Ham on a Hot Thin Island

by Steve, AA1IZ
Part 3 of 3

By the time I had walked back to our apartment, Costas was just landing on the beach.  The third floor walkup apartment had 48 steps.  We had five packages of varying weight and size (small and light not being in the mix).  The afternoon was moving quickly towards evening and sundown so there was no stopping for breaks.  The temperature at the water edge was over 90.  Adrenaline can carry you a long way.  In very short time all the equipment was sitting in the apartment.  As the sun began its slide down to the water I rounded up my helpers and we started to quickly assemble the beam.  Since the guy wire collar had been lost from the tube we jury-rigged a replacement.  Shortly after sundown the beam was sitting 20 feet up in the air on its mast which was on top of a twenty-five foot roof.  Since I don't take electric rotators I "armstronged " the beam to a heading of approximately 315.
I assembled the station in the kitchenette, attached the antennas to the tuner, turned on the power supply, turned on the radio and nothing happened!  I checked the power.  The computer worked.  My meter told me there was power out of the power supply.  The rig was down!  I checked fuses - OK.  I checked the connector at the end of the power cable - OK.  I was stumped.  I checked for an obvious bad connection inside the rig - nothing.  I buttoned everything up and sat staring at my dysfunctional radio.  "Why not try the on/off button again", my wife offered in an encouraging manner.  Mumbling and thoroughly aggravated I leaned over and pushed the switch.  Click, lights, and the music of off frequency side band - the radio was working.  No explanation, but I didn't care.  I quickly checked the beam on 10, 15, and 20.  Good SWR, no problem loading.  The center fed zep did pretty well all the way down to 80 meters.  I was ready to go on the air.
Everyone else went out for supper while I finished off another liter of spring water.  We stocked the refrigerator with six more bottles of water and several containers of juice.  Two of the water bottles were put in the freezer for cooling me off when things got really hot. 
Now I would find out how rare EU-113 really was.  14.260 was busy so I went down to 14.195 and called a short CQ

using the voice keyer.  No answer.  Tried again.  No answer.  I decided I would search someone out who was calling a CQ and responded to them.  Good contact, good reports.  It was time to try calling CQ again, but this time I used the microphone.  Finally a response - from the Ukraine.  I checked out the voice keyer  and was told I sounded distorted.  Pack up the new technology.  I thanked the other station for his time and patience helping me work out the problem, told him I looked forward to working him during the contest, and said 73.  As I signed with the first station another called from Italy and then one from Israel and then the rush was on.  I picked

a quick swim, a shower, a light lunch and another liter of water.
About 15 minutes before the contest I picked a frequency on 20 meters, called CQ, and started a QSO.  With a few minutes to go I started another QSO and as the starting time came up I made it my first QSO.  Things went well as my rate climbed to over 100 QSO's per hour, but I didn't feel I was getting the action I expected.  There were times I had to call CQ for a few minutes before getting an answer.  It was as if I wasn't getting full power out.  Each time I changed frequency it became more difficult to tune the rig.  Some time shortly after sundown as I re-tuned on a new frequency the rig shut down.  At first I thought I had hit a dangerously high SWR.  I dropped the power and started loading up again.  The best I could do was 30 watts before the rig would cut out.  Now I was really limited.  I thought that the heat had possibly caused the problem.  With no air conditioning, no fan, and no breeze I had to get creative.  The two frozen bottles of water were pulled from the freezer.  I carefully placed them on top of the Yaesu and hoped that the rig would cool down enough to get back some power.
The other decision was to shift to CW where low power would have a better chance of making a statement.  Slowly my QSO rate started to climb, but never to a high enough number to make a serious dent in the competition.  In the wee hours of the morning the rig could not take anymore and completely shut down.  I decided it was time for a power nap.  I remembered that the YCCC big guns had said that 45 minutes was the proper length of sleep for optimum recovery, so with alarm set I crawled into bed with thoughts of air conditioning drifting through my head.
Precisely on time my body responded to the alarm and within minutes I was seated at the station.  I pushed the "on" button. Liftoff!  I had power, well at least 30 watts.  That was better than zero.  And so it went, through the night.  Every once in a while I would get brave and try to increase loading, and every time I tried the FT890 made it clear that I would not be granted that privilege. 
Sunrise brought back 20 meters, but with so little power it was not until 15 opened that I could start picking up multipliers.  My family came by mid morning to see how I was doing.  They had learned to

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