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Ham on a Hot Thin Island

by Steve, AA1IZ
Part 1

Every year, during the last weekend of July, hams throughout the world travel to remote islands. No it is not a coordinated global vacation schedule. It is the 24-hour Islands On The Air radio contest sponsored by the RSGB (Radio Society of Great Britain). The contest is rapidly growing in participation, but it still seems to be centered around the European community. Having given the contest a try from Gallops Island in Boston Harbor (NA148) in 1996 and having a few other island DXpeditions under my belt, I figured it was time for a serious effort closer to the epicenter of the activity. A variety of factors were used in strategically selecting the optimum location. The QTH had to be as rare as possible (IOTA booklets list the least active islands as indicated in award applications). Propagation back to central Europe on all bands had to be peak for the contest dates. Commercial electricity had to be available (Gallops Island had been a portable generator event - too difficult for a single op overseas). Transportation and housing were also taken in to account.
All considerations led to Greece and the southern Pelopenese grouping of islands (EU-113). One island stood out as the prime choice: Elafonisos. A relatively inactive island with some guesthouses, easily approached by boat. My family agreed to the adventure as long as I limited my radio activity to the critical weekend.
Arrangements were made to charter a 58 foot sailboat for two weeks, scheduling the contest weekend in the middle of the trip. GPSC charters in Philadelphia slowly began to understand the magnitude of the project and helped me in selecting a captain who would get into the "craziness". Beside his 19 years of captaining skills he was heavily into computers and was "extremely resourceful".
So with captain and boat and island selected I put together my equipment list and began to gather my supplies. On this type of trip you need to start at the wall outlet and work your way


	through to the antennas. First I needed my set of wall plug adapters. European outlets do not match those in the USA and may even vary from country to country. Next came my 220v to 110v transformer. Then came the 110v ac to 13v dc power supply. The rig was a Yaesu FT-890AT equipped with a Heil Pro headset and a straight key. The logging software was SuperDuper IOTA generously made available by EI5DI as shareware (and officially recognized by the RSGB for submitting logs). An old 386x25 notebook computer ran the software and keyed the rig for CW QSO's. An MFJ antenna tuner handled the two antennas: a 3 element tri-bander fed with coax and a 180 foot center fed Zep fed with 450 ohm ladder line. Not knowing the distances to the antennas from the rig I brought 200 feet of coax and 200 feet of ladder line. Four five-foot lengths of Radio Shack antenna mast would be the tower for the beam. As departure date approached, continued phone calls to the charter company brought assurances that even though we still did not have any firm arrangements on Elafonisos we should not worry. "Your captain, Costas, is very resourceful". The entire station, less the beam, was carefully packed as carry on luggage. "No sir, I don't need any help carrying my bag." "It WILL fit under the seat in front of me!" "Please be careful - it is fragile electronic equipment." The beam was packed in a six foot long, six inch diameter, heavy duty PVC pipe with special end caps. Airlines have yet to reject my heavy-duty "fishing gear" case (aluminum rods for catching the best DX). The flight from Boston to New York was on a small commuter plane. Everything had to be checked including carry on luggage. Well at least they squeezed the big tube on with out complaints. At JFK airport I retrieved my carry on luggage. All seemed OK. We were flying to Athens via Geneva aboard Swiss Air. The large overhead storage bins handled my gear on the trans-Atlantic flight without incident. How

ever, the last leg to Athens was another small plane and carry on luggage was limited to one piece per person. My wife graciously checked her carry on and we were allowed on the plane.
Some fifteen hours after we left Boston we arrived in Athens - beautiful, exotic, ancient, and very hot. Our luggage slowly appeared on the conveyor. Everything, that is, except the big, white, heavy-duty PVC tube. After the Greek speaking Swiss Air representative finally understood what it was that was missing she started radioing different parts of the terminal to find the lost luggage. "Don't worry sir. It is coming up a special conveyor for oversize luggage. There, in the corner." With great relief I headed over to the oversize freight area. There, coming up the conveyor, was the big white tube, and spilling out from either end were lengths of aluminum tubing. One end cap was totally missing and the other was shattered. Fortunately the elements were all taped together and the lengths of heavy string that I use for guy wires snagged the poles and prevented them from sliding completely out of the tube. The damaged luggage form could just not handle the incident. "What were the dimensions of the luggage? Was it made from fabric or leather? How would you describe the contents?" I was glad to have lost only some small hardware that had been in the tube and after realizing that all the beam was still there I repacked and taped cardboard to the tube ends.
We loaded everything in a cart and headed for customs. Needless to say the big white tube attracted immediate attention. "Please open", the customs officer was doing his job. I quickly pulled out my letter from the Greek authorities granting me licensing privileges (in both Greek and English). He called his supervisor. She read the letter, thought for a minute, looked at me, looked at the big white tube, and waved us through. There is nothing like the "respect" of one bureaucracy for another.

Continued Next Month...