Story 52DX/F018

Story 52DX/F018 .

Story from 52DX/F018 Vidoy Island EU-018 activity.

Hi to all,

At the end of my stay in Faroe isls, an oppourtunity to do
a days sightseeing came along. The Island Base Online
website were checkked, and I saw that the last road
connected Island, Vidoy Island F-018, had never been activated. I persuaded my colleaques to make Vidoy
Island the target for our sightseeing tour.

Darran 26DX047 were alerted. Darran as always, had information ready for the Web in very short time.
Thanks Darran.

Since I only had the little Handheld QRP radio and the Bamby antenna, I knew propagation would have to be extraordinary good to alone hope beeing able to log more than a few Q's. So info were hold back untill I had arrived on Vidoy Island, having a chance to get a feel of the band condx. This way everything could be cancelled or launched incase no no, or go go condx present, and avoid ops beeing left back sitting waiting for a no-show. Im aware some would have liked some notice in advance nomatter what, but this were my desiscion alone.

Along the journey from Streymoy to Vidoy Islands, we crossed Eysteroy and Bordoy Islands. At each cross we did a little stop to take pictures and to check band condtitions. Band still sounded very quiet when we reached the crossroad towards Kunoy and Vidoy Islands, so we decided to examine Kunoy Island a little closer than originally planned, meanwhile hoping for an improvement in band condx. About a hour later we were back on track towards Vidoy Island, but band still didnt sound too encouraging.

Around 1530utc, Viðareiði City in the northern part of Vidoy Island were reached, condx were still very quiet. Viðareiði City in northern Vidoy Island had been choosen as the destination since it would allow us to do a little climb to reach some altitude, thereby avoid signal path blocking by the nearby mountains towards EU and SA. Hvannasund in southern Vidoy Island would have been much easier to reach, but the nearby mountains on Svinoy Island and southern Bordey Island would made path hard towards EU, and impossible towards SA.

As we started the climb, I carried the assemblied Bamby on my shoulder while monitoring the 10meter Kiel Beacon on the Handheld radio, nothing were heard... BUT - 50 vertical meters before we reached the plateau I had spotted on Google Earth, the Kiel Beacon signal popped out of the noise and got stronger meter by meter as we approached the plateau.

The fine weather granted us a breathtaking scenic view. The north headlands of Bordoy, Kunoy and Karlsoy Islands could be seen towards west, Viðareiði city below us in the valley towards south, and further south the impressieve 650mt summit of Malinsfjæll. Towards southeast Svinoy Island and the impressieve 400 near-vertical-meters steep cliffs of Fugloy Island could be seen. A memmorable scenario, especially for a Dane comming from the flatlands.

Even though a few German and French beacons on 10meter were resonable signal, not many signals were around on the old band. CQing some 20-30mins resulted in a few QSOs only, but then all the sudden signals started to improve. The Europeans got their beams turned towards North and QSO rate got reasonable. Some 2hrs after start, signals got weaker and the little battery pack on the handheld radio started to give up, 52DX/F018 Vidoy Island went QRT.

In the car on our way home to base on Streymoy Island, I examined the handwritten log almost in disbelief, never dreamed of such a result. 100 Q's + It almost felt unreal beeing able to log 3-4-5 stns a minutte using just a few watts output, I wont ever forget that feeling. It just shows whats possible on our little band when condx and ops plays along. All traffic were done simplex (little handheld couldnt do split)
This would never have worked out on HAM bands, thanks to all ops for the fine discipline.

Sidenote:
Another feeling I wont forget were the numlessnes in my left arm, which in the end cramped by static holding the little handheld radio :-)

Thanks again to all logged or trying getting logged, and sorry again for the short (no) notice in advance.

73 cu again from the North Atlantic soon:

John 47DX101

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