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"Getting there in November..."
= CT1CJJ, CT1EEB and WT2O =

 

After the first activation of "Ilha do Pessegueiro IOTA EU-167" by the CQ7P Team from Lisbon the demand for this IOTA was kind of low in Europe but still high elsewhere, in a QSO with Tom WT2O, the idea of going to Pessegueiro came quickly up as a large number of North-Americans still needed it for IOTA.

Tom WT2O could only join us in November 1996 and the major problem was the weather, November in Portugal is kind of a wildcard concerning weather conditions, one can get sunshine in the morning and turned out to be a real thunderstorm in the afternoon.
 

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Anyway with Tom's arrival me CT1EEB and Lopes CT1CJJ decided to give it a try and got ourselves on the way in the 17th of November 1996 without any plans made, no boat or any expectations concerning weather forecast.

After quite a long night drive to the south of Portugal we found ourselves (very early in the morning) in the harbour town of Porto Côvo looking for a boat master willing enough to get us to the Island, what we found to be "Mission Impossible", arguments were that weather was going to change and we would be stucked in Pessegueiro for several days... Not bright at all !

 

 

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Anyway as you can see in the photo one of the "skippers" was brave enough to get us there under his conditions, which included getting off the Island on his command and feeding Tom WT2O after the DX'pedition with a typical Portuguese Boil, we actually call it "Cozido à Portuguesa", so that Tom could prove he was as brave as the boat Captain, Hi !

Photo in the right shows Tom WT2O, José CT1EEB and Lopes CT1CJJ on their way to EU-167, boy it was cold that day !

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From the mainland Pessegueiro looks pretty flat, but it isn't, theres no harbour and it's dangerous to get there due to the several underwater cliffs, anchoring is also a problem theres no sand beach only rock that one has to climb.

The best spot for radio and antennas is in the old Fortress meaning more climbing, looking at the photo you can see us getting the (very heavy) battery up to the radio shack.

 

Between the 3 of us, we made over 600 QSO's as CT1CJJ/p, CT1EEB/p and CT1/WT2O/p in no more than 4 hours, at around 15:00 UTC boat master told us a storm was getting closer and we had to return, he was right as we got heavy rain when we sailed back to mainland, the LOGs were dry but we weren't !

 

Ilha do Pessegueiro - Part II

"The IOTA Contest"

 

Ofcourse the November 96 operation was great but we all realized that 600 QSO's weren't enough to clear EU-167 from the most-wanted list, so we had to return, we targeted at the IOTA Contest but dates were too close to plan such a big high-power DX'pedition, so, we decided to Contest from "Ilha da Insua EU-150" in 1997 and head to Pessegueiro EU-167 in 1998.

 

Support to such an activity came from all areas of the world, it looked like a large number of IOTA chasers really needed EU-167, Mal VK6LC started to design and sponsored us a 2 Element phased vertical for 7 Mhz nicknamed "THUNDER FOR DOWNUNDER", Ghis ON5NT (recently returned from Heard Isl. VK0IR) joined the Team as a CW operator, the Northern Portugal DX Group, GITEI Comunicações, Lda. and Samurosa came up with some financial support and sponsored the QSL cards. CQ2P seemed to be a GO...!

 

After 4 days of activity we came up with the following results:

 IOTA Contest Results:

1.jpg (32739 bytes)The 40m. band "Thunder for Down-Under" antenna really performed, so did the Linear amplifier and ON5NT's CW key.

Total QSOs---> 2507

Total Multipliers---> 264

Claimed Score---> 4.943.928

In the photo you can see us departing to Pessegueiro from Porto Côvo harbour

 

 DX'pedition Results (4 days of activity):pess8.jpg (28621 bytes)

Total QSOs---> 7500

Continental Statistics:

Europe---> 4934 QSOs,  North America---> 1930 QSOs

Asia---> 324 QSOs, Oceania---> 153 QSOs

South America--->72 QSOs and Africa---> 37 QSOs                                                     

 

Operating site in Pessegueiro Island

CT1END, CT1EEB, Junior, CT1EEN

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The Team (L to R): CT1END, CT1EEB, CT1ETZ, CT1EEN, ON5NT, CT1AHU, CT1ENQ, CT1CJJ, (front) CT1ILT and Junior

Thanks for making a QSO with us, we really enjoyed the pile-ups, you certainly kept us busy for 4 days !

QSL cards are still available if you need...

Best regards and Dxing,

José  CT1EEB

The CQ2P Antenna farm: 2xTH-3 tribanders and a phased vertical for 40m. (in the photo the Thunder for down-under made by Mal VK6LC)

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