Since visiting the Island without amateur radio equipment in 1986 I've always wanted to go back and take an HF Radio. This wasn't a DXpedition, but a holiday, so time for amateur radio was limited. I set myself a target of 1000 contacts and to make sure that I used the data modes especially, as many people need a first contact with IoM on RTTY.

It was an easy journey from the home QTH in North East England - 135 mile drive to the port of Liverpool and then a 2hr 30m trip via Sea Cat courtesy of the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company into Douglas IoM.

We rented a holiday cottage at Andreas, Near Ramsey in the North of the Island. The island is about 33 miles long and 15 miles wide. We wanted to do some cycling and walking and felt that the Northern plain of the Island being fairly flat would lend itself to this. It was also easy to get around by car and the Island capital Douglas was around a 35 minute drive away. The population of the Island is just over 70,000.

This is Smeale Cottage which adjoins the owner's house. When we arrived I realised that antenna rigging was likely to be a little restricted due to the nearby 33 Kv power lines, however as my antenna was limited to a 40m doublet anyway, mounted atop my lightweight 25 foot fibreglass roach pole mast, this wasn't a problem. You can see my antenna support which is in the back garden of the property. I used my usual 40m doublet dipole antenna fed with about 60 feet of 300 ohm ribbon feeder to a MFJ antenna tuning unit in the house. This antenna takes 30 minutes at most to erect - the fibreglass pole was shortened to around 25 feet on account of the nearby overhead power lines. I strapped it with Duck Tape and Tywraps to a substantial fencing post. The ends of the dipole ended up about 10 feet above ground tied off to another fence post to the north east and to the soil pipe on the house to the south west. The owner of Smeale Cottage, Steve Martin, was very obliging as far as Ham Radio was concerned and admitted to doing some short wave listening and operating a CB radio in the distant past!

I started operating on 18 MHz CW (morse) on Sunday evening 27th April 2003. My first contact at 1912z was with OK1JMP in Czech Republic. As a contact with IoM was so much in demand I kept the contacts short so as to maximise the number of stations worked in the limited time available. 30 minutes later I had 53 stations in the log. As I had promised to activate on Data modes I then gave RTTY on 10.1 MHz a try. UA3SAQ in Russia was the first station in the log at 1951z.

I was using around 80 watts output from a small portable Icom IC706 MK II Transceiver with the dipole antenna at 25 feet high fed into an MFJ ATU. I was logging contacts using a Compaq Laptop 533 MHz PC running Turbolog software, MMTTY demodulation software for RTTY and Digipan for PSK31. This is me pictured at my station in the dining room at Smeale Cottage.

Conditions were fairly poor during my operation and I spent most of my 20 hours operating time working on 10 and 18 MHz. Many times I could not raise any answer to CQ Calls and went QRT, returning later. It was also fairly obvious when I had been spotted on the DX Cluster alert network.

As this was a holiday and not a DXpedition my XYL Judy and I visited many places of interest, and dined out at local pubs and restaurants most evenings. We travelled on the Isle of Man Electric Railway and also the Snaefell Mountain Railway. This is my XYL Judy travelling on the electric railway:

Manx Heritage supports and promotes a number of historic sites around the Island. We visited Castle Rushen in Castletown, The House of Manannan in Peel, Gibbs of the Grove in Ramsey and Cregneash Folk Village near The Calf of Man. There is a lot of history on the Island and the interactive displays at The House of Manannan explaining how The Manx People came from a mixture of Gaelic and Viking peoples were outstanding and quite moving.

I have a growing interest in the SOTA Programme (Summits On The Air) and there are currently 5 summits on the IoM that satisfy SOTA criteria. This picture is one of two commercial radio masts located at 2037 feet on Snaefell. We didn't climb the mountain - we went up on The Snaefell Mountain Railway.

Another SOTA counter at Mull Hill near Port Erin is 554 feet high. We actually climbed this one and this photo shows some standing stones that date back 1000s of years >>>>>

I hope to return to the Island one day with some lightweight radio equipment and operate from some of these summits.

We left the Island on 3rd May 2003 but I went QRT the previous evening at 1644z when I had my final contact with Russian station RA1CZ on 18 MHz CW. I hope you enjoyed working me and feel sure I will return to the Island in the future to further increase the size of the logbook from 1159 QSOs.

For further information on items mentioned on this web page please check out the following links:

Smeale Farm

Steam Packet Company

Isle of Man Tourist Board

Summits On The Air (SOTA)

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GD4OBK Webpage visits since 19th May 2003