The trip to the Isles of Fleet was finally accomplished the weekend of the 4th/5th July after the previous attempt failed due to a broken cam belt on the motorhome. Having said that, a broken portable mast on the equipment try out and the late delivery of the new one nearly caused an abort .
Anyway Kit my XYL and I set off on the 3rd and good weather followed us up to the Solway where we stayed overnight on the Seaward Caravan Park, just outside of Kirkcudbright.
We took all the precautions and advice that one can get when 200 miles away from the target. The Coastguard officer was extremely helpful though it turned out that his estimate of 3 hours on the Island of Ardwall was somewhat out of sync. The owner of the island was also very helpful and when we go back, if we cannot get 12hours daytime, between tides I wiill ask permission to tent overnight.
We arrived at the beach at Carrick about 11am, 4th July to wait for the tide going out, but due to a misunderstanding, 1300 hrs was GMT and not BST as I thought, by 2pm we were still waiting for the water to drop to a reasonable level when I noticed that about 300 yards down the beach, the water was up to the ankles of the Seagulls. Needless to say we had to drag the equipment down to that point which was the start of the causeway.
The equipment consisted of the Rig, aluminium telescopic mast, 90 amp hour battery, tools, antennas, thermos, the lot loaded onto two plastic children's sledges.
We made our way out towards the island and the distance was nearly doubled by the new starting point.The sleds worked well and moved over the wet sand without to much bother and did not sink into it even when we reached the Island, where it was very soft sand/mud, but we did, to about 6 inches at each step. We also found that there appeared to be a definite lack of oxygen at shore level, judging by the way we gasping for breath after the aprproximate half mile haul.
Once on the beach we had only approximately 1 hour to get working and off again before the tide covered the causeway. Needless to say in spite of the practice run, the mast gave a problem as the guy wires kept dropping off the hooks and on getting it up the string for pulling the antenna up came out of the pulley because I had not tied it off. Other than those teething points we were up and running inside 20 minutes.
Whilst I did the operating 'SHE who must be obeyed' kept an eye on the causeway. After a false start on 3.768 we got onto 3.772. It may be that some of you thought I was a bit sharp on the overs but I really was pushed for time and I could see the tide coming in.. We got off the island with the water literally filling in behind us. The mast and 90 amp battery were left overnight to save time in the morning.
Sunday the 5th started off with drizzle, but by lunchtime the weather had picked up and this time we were at the start point and wading out with the water just below knee level. As we were not towing the sleds we were on the island very quickly and up and running within 10 minutes.
Strangely enough there were not to many contacts in spite of working 80/40/20/80/40M. Another problem was that there was an on-shore wind which was bringing the tide in even quicker.
By 1445 hrs we had no more contacts and the XYL pointed out that the tide was coming in faster than the day before. It took about 15minutes to pack up and leave the island and by the time we reached the mainland, it was obvious we would have been in trouble had we stayed much longer.
Conclusions, you can make all the enquiries you want by phone and receive what is believed to be the correct information, but unless you get the chance to visit the area you plan to work, it is not until you speak to the local inhabitants that you can be sure the info is correct. In our case on the first day of operating we had set our stall up for a 3 hour operation when we were told if we did that, it would be 2am next morning before we could get off, unless we asked to be rescued by boat. The original weekend had also been planned for 3 hours but we would have got on the island by 1100 and would have stayed there coming off at the next low tide about 2100hrs. Unfortunately as stated above the 4/5th would have meant coming off about 0200hrs in the dark, not something the XYL was to keen on.
The 90 amp/hr battery was the biggest problem even though it was being pulled along, it was very heavy and I think a lightweight generator would have been better. Improvements to the telescopic mast have already been put into effect, for instance it came with bolts and wing nuts, definitely to much of a fiddle when you are in a hurry. Next time the guy ropes will be held onto the hooks with plastic ties, to stop them coming off during lifting. The plastic sledges worked well, though I had thought of using a wheeled 'vehicle' we would have been in trouble with it when we reached the soft mud.
The FT757GX gave me only one problem and that was the readout which is blue and made things very difficult when trying to read the frequency. The same problem arose with the Laptop computer, the display was almost hopeless in bright daylight, though the Activator's logging programme by G0MDO works great. The programme allows you to make a list of 'last 2' letters, then all you do is hit a key to bring each Op down into the callsign field.
I am not a fast typist but could manage to log at least 4 calls a minute. You can then of course print the contact out onto a lable to stick on the QSL card. (Its free to Activators)
I worked about 80 contacts over the 2 days, which was a little disappointing but the Isles of Fleet have been worked previously.
The antenna was the inverted Vee designed by Andre GM3VLB for 20/40/80M and the poorest report received was a 4/5 on 20M, most of the time reports were 5/9. Power out was 50/60 watts and the 90 amp battery hardly dropped in power in fact when put back on the charger it was up to full strength in a couple of hours.
Work free style or list, well I prefer free style but with hindsight having such a short period of time to work, I think I would ask for a list to be made, though I am not sure whether that would have lifted the QSO count by much, only time will tell.
Well I got my feet wet, literally and metaphorically, at being an activator and enjoyed every minute of it, fortunately my XYL is very suportive, though has no interest in being an Operator. Will I do it again ? I need another 20 contacts from Isles of Fleet to get the 100 so yes we will go back probably in September.
For the information of those who have never been there, Dumfries and Galloway is a magnificent area to visit, we have passed through it but never realised how beautiful and interesting the area is, so we will tour there in September along with the Border country to which we have not given a great deal of attention.
The Tourist Information Board for Dumfries and Galloway were brilliant, every E-mail enquiry by me to them was answered the same day and they could not have been more helpful if they had tried.
First QSL card arrived am Monday morning, so I had better get printing the labels.