Diplome des Iles de la France Metropolitaine (D.I.F.M.) activity 14DA/MA143, from the unique Ile Fort De Querqueville, took place on the 2016 Islands Festival weekend by experienced members of the DA-RC.

Here is a brief report by DXpedition team leader 14DA028 Phil with accompanying proofs which include station, landscape, etc…

The 14DA/MA143 DXpedition team for this exciting event on June 4 and 5 comprised of 14DA016 Rod, 14DA021 Eric, 14DA050 Bruno and myself, 14DA028 Phil.

Fort of Querqueville Island is a tiny package of land, nestled a stone’s throw off the coast of Normandy in the department of the Manche (La Manche).

Foremost 11m DX data bases such as Islands Base Online (IBO) and Cluster dk archives indicate it had never before been active on 27 MHz frequencies.

Our island station for this highly anticipated N/V IOTA affair consisted of a Yaesu FT857D transceiver, an RM Italy KL-501 300 watt amplifier, a car battery for power and two homemade wire antennas — a Skypper and Bamby.

Perfect for this portable/field application, the Yaesu FT857D is the world’s smallest HF/VHF/UHF multimode amateur transceiver and provides base station-type performance from an ultra-compact package.

The Bamby and Skypper provided two excellent lightweight options for our journey by foot along the fortification’s outside perimeter to the island and the sort of high quality directional capability we were looking for to have some success in the Festival.

Also along for the ride was a laptop computer for logging and cluster purposes, plus numerous other DXcessories to better equip the station.

The first operator in the log for 14DA/MA143 was fellow Dx Adventure Radio Club (DA-RC) member and big gun IOTA Hunter 14DA049 Fred.

More than 100 stations followed ITL during our time on this diminutive French isle with conditions providing openings mostly with fellow European DXCC.

Our team was delighted, however, to work the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria (146 Division) in North Africa, as well as the largest country in South America, Brazil (3 Division).

Wrapping up the log on day 2 was 14AT736 in France.

In conclusion, the propagation was not very open during the weekend here in the English Channel but we are very happy to have activated this new one on 11m.

73 de Phil and thanks again, the Team MA143.

Log Statistics

• Number of Stations Logged: 112
• DXCC Worked: 13 [France (14), The Netherlands (19), Italy (1), Denmark (47), England (26), Poland (161), Corsica (104), Spain (30), Algeria (146), Brazil (3), Germany (13), Belgium (16) and Switzerland (15).
• DA-RC members ITL: 14DA049 Fred, 14DA014 Phil, 14DA017 Laurent, 14DA050 Bruno, 104DA102 Syl, 104DA101 Roy, 14DA016 Rodolphe, 14DA028 Phil and 14DA021 Eric.