Utsira - The Story - by LA8AJA
After the joy of EU-56, we started talking about yet another iota activation.
A few islands up north were discussed, but then we had to go by plane. This
would limit the amount of equipment we could bring.
After a few weeks, LA9VDA decided to go for EU-55, Utsira Island. Karmøy was deleted as EU-55 earlier this year, and that was the island that most people had. This meant that EU-55 was nr. 6 on most wanted list for IOTA in EU.
Departure was July 19th from Moss. After a long roadtrip, we arrived at LA4C in the evening. We were met by LB8CA and LA7XIA and were given a tour of the station. The QTH is quite impressing and they would for sure have a chance in beating LA8W in a contest.
After spending the night at LA4C, LB8CA joined us on the ferry to Utsira. It was pretty clear that this trip would differ a lot from our EU-56 trip a few months back. Putting up the antennas would be much more work, something we found out rather quickly. Two of the antennas, 20M and 30M was erected close to the house, 40/80 and 17M was erected closer to the lighthouse. Each antenna seemed too long, and much time passed by getting the antennas ok.
After much work, we could finally hit the air. 40M seemed to be a problem, giving much interference to the other stations. We later found out why, something you can see in the video at the front page. The butternut didn't like the salt from the ocean. We had sparkovers when running a PA and swr was going up and down. The other antennas were fine, so we could work 30M and 20M.
On thursday, we noticed something wrong with 30M. This was due to the wire was broken. Later the fiberglasspole broke. 30M was fixed, 20M had to be tightened up in the wind, same with 17M. The butternut was rebuilt to a 40M 1/4 wave. Heavy wind was giving us a hard time keeping the antennas alive. Finally we could continue wokring some radio.
LB8CA visited us several times. He was very interested in the pile-up's we ran and also computer logging. He even worked a few QSO'es while he was there. We gave him an intro in how to use all that stuff, so watch out, he might pop up from some exotic place in the future.
All the gear was packed late saturday night so that we would be ready for the ferry next morning.
Even though conditions weren't too good, we managed some dx contacts. Off course, Europe dominated the bands, but hopefully we gave quite a few people a new IOTA. We made 5500+ QSO'es on this trip, with some nice pile-up's from time to time. A result we are very happy with.
Until next expedition...
After a few weeks, LA9VDA decided to go for EU-55, Utsira Island. Karmøy was deleted as EU-55 earlier this year, and that was the island that most people had. This meant that EU-55 was nr. 6 on most wanted list for IOTA in EU.
Departure was July 19th from Moss. After a long roadtrip, we arrived at LA4C in the evening. We were met by LB8CA and LA7XIA and were given a tour of the station. The QTH is quite impressing and they would for sure have a chance in beating LA8W in a contest.
After spending the night at LA4C, LB8CA joined us on the ferry to Utsira. It was pretty clear that this trip would differ a lot from our EU-56 trip a few months back. Putting up the antennas would be much more work, something we found out rather quickly. Two of the antennas, 20M and 30M was erected close to the house, 40/80 and 17M was erected closer to the lighthouse. Each antenna seemed too long, and much time passed by getting the antennas ok.
After much work, we could finally hit the air. 40M seemed to be a problem, giving much interference to the other stations. We later found out why, something you can see in the video at the front page. The butternut didn't like the salt from the ocean. We had sparkovers when running a PA and swr was going up and down. The other antennas were fine, so we could work 30M and 20M.
On thursday, we noticed something wrong with 30M. This was due to the wire was broken. Later the fiberglasspole broke. 30M was fixed, 20M had to be tightened up in the wind, same with 17M. The butternut was rebuilt to a 40M 1/4 wave. Heavy wind was giving us a hard time keeping the antennas alive. Finally we could continue wokring some radio.
LB8CA visited us several times. He was very interested in the pile-up's we ran and also computer logging. He even worked a few QSO'es while he was there. We gave him an intro in how to use all that stuff, so watch out, he might pop up from some exotic place in the future.
All the gear was packed late saturday night so that we would be ready for the ferry next morning.
Even though conditions weren't too good, we managed some dx contacts. Off course, Europe dominated the bands, but hopefully we gave quite a few people a new IOTA. We made 5500+ QSO'es on this trip, with some nice pile-up's from time to time. A result we are very happy with.
Until next expedition...