The QSLs below are from some of my own DX & Islands on the Air (IOTA) travels. Mixing my hobbies of ham radio, photography, and scuba diving -- I try to go to an odd island or remote outpost at least once or twice a year. After each trip I enjoy slowly retracing my steps through the hundreds of photographs that are invariably taken, and it's always great fun to try to select a single shot that best represents the place for a photo QSL. Since most QSL companies will print in lots of 1,000, I took to the idea of making a different design for each of those increments. This kept me motivated as I added QSOs in the log, always knowing I'd have the pleasure of designing a whole new QSL card once I break each 1,000 QSO barrier.

Visiting a relative in Anchorage for a couple summers in the mid 1990s gave me the first chance to really take the show on the road. My first time away from the big fixed antennas and amplifiers in my home shack really opened my eyes; I had not known how easy it would be to work the world barefoot with nothing more than simple wire antennas! Once that mental barrier had been overcome, it was easy to plan to bring the rig with me on many subsequent trips over the years. I also had a great time taking this shot for the photo QSL -- right after snapping this photograph I had to quickly duck to avoid being pelted by that snowball!

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Rurutu, Austral Islands 2001

In September 2001 I journeyed to southern French Polynesia to the island of Rurutu, in the Austral Islands chain. Whales come here to breed, and it is possible to get very close to these amazing creatures both above and below the waterline.

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American Samoa 2002

Compared with next-door (western) Samoa, the beautiful islands that comprise American Samoa receive surprisingly few tourists. Only a short 5 hour flight from Hawaii makes it tantalizingly close, and in 2002 I went twice: the first on a mini one-man DXpedition to activate Tutuila (OC-045) and Ofu (OC-077), and a few months later as a team member for the multinational K8T & K8O IOTA expeditions to the same locales.

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Grand Turk Island 2003

A quick flip through all of the VP5 QSLs I've collected over the years revealed a startling surprise: ALL of them were from the Caicos Islands, none from the Turks. I found this odd, considering it's equally easy to get to both island groups. Since the Turks and the Caicos islands are separate counters in the IOTA program, I have thus concentrated all my travels to VP5 to the Turks side of this country to give contacts for IOTA NA-003 to the many people (including myself) who still needed it for a new one. The scuba diving in this part of the world is spectacular, and I fell into a comfortable rhythm of spending my days in the water and evenings on the air.

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Salt Cay 2004

Back to the Turks & Caicos Islands again the following year. Once again I stayed in the Turks (NA-003) but switched islands to tiny Salt Cay for this trip. Once again diving occupied most of my waking hours while radio was relegated to the late afternoons and evenings.

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Smith Island, Maryland 2005

For a change I decided to keep things domestic in 2005. I found two islands I still needed that were very close to each other in the Chesapeake Bay. This made it possible to knock out two different IOTA groups in one trip, which was doubly nice. I split a week between the two places and was pleased by how many people said "Thanks for the new one!" during my time on the air.

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Tangier Island, Virginia 2005

The second half of my 2005 IOTA trip. After the silence & solitude of Smith Island, Tangier Island seemed positively cosmopolitan by comparison.

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Samoa 2006

Back to the South Pacific to see the other Samoa this time. Despite being on the bottom of the sunspot cycle, I got lucky with solar conditions that topped out with an SFI index over 100 and A & K indexes that stayed at zero for several days during my stay. Had several great evening openings to Europe on both 15m and 20m as result!

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British Virgin Islands 2006

Another trip just a few months later; I really worked a lot of stations in 2006! I logged nearly 3,000 from Tortola, BVI, in between scuba dives and sightseeing various islands in VP2V & KP2. Got to design three different photo QSL designs as a result.