GAVDOS ISLAND - IOTA EU-187

ACTIVITY ON 50 MHZ from SV9/IW0FQZ

An Icom ic706 mkII and a single element delta loop antenna made up the 6 mt. station.... as we preferred to carry potable water instead of big antennas with us. Fortunately, a low gain antenna
didn't cause a large limitation of use.
The transmission site was at 300 mt. above the sea level. The area was wide open to South, vertically over the Libyan Sea. North was partially hidden by a 350 mt. hill, but we considered that a 20° radiation lobe from the antenna could easily overstep such an hill.
During 4 days, from July the 23rd until the 26th, we had approximately 10 hours of ES propagation, while few days before our journey, on the 20th, F2 openings were extremely good at our home qths (NOAA marked 401 sunspots!). Such a propagation did not help us in Gavdos. We had a good ES
multi hop propagation on the evening of the 23rd and 24th (best contact: Ireland at 3274 Km.).
On the 24th, at 1600, we moved the 50 MHz equipment 50 mt. away from the previous location, because of interferences with the HF station. As a result, we left the KM24BT locator to enter into the KM24BU.
Although other people told us that propagation was not so terrible in the rest of Europe, the band was completely closed on the 25th. Don't forget that Gavdos Island is the most southerly place in Europe.
It is located in the Libyan Sea, just in front of Africa... we could receive the 900 MHz telephone line signal from Egypt (a 400 Km. DX at least!). Less than ten contacts were made on the afternoon of the 26th. The whole 6 mt. operation brought more than 300 contacts. Amateurs showed to
be equally interested to contact both the square and the new IOTA reference.
We hope that the 6 mt. IOTA programme will soon spead out, it has been a delightful dx-pedition for us! We hope you had fun too.

IW0FQZ Massimo