TF/G3XTT - Iceland
(A holiday Operation, July 1997)
Having been a frequent business traveller to Scandinavia during 1996, I had collected enough frequent flyer miles on Scandinavian Airlines to contemplate a holiday to one of their destinations. It seemed appropriate to try somewhere that I wouldn’t normally get to, which suggested Iceland, Greenland or Svalbard. If I had been going alone, then the latter two might have been attractive, but I wanted to take the children, and Iceland had always held a fascination from what I had heard about it, so I booked tickets to Reyjavik (via Copenhagen).
The trip was to be a camping holiday, with the one major expense being a hire car (and, believe me, hire cars in Iceland are a major expense, mainly because they take such a bettering on the many unmetalled inland roads). Not unnaturally, my thoughts for the trip included the possibility of taking along a radio, especially as licensing would be no problem (TF is covered by the CEPT licence arrangements).
I didn’t make any effort to pre-publicise the trip, as I didn’t want to raise expectations, but simply packed my IC-735, a 9 metre fibreglass fishing pole, and a substantial reel of wire, with the intention of doing some casual evening operating from the various campsites.
My first hurdle was actually getting the fishing pole into the country. What, as a non-fisherman, I hadn’t realised, is that fishing equipment can only be taken into Iceland with a veterinarian’s certificate to say that it has been sterilised! So some rapid explanations to the customs people were required, with my two offspring pretending they didn’t know me! Presumably my explanation was so bizarre as to be true, and they eventually let me through.
We were tired after the day’s travel, so after cooking ourselves supper the children went off to bed and I cut a quarter-wave of wire for 40m, taped it to the fishing pole, threw out some radials and fired up. To my astonishment, as I had not considered TF in any way rare, I worked 176 QSOs in the next 95 minutes, before deciding that I, too, could do with some sleep. The following evening I repeated the exercise, this time adding a further quarter-wave wire for 30 metres. Once again the pile-ups were intense, and just under 4 hours of operating netted another 325 QSOs, despite some problems with my signal which, with some help from John G3WGV at the distant end, I traced to low battery voltage which was causing the IC-735 synthesiser to go out of lock. Running the car engine cured the problem. I was also delighted that evening to complete a sked with my good friend Chris ZS6EZ on both CW and SSB on 40m, giving Chris his 315th country on phone. Astonishing that he could have so many, but not TF. Unfortunately a 30m sked failed, with no propagation.
I took a couple of evenings off after that, as we were at a mountain campsite where we had to pitch the tent some way from the car, but when we moved back to the coast I once again set up shop, also trying 20 and 80 metres for the first time. I had been pestered by a number of people for 80m QSOs, so I was hoping for a pile-up, but although some of the Europeans were quite strong activity was sparse. Probably not too many folk check 80 in mid-summer and, checking after I got home, I had not been spotted on 80 on PacketCluster. But, to prove I was workable, Peter G3XJS worked me very easily with his QRP. Anyway, that evening I managed another 227 QSOs in about two and a half hours of operation. By far the strongest signal on 40m, and probably the strongest signal on the whole trip, was from Clive GM3POI, who told me he had just finished putting up his new 40m beam at 100ft. As he has been doing so well on 40m recently even without the beam, I was horrified at what this means for future contests! Incidentally, while putting up the antenna that day I was approached by a stranger who turned out to be TF3OO, from Reyjavik but holidaying with his family. He was the only local ham we met in TF, although I saw a few Yagis around Reyjavik itself.
My last effort was the following evening (23rd July) when I managed to get on the bands a bit earlier, and give 20 metres a decent going over while the band was still wide open to Europe and the US. As my last fling, I also put out a final CQ on 30 metres, expecting a handful more contacts, but the channel remained busy for 70 minutes and 147 QSOs before I was able to take a short break and then to wind up my operation with a short burst on 40. In total, my last evening of operation netted another 383 contacts, taking my final tally to 1111, comfortably exceeding the 1000 target I had set myself. Although we had two more days in Iceland I didn’t bother to unpack the rig again. Actually, the following morning provided one additional diversion, in that I had flattened the car battery with my last efforts. However, what’s the point of having a teenage son who is a county rugby player, if he can’t be used to push start a car occasionally!
All in all I was surprised at the size of the pile-ups I encountered from TF, especially given my modest signal, and I can only conclude that demand is high even from what must be considered at beat "semi-rare" countries. There were four direct QSLs waiting by the time I arrived home, with one from a G3C station who said that in 50 years on the air he had yet to receive a QSL from TF! At least that’s something I can put right for him.
Some brief statistics follow:
Band 80 40 30 20 Total
QSOs 12 425 428 246 1111
Countries 7 47 43 31 57