Sunday 20 April 2008

MJ0MJH :D

Well, after months of 'planning' (most of it was just chucked together to be honest), myself and Kevan 2E0WMG are in Jersey (EU-013). Drove down in my car down to Weymouth and got the ferry from there at 1200hrs. Had to stop off in Guernsey's port for some of the passengers to disembark and then it was back to the sea for the final leg to Jersey. Once we got off of the ferry we were driving towards the customs queue and Kevan said "Oh gawd, please don't stop us! I don't want to have to unpack any of this lot!" (talking about all the radio gear in the back) and I think he jinxed us. As I was getting the landing cards out of my pocket, one of the customs officials waved us over. We had a nice little chat, he asked us how long we were staying, where we were staying, the reason for the trip etc. Kevan did his speal about amateur radio and he sent us on our way. We finally got to the hotel at about 5pm.

We went out and went onto 20m earlier from my car. Countries worked included Brazil, Malta, Saudi Arabia and Iraq! Not bad for 50w and a 20m hamstick (I think I used 100w temporarily for Iraq)!

73 DE MJ0MJH

Sunday 13 April 2008

MJ0MJH

Well... I haven't posted to my blog for ages so I thought I'd better!

On the 20th of this month (April 2008) I, along with my friend Kevan (2E0WMG), will be travelling to Jersey (IOTA ref EU-013) for a week long holiday with a strong radio theme to it. We intend to be active on the radio as much as possible but have no schedule set in stone. We also hope to be able to go and activate Les Minquiers reef (IOTA ref EU-099) 12 miles off of the south coast of Jersey at some point during the trip.

We shall be taking a variety of different aerials (Verticals, dipoles, mobile antennas, portable antennas for Les Minquiers) and radios will be Yaesu FT857s for normal use (Kevan may be taking his FT897 if his 857 isn't back from repair in time) and Yaesu FT817s for any spur of the moment trips out and probably on Les Minquiers. Operation will probably be on 80m and above with a possibility of 160m but this will only be with a low dipole and 100w maximum (Kevan is limited to 50w under licencing conditions). Special time slots will be observed for QRP or mobile stations, hopefully at 1/2 hr intervals.

Callsigns will be MJ0MJH and 2J0WMG respectfully.

QSL is via home calls for each operator either via bureau or direct, details are available for both operators on QRZ.COM. If cards are being sent direct, we ask for return postage to be included. This can be in the form on 'Green stamps' or current valid IRC (International Reply Coupon).

Please be aware that these operators are fairly new to pileup operation so may seem slow to some. Depending on if we can operate from the hotel we are staying at or not and whether the wifi connection is stable enough, we may or may not have access to the DX cluster or email whilst operating.

Pictures will (if WIFI connection is OK in our hotel room) be uploaded to Flickr (LINK) and video will be uploaded to Youtube sometime after the trip (
http://www.youtube.com/M0MJH).

Right, I don't think there is much more to say on the matter.

So, 73 for now and we hope to hear you when we are on Jersey.

Sparky