Driving Balkans--- YO-, LZ-, Z3-, 4O-, ZA-, Z6/OE1JUN (last update 2024/11/08)

Spring has come. It is time to travel again.

I started planning of a round trip in Europe by car. I asked one of my friends whom I met during last WRTC, if I have a chance to join their mult op efforts in WPX SSB contest. He answered yes. Thanks, it triggered the planning of the trip.

One of the purposes is to gain new DXFC points efficiently. The trip would be going around Balkans, which includes YO (new QRV) - LZ (new QRV) - SV (new DXFC) - Z3 (new DXFC) - 4O (new DXFC) - ZA (new DXFC) - Z6 (new DXFC) - YU (on the way back).

Most of the countries are member of CEPT, where I have no problem of licensing, except Kosovo. I googled a lot, and found the application form and the contact address. I filled the form and sent it by e-mail. Within weeks, I received a reply. My license will be secured. Paying the license fee was a bid headache. The officer instructed the bank transfer thru a bank in Vienna. I tried the bank transfer, which was within Vienna and should be easy, but it did not succeed and returned to me. I tried again but no luck. I decided to pay it in Kosovo when I arrive. The officer told me they do not have a casher in their office. I need to do a bank transfer in Kosovo anyway.

Selecting hotels shall be very careful. I tried to find hotels not in the city center but a bit outside, which has balconies or at least windows which can be opened. I tried to keep driving distance as minimum as possible. I did not want to drive more than 8hrs per day. Thanks to Booking.com which has a lot of photos of the hotels. It was a great help to find (so far) good hotel for radio activation. All of the itinerary was fixed. The whole route of the trip looks like below.

I started home at 8am on March 27, Wednesday. Driving in Austria and Hungary was fun. No stress. Crossing the boarder from Hungary to Romania was busy, it took almost one hour to pass thru. It would be typical problem to driving thru many countries. I tried not to cross boarders more than two.

A long queue at the Hungary-Romania boarder.

The hotel in Romania was the upstairs of gas station. Fortunately here was a small balcony where I can put my fishing rod. There was no high buildings around. The propagation was not so good. I could manage to have some QSOs in my log in that evening. It is good enough for me. Though it was just a few hours in the evening, I was happy to work some JAs there.

The hotel in out of Caransebeş, Romania. You can see my antenna upstair.

My standard setup in Romania.

Driving in Romania is not fun, as there is no highway. Slow and narrow roads in mountain area to go thru. Another long queue to cross the boarder from Romania to Bulgaria. It took more than 1hr to pass thru.

Another long queue at the Romania-Bulgaria boarder.

The road after Sofia was quite good highway, though it was only a bit more than one hour. My hotel in Bulgaria was in mountain area just out of a city named Simitli. It would be a resort type hotel. There was no other guest there, as probably it was too early for vacation. The room was large and comfprtable. The restaurant was closed. I drove 10 min to city center to refill. As expected, the room had windows to open where I put my fishing rod. The propagation was similar to the day before. Some Europe and several JAs. Interestingly one Swedish, whom I worked many times from many places, called me on this day as well as the day before. I told him I was driving around and hoped to see him from another country.

Another setup in Bulgaria.

The J42L (or SV2DCD) shack is on out of Argos Orestiko, northern part of Greece, near the boarders to Albania and North Mecedonia.

Overview of J42L antennas.

We had a lot of fun as M/S, pile ups, yelling for multipliers, a lot of wines and chatting a lot during the weekend.

Another fun was, I updated my DXFC during the weekend as I had spare times between my shifts. I found the design of the DXFC web site was completely changed. I was confused but managed to log in to update my DXFC score. Hours later, Stewart, the site owner, sent me an e-mail as below, told me that he just changed the site and I was the first one to visit it ! I was honour to be the first one as SEREOUS DXFC player !

Monday morning everyone left to go home. The road to North Macedonia was quite good and smooth. I had some hassles at the boarder to North Macedonia.

