At 14DA021 Eric’s home, we loaded his car with our portable DX station and were en route at 3:15 am for new dx adventures for the 2017 World Islands Contest in the Manche Atlantic.
We arrived around 10:15 am local time at the parking lot near Jaouen island (MA072), with a magnificent view over the sea and surrounding shoreline.
Here we took advantage to relax the legs a bit and wade through the rushing salt water on rocks to see if the passage to the island was open and we could go.
Fortunately, the tide is okay.
Then back to the car to the equipment, we took all that was necessary to traffic in good conditions and made our way across the sand flat to the tiny Department 22 island wading through knee deep water.
Eager to make our first CQ call as 14DA/MA072 Jaouen Island, we settled on frequency 27.555 MHz USB with our ICOM IC706 transceiver purring away nicely and the Bamby antenna erected in the grass and gyed to nearbye rocks.
We gave the QSY destination 27.430 MHz USB and waited with open ears however the band was quiet as it was a Friday and most radio operators were at work.
At 12 o’clock pm we decided to retry our luck and “BINGO” Italy is logged by way of 1AT506 Piero on the Mediterranean coastline who comes through to us at 5/9.
The QSOs are connected with Olivier 14HF177 of the d-59 with a postponement of 5/1 and then we go back to 1 Division with 1AT227 Livio.
We continue little by little to pass QRT at 15:26 with 73WO60 Ramon from the country of Suriname on the north-eastern Atlantic coast of South America with a signal of 5/5.
With the water quickly rising, however, it is time to dismantle the station because the tide is not waiting and we are heading towards the island Grande (MA016) for our next WIC activity in order to settle into our Mobile home in Camping l’Abri-Cotier.
We total 47 QSOs out of 11 DXCC from MA072 = Italy (1), France (14), Canary Islands (34), Greece (18), Denmark (47), England (26), Spain (30), Morocco (76), Togo Republic (164), Corsica (104), Suriname (73).
Fellow Dx Adventure Radio Club (DA-RC) members ITL include 14DA049 Fred, 164DA101 Hervé, 104DA102 Syl, 14DA028 Phil & 14DA021 Eric.
Leave a Reply