 | GB2MDG 2008 Welcome to this page which will go through our trip to the Isle of Arrann EU-123. This trip was a year in the planning as our first Dx pedition and was worth it. Five members from the Middlesex DX Group, 2E0VAG SIMON SMITH,G0KLX JOHN IVORY, G1KAW KEVIN RAMPTON, M1PRO JASON WOODMAN AND 2E1IDC CARL HILLIER, embarked on this trip leaving West London at 10.30pm on the 3rd of October 2008 , drove through the night arriving at Ardrossan near glasgow at 7.00am the next morning. |
| Our ferry was booked for 1.00pm, but as there was one in dock we managed to change our tickets and board the one waiting for us. The weather was absolutely foul, It was a force 8 crossing and not something i would like to do everyday. Speaking to the crew they said it was very tame, i beg to disagree. We arrived at our cottage at 2.00pm after a bit of food, beer and relaxation and the weather was still foul. We rigged up a couple of makeshift antenna's 9 eleement tonna and Hustler 5BTV and settled down for the day. We played a bit of radio and worked a few stations but needed something special.....Next morning the sun came out and it was like a summer's day we put up the 30ft tower and on top put 2 x 21 element tonna's for 70cms and a 5 element 6m beam. The tower was winched up by the minibus 0n the second attempt after smashing the 6m beam( sorry john), and nearly taking out the clutch. Next we put up a carolina windom 80 special from the top of the tower to a tree down the field and finally a pair of 17 ele tonna's for 2 metre's... Unfortunately being hemmed in by granite on three sides the vhf and uhf staions did not work that well although they did manage to make a few contacts on fsk over the week. On the tuesday night it was the 144UKAC 2 metre competition so we thought we would give it a go from IO75KM. It would have been nice if we could have got out of th IO75 Square, but we didnt nevermind it is the taking part that counts... We managed to work six stations......
Here are the group gettin ready to set sail The minibus was a 15 seater and we neede every seat for all the equipment, on hindsight we might have had slightly to much. Next time will be different, how many times have you heard that said....More Pictures can be found by following this link...... http://picasaweb.google.com/2E0VAG/GB2MDGARRAN2008# There are a hell of a lot of photo's please feel free to comment . Please have a look... .. 
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GB2MDG HF HF HF CROC COTTAGE. This was the cottage we stayed in, it was fantastic, situated a short drive from Lamlash Bay, what more could we ask for. The cottage was very roomy and the open fire was put to good use on the cold evenings and days.It had everything we needed. If you ever travel to Arran, this one is worth a visit. There was a meadow in front of the house and the Landlord told us that we could chop it down to put up our antenna's. There was no need we flattened down a bit of bramble, ( WELL ALOT ), in the field in frront of the House. Unfortunately unless you go to somewhere that another group have been to before you are taking abit of a chance, so we found out... We have heard that the south of the island is much flatter and could have been better, for the VHF, UHF, We will know next time...........................................
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EQUIPMENT........... HF ICOM 746 PRO, ICOM IC-2KL LINEAR, AT-500 ATU 144MHZ YAESU FT-736, NAG LINEAR, 2 X 17 ELEMENT TONNA'S 50MHZ KENWOOD TS-480, 5 ELEMENT BEAM MOONRAKER 432MHZ YAESU FT-847, DRESSLER LINEAR, 2 X 21 ELEMENT TONNA'S ALSO WE HAD A ICOM 706 MK2G AND FT-897D AS BACKUPS. Probably took to much stuff with us but , we had no equipment problems other than losing the internet connection for a couple of days...... The best Bands had to be 20m, 40m and 80m, we did try the other bands but conditions were very quiet. We did also manage to get on the Scottish islands net on 160m. Most operations seem to cease about Midnight as the bands seem to go very quiet, but what a fantastic time we had.............. Being on the other side of a pile is unreal, and i think we coped very well, most stations were very patient with us as we worked through the pile, it seemed like there were 100 stations caling us at one stage. In all we worked just under 1700 qso's and hopefully next time my CW will be up to scratch and we can notch up a load more......... Our worst descision was to continue with a paper log due to pc problems, what a headache when you get home........ One of the best achievements was when we climed GOATFELL 874m appx. Unfortunately we were unable to make many QSO's ............................................................See GOATFELL PAGE......................................................... I would like to say a big thankyou to the local Jammer who stayed with us through-out the week . I would also like to say a massive thankyou to every station that worked us while we were on EU-123... COUNTRIES WORKED. AUSTRALIA AUSTRIA BALEARIC ISL. BELARUS BELGIUM BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA CANADA CANARY ISL. CHINA CROATIA CYPRUS CZECH REP. DENMARK EAST MALAYSIA ENGLAND ESTONIA FALKLAND ISL FINLAND FRANCE GERMANY GREECE GREENLAND GUANTANAMO BAY GUERNSEY (BAILIWICK OF) HONDURUS HUNGARY INDIA INDONESIA IRELAND ISLE OF MAN ISRAEL ITALY JAPAN JERSEY (CHANNEL ISL.) KALLINGRAD KAZAKHSTAN KRYSIKSTAN LATVIA LITHUANIA LUXEMBOURG MALTA MAURITIUS MOLDOVA MOROCCO NETHERLANDS NORTHERN IRELAND NORWAY POLAND PORTUGAL ROMANIA RUSSIA (ASIATIC) RUSSIA (EUROPEAN) SARDINIA SCOTLAND SERBIA SLOVAK REP. SLOVENIA SOUTH KOREA SPAIN ST. BARTHELEMY SWEDEN SWITZERLAND TURKMANISTAN TAIWAN UKRAINE USA VENEZUELA WALES QSL INFO... QSL Cards are now in print, sorry for the delay.....17/02/2009 ThanKyou for all the qsl cards sent direct with irc and greenbacks and stamped addressed envelopes. These will be sent out immediately i recieve the cards All other card will go via the buro asap...... 73's
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