Though my car insurance is valid in the whole Europe, including North Macedonia, I did not bring a printed document with me. (I totally forgot about that, as no one asked it during the past trips.) Maybe it would be a trick to suck our money. However I have nothing to do. The passport control guy told me to go to the insurance shop next to their office to buy it. 60Eur for just one day to pass thru the country. No choice.

By the way, I have no idea why a peacock at the boarder.

The highway to the capital looked very new and in good condition. It was very comfortable to drive.
The hotel is located out of the capital. The area was not well developed, or everything looked old. Though hotel has a balcony, my room was first floor where I can see the detail of neighbour. Hmm, it is acceptable for one night to make handful Qs.

Tuesday was a busy day. I crossed 3 borders to Montenegro and had a hassle to pay the license fee in Kosobo.

Another insurance issue. The boarder control asked pruchase of the insurance. I told I have an insurance which works in all Europe. He told me that Kosovo is not a member of such insurance agreement (probalby it is not recognized as a country officially). Thus, I need to buy an insurance. Ok, it makes sense.

I wanted to pay the license fee as soon as possible. The Google map showed a bank office in the boarder town. I tried to find it but no luck. I found the building but the bank was already closed and empty.

As Kosovo is a new "country". All infrastructure is very new. The highway is very new and comfortable.

I stopped at the town in the middle of the way to find a bank. No luck. The Google map showed some bank offices but all of them are just ATM. Maybe the capital would have more chances.

I jumped into the highway. Oops, it was wrong direction. I got out and got in to the other direction. This detour added another 20km drive. I felt time pressure and drove much faster (than limit). When I was approaching Pristina, I saw a white BMW behind me. He was also driving fast like me. I gave him a way and slowed down a bit. He came in front of me and also slowed down. Then, showed "STOP ->" sign on his back. Oops, he was a police and he found I was overspeeded. I showed him my drivers license and car registration, and I was thinking how much the speed ticket would be. He asked me if I was working here. I told him I was a tourist. Probably not many tourists coming here, most of foreigners here are sent for missions. He looked not good at English. Minutes later, he told me to keep the limit and gave all of documents back. Thanks god ! This is my first experience to be stopped for overspeed on the highway. I never overspeeded during this trip since then.

In Pristina, I first jumped into a shopping mall and tried to find a bank office. Walking around 10 miniutes, I found one, which looked a local bank. I showed the bank lady the bill issued by the government. She talked to her supervisor about it, and told me they cannot do this.
Then I tried to find Raiffeisen Bank, which is based in Austria and "gate bank" to Kosovo Central Bank according to the payment instruction attached to the license fee bill. Another half an hour to driving around to find one (most of bank icon on the Google map are just ATM), and finally found one on a big street. Again, I showed the bill to the bank guy. He consulted his supervisor. He told me that they are doing their business almost cashless, and I only make transactions if I have a their account. He told me porbably their central office could take care of mine.
Another half an hour to drive in trafic jams into the city center, I found the central office of Raifferisen. I parked my car on a busy street and went into a large new beautiful building. I showed (again) my bill to the lady. She (also) told me they do not deal with cach. Instead, she told me (some kind of) kiosks would hadle bank transfers with cash. She kindly wrote down some names of kiosks on that street. Fortunately, the first kiosk is just a minute away from the office. Finally I managed to pay my fee for my license. It might take time to be processed.Hopefully it would be done within days before I came back to Pristina again for radio operation.

The highway to Albanian boarder was very new and confortable. As Kosovo is a new "country", most of infrastructures looked very new. It showed a lot of investments, or infrastructure support, coming from Europe. They use Euros as their currency. Crossing the boarder, Albanian side looked complete different. The main road did not look "high way", just not well maintained national road. Driving among mountains to the direction of Tirana/Durres, then turned to north to cross the boarder.

There is a village named Zusi in north Albania. I do not know any connection to Zushi in Kanagawa :-).

