture that he kept in his office.
It had a QSL card from a VK station and a card from GB5LI from about 5
years ago, The contact was for CW on 40 meters.
I had constructed a homebrew "Arrow" out of some welding rod and a piece of 2cm square wood. Very little care had been used to construct it but it worked first time when tested in the back garden. I worked Carlos operating GB2FUN through ECHO. My only previous experience of satellites had been when I visited the AMSAT convention at Surrey University a couple of months earlier and I had attended the novices session hosted by Howard, G6LVB. Where I learned every thing I knew about satellites before the trip went ahead. I had found the link to the homebrew "Arrow" via his web site www.g6lvb.com. For those interested it is www.clarc.org/Articles/uhf.htm
On the first couple of days all attempts to hear ECHO failed. Whilst working a couple of local hams on 2 we discovered that ECHO was not in FM mode but would be over the weekend. We also learnt of the fact that The ISS now has an FM transponder so we gathered data we needed to be able to operate that. I downloaded the latest Keps on the Friday using the mobile phone as my Internet link. We established when the good paths were going to be using Winorbit. We managed to work through the ISS and ECHO several times over the weekend. It was interesting to hear the country's callsigns change as the satellite passed over Europe. First the Russians then the Scandinavians then a couple of guys in the midlands then Belgium then some Spanish stations before it all went silent again. We managed to work the UK, Belgium and Spain. We also got reports from the locals on 2m FM that we were often a fully quieting signal through the satellite.
The beer in the pub was very good. It used to be brewed on the Island but a couple of years ago production stopped due to the poor quality of the island water. Water was generally is short supply on the island, this too had contributed to the end of beer production. Prices in the pub and shop seemed to be average to me. I was expecting everything to be heavily marked up. Most of us eat in the pub every day. They did an excellent full breakfast for under £5, but no black pudding. They had a good selection of lunches and in the evening there was always a full menu. On the days when the boat ran the pub was pack to capacity with day trippers. We got several interested visitors to the shack as we were only 30 meters from the pub and 5 meters from the shop.
We had two stations operating. One on vhf and satellites and one on HF. HF operation was on SSB and CW. We talked to over 85 countries and made a total of 1200 contacts. Operation during the trip was limited as the generators on the Island are switched off at midnight and the power returned some time between 6 and half past depending of the wake up cycle that was being operated. They varied which properties got their power first.
Steve, M3WBS operated the web site which we kept updated by sending him regular text messages. Many people commented on how easy it had been to find us. Steve also updated other web sites which he discovered had contact and QSL information form previous radio trips to Lundy. Before we went there where around 85 web pages detected by Google when you searched for GB2LI. On our return there was over 1000!
Where next: not sure but we certainly want to do something similar again. It worked for us and we all enjoyed it. Maybe not a Dx-pedition in every ones eyes but my view is you are always Dx for someone and a lot of Island chasers certainly appreciated our efforts. The satellite operation was a new and interesting dimension to the trip even if getting the homebrew "Arrow" in the helicopter was fun. Since the trip I have given a presentation at the RSGB HF convention on how to start out in Dx-peditioning. Not all Dx-peditions need to expensive or exotic. Have a go. Its lots of fun.
Just for the record the operators were:G4GWR Andrew
G4SUX Richard
G8TTI Dave
2E0HLT Andy
G3PNH Bernard
G0GRI Ian
G3YBT Colin
The Lundy Island web site is
www.lundyisland.co.uk
Andrew Scott-Green
Chair, CDARC.