[Contents] [Library] [Reprint policy] [Disasters]
Distributed by the Virtual Publishing Company.
Do you believe in ghosts ??? -NO..., me neither, but really we saw many strange things during our stay of 4 days in Insua Island !!! Portugal is not one of those Countries that has dozens of Island groups, indeed we only have four, so, choosing one to DX'pedition and entry in the IOTA Contest wasn't a difficult choice. The island of Insua in the extreme north of Portugal has always been in our hearts, the first ever DX'pedition we made was there, it had also the advantage that it hasn't been very active in the past, only two activities with 6000 QSOs, so, many IOTA newcomers needed it for a brand new-one; indeed we heard very often the "thanks for the new-one" on the radio during the pile-ups, that is the best reward one can have !
The history of Insua backs to the times of the Roman invasions; the island was a place of pagan cults and human sacrificies before the expansion of the Catholic church. In the year of 1392 the first settlers get to live on the Island, they were the Catholic Monks in charge of building a Mission where to live. Thereafter the Island has been the favorite target of Pirates and Spanish invasions that lead the monks to leave it and return to the mainland. In 1649 the Portuguese king ordered the construction of a heavy armed Fortress to defend the Island and the sea-port of Caminha, remains of those times are still there, the old 15th Century cannons are on the same place as they left them and many say they still work ! The military presence on the Island was to stay until the end of the 19th Century, since then Insua has been declared a National monument and a wildlife reserve, which makes staying overnight very difficult without the proper permits. Nowadays there's nobody living on the Island since the lighthouse as becomed automatic, the lighthouse itself has been keeped by the Portuguese Navy, but the same can't be said about the Fortress, that has sufered with the constant strong north winds and by some people that keeps on forgetting that garbage has a place to be put.
Anyway, back to Radio business..., we arrived on the Island on the 26th of July, after a windy and rough sea ride in small boats, (I say small, because they were really small), at least our brave sailors weren't afraid of the sea and for those of you thinking that sand storms are things from the big deserts, I can tell that the landing place at the Island beach was just like that, the wind was so strong that there was sand everywhere; it's good to feel what Lawrence of Arabia felt, but even now there's still sand inside my poor power-supply (and my bones) !, I don't know if sand is OK for the gear, but water certainly is NOT. With the aproaching high tide, we had to "slave" work as quick as we could to get all the stuff inside the fortress in safe place; washing the radios was not in my plans that day !
The target was to get a station on the air for North America, we knew EU-150 was kind of needed there, this time there was no Murphy striking, just plain bad luck (we called it the Monk's curse) as we started a generator and it didn't work at all, in 1994 when we were in Insua for the first time we had the same problem and had to drive 300 Km to get a workable one, this time we were not going to get caught by that, and in spite of one being out we still had two to go... By the way a 2,5 Kwatt generator is not enough to feed the Yaesu FL-2100z Linear amp. !, by 19H00z. The TH-3 antenna was on, thanks to Josi CT1CJJ that wasn't afraid to climb with all the wind and put it at a reasonable height, then it was only plug-in and hit the pile-ups signing /p, (running low-power of course, one needs to have a real power-plant to feed the FL-2100z amp.. ).
Thanks to Santos CT1DVV and Carlos CT1BQH late night work on the 40 meter band delta-loop this band showed also to be quite good. All in all, in spite of having to run low-power at all moments (even during the contest), everything was as expected, before the IOTA contest all operations have been home-call/portable, during and after the contest the call was CQ2I.
It was great to verify that 10 meters are still alive and 15 meters did produce real big pile-ups, nevertheless 20 have brought us some troubles; it's not easy to run 100 watt among all those Kwatts and when SSB frequencies were all filled with people calling CQ Contest (sometimes more NON Island stations than IOTAs, HI!) CT1BQH turned to CW and we got it back to business !!!, Maybe in the future by creating a low-power class in the Contest will help, at least it will help to increase the motivation to go to one of those IOTA Spots where Linear amps. aren't more than a heavy box !
Last QSO was made on Monday 29th July at 11H00z, we hope that after more than 2500 QSOs EU-150 will drop some points in the rank of the IOTA needs... By the way did someone mention the word "strange things" or "bad luck", can you imagine an Island where all mornings you find a cross made out of wood at the fortress door or where heavy wood doors standing there for Centuries fall without warning (luckily nobody was sleeping in that place at the time ), I just hope all the 59's didn't awake the good old Monks, because if they did, they are the ones to be blamed for the crash in the logging computer, in 3 generators simultaneously and in the fact that even the batteries refused to charge... ( we did manage to fix the generators later !).
Forgot to tell that the sea was really lousy when we got back, luckily the electronic equipment was well protected, surfing on those waves kept all and everyone wet, nothing better than a nice salt water shower after a DX'pedition !!! Our thanks to everyone that supported us since the very first beginning...
The CQ2I operators were:
CW operators: Carlos CT1BQH and Josi CT1CJJ
SSB operators: Marques CT1BWW, Santos CT1DVV, Josi CT1EEB,
Miguel CT1ENQ and Jorge CT1FMX.
Logistics: Ruben CT1ETZ ( thanks Ruben for your valuable help and support ).
This DX'pedition could not be made without the help of: J.B. Informatica, Rede dos Emissores Portugueses, Portuguese Navy, Viana do Castelo Regional Government, ARUA, Carlos CT1BY, Jzlio CT1ZW, Pedro CT1DNF and to the brave sailor Joco Porto.
QSL the portable callsigns to each operator home-call.
QSL CQ2I to QSL manager WA1ECA
( European stations can also send QSL card to CT1EEB ).
Back to table of contents