This year we returned to Green Farm for the week Saturday 20^th to Saturday 27^th September. Tom/G0PSE and Dave/M0AOD traveled by car (with the trailer full of radio equipment) from Taunton to Penzance. The journey was uneventful and we arrived in good time to see the trailer loaded onto the ferry Scillonian III and then garage the car for one week's rental.

We had a smooth crossing and after arriving at St. Mary's, soon had the trailer being towed to Green Farm by the local haulage company.

Bill/G3WNI and his wife, Tessa were to follow on the Monday. Because they were bringing their dog with them, they had encountered travel booking difficulties.

Tessa had phoned ahead and put in a grocery order, and after checking the food into the fridge and a quick cup of tea, Tom and Dave set-to erecting the station. This was achieved by Dave erecting an inverted 'L' (via Smartuner Auto ATU) suspended by two 9 metre fibre glass poles while Tom assembled the transceiver, computer, keyer etc indoors.

Good progress was made and soon QSOs were going into the log. As the weather was fine and warm, we took a break from operating and decided to press on with erecting the main antenna. David Wright, our farmer-landlord, had arranged to have scaffold poles delivered for us. After coupling together a 20 ft and a 10 ft scaffold pole we then attached a horizontal boom (yardarm) to the top with pulleys at either end. When the whole assembly was raised to the vertical, we were able to hoist the Carolina Windom and a 15m metres cross-field EH antenna up to the yardarm at a height of 30 feet. . Another EH antenna for 17 metres. was next erected on a 12 ft scaffold pole The antenna farm was now complete and after Dave had assembled his own station, we were able to return to the pile-ups.

With Tom running the CW station and Dave the SSB station, we soon got into a routine - though cooking, eating and sleeping also had to be done .

Bill and Tessa arrived on Monday after a comfortable helicopter flight. Now we had three operators and Tessa was producing much tastier meals than the two men had.

On the Wednesday, we had a break from our usual operating. About 20 minutes walk from Green Farm is Toll's Island which is about 200 yards long and uninhabited. When the tide is out, access is possible because a sand bar causeway appears and it is easy to walk across. We decided to 'activate' Toll's Island and thus have a Mini DXPed . The equipment we took was a FT100 transceiver, SGC-230 Smartuner, 10 metre fibre glass telescopic pole, wire antenna and counterpoise and the power was from a 12 volts 60Ah leisure battery. As all this was rather heavy to carry, we borrowed a wheel barrow and set off down the lane to the beach. Fortunately we never encountered any curious holiday makers who would have no doubt commented on the sight of three old / middle-aged men, in wellington boots, pushing a wheelbarrow full of radio equipment. It was like a scene from the BBC TV series, 'Last of The Summer Wine'.

After a quick recce around the island, a suitable site was selected. The mast was extended and the antenna was a 10 metres helical wound vertical via the Smartuner. What really made the station complete was being able to drop the end of the counterpoise into the sea. This made an excellent ground plane. The three of us took it in turns to operate, and soon we had Colchester, Glasgow, Londonderry, Berlin and Antwerp in the log using 20m and 40m in CW and SSB. Tessa later joined us, bringing a most welcome lunch of sandwiches and beer for us to enjoy in the warm sunshine.

We had to keep an eye on the rising tide and eventually, after two and a half hours operating, we broke camp and made it back over the causeway with ten minutes to spare before it was covered by the incoming tide. We all agreed it was a most enjoyable day and well worth the extra effort we put into achieving it.

Later that day, whilst operating SSB at the main station, Dave had a QSO with someone who, though they had not worked us on Toll's Island, had been listening to our QSOs and had enjoyed our commentary and description of our surroundings and QTH.

The remainder of the week continued with some good pile-ups, working as far as Brazil and Australia. All continents were worked during our 1200 plus QSOs and the modes employed were CW, SSB and PSK31.