Daily QSL Cards Februar 2009

I worked the expedition to Sierra Leone, Africa 9L1X while operating from our contest location with better antennas and amplifier. This QSL card I received via the German DX Foundation GDXF.

The contact was October 19th 2008 around 10.00 UTC in CW and SSB on 17 and 15 meter amateurradio band

The operators from Italy were Silvano/I2YSB, Vinicio/IK2CIO, Angelo/IK2CKR, Marcello/IK2DIA and Stefano/IK2HKT with three stations active on SSB(voice), CW(telegraphie) and RTTY(teletyping).

The location was Sherbro Island with the IOTA number AF-056.

The island is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, located in Bonthe District in the Southern Province of Sierra Leone. The Sherbro peoples make up by far the largest ethnic group in the island.
The island is separated from the African mainland by the Sherbro River in the north and the Sherbro Strait in the east.
It is 32 miles long and up to 15 miles wide, covering an area of approximately 230 square miles.
The most western point is Cape St. Ann.
the village Bonthe, on the eastern end, is the chief port and commercial centre.
The island has over 65 miles of tropical beaches and has been highlighted by the Ministry for Tourism and Development of Sierra Leone for tourism development.
Sherbro Island is the site of an early 19th-century British post against the slave trade.

In the recent IOTA contest 2007, I worked with my call DL5AWI the expedition GM2Z. The crew was portable on the Isle of Islay, IOTA EU-008. Every year this team visited an another island around Scotland.

Islay is the most southern island of the Hebridean islands off the west coast of Scotland. It is approx 25 miles long north-south and approx 20 miles wide east-west, it has approx 3.500 permanent residents. Islay is famous for its excellent Islay Single Malt Whiskies from the eight working distilleries. Islay island is very popular among worldwide birdwatchers. There are a number of important historic sites included several Celtic crosses and Finlaggan, home to the Lords of the Isles. Islay has a number of beautiful, silent beaches as well as some impressive cliffs.

Today I received two different QSL-cards from the awesome expedition VK9DWX to Willis Island direct via the GDXF(German DX Foundation).

This was a Dxpedition from members of the Bavarian Contest Club (BCC) and the result was exact 95178 contacts with radio amateurs worldwide.

About the location:

Willis Island is an island in an external territory of Australia. Willis Island is located beyond the Great Barrier Reef in the Coral Sea about 450km east of Cairns, Queensland, Australia.
While a staff of four people operates a weather monitoring station on the south Islet, Mid Islet and North Cay are uninhabited. The Willis Island weather monitoring station was established in 1921, mainly as an early warning station for cyclones, for which it was equipped with a radio transmitter.

The most common inhabitants are Wedge-tailed Shearwaters, Sooty Terns and Common and Black Noddies. Several species of booby migrate through the Island including Masked, Brown and Red-footed Boobies, and also the Lesser Frigatebird. Crested Terns are also seen to migrate.Other birds are the Buff-banded Rail as a resident, Wood Sandpiper, and Sacred Kingfisher and Red-tailed Tropicbird as saisonal guests.
Meager vegetation with small bushes and grass, some crabs and by nightime also green turtles is all what you will find on these lonesome islets. With a diameter of 250m Mid Islet offered the team enough space to build up the camps and antennas.

A telegraphy soundfile with signals from Europe recorded at Willis Island from VK9DWX-teammembers are here.

The operator Johan, PA3EXX was 4 days in August 2007 on air from Rathbone Island, Greenland, mostly 20m in telegraphy. The IOTA (Island on the air) number is NA-243 - Greenland`s Coastal Islands North East. I received the card for my call DL5AWI via the DARC-bureau.

Rathbone Island located about 2 hours sailing from Ittoqqortoormiit, a small Inuit settlement in the north east part of Greenland. The transportation to the island was arranged by Nanu-Travel which is the local tourist office in Ittoqqortoormiit, owned by a group of Inuit - hunters from the village.
During this operation, Johan performed about 2600 contacts on 20 meter band in CW and SSB with all 6 continents.
Rathbone Island, Johan said, with the scenery of mountains, mist, ice-bergs, glaciers, whales, seals, foxes and rabbits, is a truly beatiful place. In winter the island can be reached by dog-sledge from Ittoqqortoormiit.

The equipment was used a tranceiver Kenwood TS-50 and as antenna a Force 12XK-40 dipole. A small generator used as power-supply and 2 spare batteries were beeing kept fully-charged in case of emergencies. Some awesome photos about the expedition are here!