Oliver Bross

Left the Clubhouse at Strumble Head on Thursday lunch time and travelled to St. Davids where we were to take the short five minute trip across from the mainland to Ramsey. All went well and after initial intrepidations about the amount of gear we had, we were all pretty excited about getting across.Travelling down the steep cliffs at St. Justinians was very daunting but with the assistance of the RSPB & RNLI Staff we loaded the 'lift' and transported most of the gear down to the Lifeboat House and then again carried it onto the Lifeboat Slipway. Seeing the other boats arriving back with tourists having been for sight  seeing tours, some of them visibily throwing up started to panic Tim M0URX somewhat. Tim already had a worry about travelling on sea but it was all ok and the crossing went with ease despite the formidable ''The Bitches'' living up to their reputation.



Again, stepping foot on the Island went well where again we were met by National Park/RSPB Staff who were all eager to help us with the 6 generators and the rest of our equipment up the huge climb to the accomadation. This climb was awesome, far worse than we we told (Thanks Rob - not!), and i was extremely tired as was Chris G1VDP, no marathons for us i fear this Year!

Accomodation is an old barn in the farmhouse where we quickly stored the gear, helped Jayne access her food and cooking gear and then we started to work on assembling both Hexbeams. Both had been prepared by Ant MW0JZE and assembly was not going to take too long. After initial issues with one rotator both Hex were up and working by 2200 but after a break for a BBQ, we were fast losing the light and wanted to prepare at least a 40m dipole before we finished for the night. Working with torches we got sorted and antennas were good to go.

Tim had been running about like a blue bottomed fly, 'fetch this, fetch that Tim' and in between he had already  made good progress seeting up our three  stations ( 2 x Elecraft K3, Yaesu Ft2000, 3 x Acom 1000 Amplifiers).

All stations were operational by Midnight and initial tests proved fruitful. Morning saw Tim M0URX & Ant up early having little sleep (he blamed snoring but we never hear them!). MC0SHL were on air from 0800 and pile ups very good on 20M all wanting a shot at EU-124 (IOTA) and GWFF-072 (World Flora Fauna). We had one station running for several hours on 20M and then 17. Up to lunch time we had 850 Q's logged and all going great - bring on the Contest!

Thanks Charles M0OXO

Tags: ramsey island | eu-124 | iota | rspb | rsgb