The boarder was not so busy like last week. After hours of driving mountainous small winding roads, I was reaching a beautiful city on the coast named Bar.
My hotel was 10km away from that city. Actually, it was a pension on a criff and my room was on the top floor. It has a large balcony. It was promissing.

The propagations from here was completely different from other hotels. I enjoyed soem pile ups from US as well as Japan. I tried to operate in the following morning and managed to have approx 200Qs.

I want to write down something on food there. I drove down to the town for the dinner. I found a restaurant on the Google map. Though it was just around 8pm, they said they were almost closing. Anyway, they allowed me to have something to eat. It was excellent for me always looking for good fish. Good grilled fish and shrimps with reasonable price.

After some playing radio, I left here around 10am. As I only moved to Durres, around 100km, I was not in rush on that day.
The roads to Durres are not high way. The road condition was not so good. There were trafic jams in Albania. Finally it took 4hrs.
According to Booking.com, my hotel is faced to the main street. However, I could not find it on that street. Google map did not know the given street address. I went thru back and forth. Finally I found the hotel was on the side street which runs parallel to the main street.
Though the photo shows it is a tall building (and I expected higher floor for me), the hotel occupied only two floors on the bottom. Others seemed for apartments.

The room had a balcony at north west side. Though the view was not promissing, the antenna worked well. I managed 300+Qs, with good openings to US and JAs.

I went out for dinner. As you know, Durres is well known as a beach resort in Albania. Sunset at the beach was so beautiful.

I tried radio a bit in the morning, I left for Kosovo around 10am. I already know the road (and the condition), I was a bit relaxing. Across winding roads in the mountain area, I arrived at the hotel in Pristina. It is south of the city center and in the resident area. I booked two nights, as Z6 would be most wanted among the countries I have visited during this trip.

The pile ups in Kosovo were different. Even I recognized many Europeans were calling. It means Kosovo is not active enough like other ordinery European countries.

Since the night in Albania, I felt athma. Probably I was a bit tired. On the day 2 in Kosovo, I decided to go to see the doctor to get some medicines. I consulted the guy at the hotel, he recommended a big hospital. According to the Google map it is next to the University Hospital. I drove there, went into University Hospital, drove around it. It was very difficult to find the way there. Many driveways were blocked for some reason. Finally I drove in to the University Hospital, parked my car in it and went to another hospital on foot.
The hospital itself was new, clean and well equipped. I did not need to wait so long. Everyone speak English. I met the doctor. I did not have symptom at that time. I explain it is normal and I wanted medicines to prevent it. We had some chats for fun and she wrote a prescription. There were a lot of phamacies on the other side of the large street. Purchasing medicines was not problem

Totally I made approx 400Qs here. I tried to pick up Asians as many as possible in the morning. I closed around 10am, packed everything in 10 min, then depart to go home.

Though Google map showed the boarder between Kosovo and Serbia is closed, it is open for everyone. So, I drove from Pristina to Beograd directly. The road was not high way. It took more than 2 hours to the boarder.
There was another long queue at the boarder. It took another 2 hours to pass thru.

I had one night to stay in Beoglad on the way back to Vienna. Though Booking.com said it is a spa resort, the spa itself was very small (and occupied by a local couple :-). The swiming pools were not opened yet. It is ok. Just one night to relax. I did not open my radio here.
Continued to Vienna on the following day. Another long queue at the Hangarian boarder, and arrived at home at the end of the day.

Front side of my car was full of bugs during driving high ways for 9 days.

It was a lot of funs driving almost 4000km in 9days, in 9 countries with crossing boarders 13 times.
Interestingly, I did not exchange any cash during this trip. Most of payment were done by credit card. I only paid the license fee in cash (to initiate bank transfer), which was done in Euro.
Hotel rooms were cheap in these countries. They were around 20-30 Euros, if you do not want gorgeous hotels. Otherwise, other prices are almost same as Austria (or a bit cheaper ?). Most of dinners during this trip costed around 20 Euros, no matter whatever I ate.