163DX/EU124 - Holy Island Welcome to the information page of 163DX/EU124. This page is mainly made to offer log-search, and general information. Darran cannot be active full 24 hours/Contest style in WIF 2024 at the 9. of June, he hopes to be active a few hours in the morning and similar in the afternoon/evening. But the following days after WIF 2024 has ended, will he be active as the family permits. Story: When the World Island Festival was extended to a 2nd weekend I decided at short notice to take part on the final day, Holy island is an easy access drive on island which has been activated a few times, in fact I was active from there a couple of years ago with this exact callsign, so wasn't expecting much interest which was ideal because I was there with family. Arrived on the island on the 8th June late afternoon and after family duties set up the equipment early Sunday morning, very basic setup was electric extension cable to car with switch mode PSU, 706MK2G and Bamby antenna, anyway first in the log was John 101, after a steady trickle of WIF hunters I had very few takers, in fact next to none which I'd been expecting, the next few days were spent with family but regular short stints on the radio, terrible prop mixed with low interest resulted in very few takers. Wednesday night/Thursday morning wx changed dramatically, Bamby didn't survive, main mast had broken and antenna was on floor, that morning I'd decided to stop with the activation, gods honest truth Bamby was laying in bits on the grass broken and I was sat at dinning table putting the 706MK2G in it's box when I received a whatsapp message from 47DX109 Jesper saying he had prop to UK, I was just about to reply saying activation was finished when he PM'd me again saying he could hear 163EK291, dilemma was Jesper had been listening for me all week (been there and done that 1000's of times), I told him to monitor .570u while I unpacked equip and set up the station again in gale force winds and rain, I shouted to my son Ryan to get his boots and coat on. 15 minutes later I worked Jesper 5/9+ while our Ryan was holding up the bamby by hand, absolutely chuffed to get Jesper in the log. After working Jesper we tied the broken bamby to the driveway gate again, this time feedpoint was only 1m above the metal gate, as I ran to the car I could hear 47DX011 Finn talking to Jesper, as I got in car everything went quiet, looked outside and the bamby had disappeared, pole had snapped again and SWR was high, so I thought that was it game over, ran outside again and snapped the remainder of the mast off the bamby and threw the antenna on the lawn, ran back to car to dismantle the radio but I could still hear Finn with bamby laid flat on the floor but I couldn't get in-between him and Jespers QSO. I had to give it one more go and went back to antenna snapped another meter off the pole and wedged what was left of the antenna in-between the gate post and metal gate, with the feedpoint being only a couple of cm away from the metal gate I was expecting high swr, ran back to car and Finn was genuine +60db on the 706 crappy s-metre, had a pleasant QSO with Finn and Jesper and managed to work more stations but needed regular runs to the antenna to twist the mast because the horizonal pole (center of the bamby) was spinning in the wind causing the wires to twist around the pole. Suddenly the band died with zero takers, after endless calls I pulled the plug. Only the contacts I made on the 9th June 2024 are valid for the World Islands Festival 2024. The amount of log entries is too low to mention but the farse/fun at the end more than made up for the empty log, I know I'll be reminiscing about it in years to come. Wales has some stunning coastline with plenty of little islands/rocks, maybe next time I'll activate one of those, until then. 73 de Darran 26DX047. Find Holy Island on Islands Base Online. Team 26DX047 Mr. Darran QSL-Manager DXRC Bureau E-mail to manager: Click . Activity schedule: 09/06/2024 to 13/06/2024: Holy island. IOTA EU-124 Equipment used: - antenna: Bamby - radios: Icom IC-706 - microphone: original - power Source: Samlex SM PSU & Car Battery - power: 100w - logsystem: "Readability and Signal report exchange" Activity Contract: See here a copy of an agreement the activity team leader has made with DXRC HQ. Log: Are you in Log?. Activity Status: APPROVED. Click here to read more about validations. Pictures/Proofs received after the activation: Click on the thumbnails below for larger picture. Direct Postcards: Click on the thumbnails below for larger picture. YouTube Videos (also proof): Click on the thumbnails below to play the videos. YouTube Recordings: Click on the thumbnail to play the video. TNX 47DX109 Jesper. QSL design: Click on the thumbnail below for larger image. Back.