Ham Radio by SV1DPI

EP6T: DXpedition to Kish Island in Iran

"Hey. Where I am?" I shake my head as I was in deep sleep. "Oh yes. I am in airplane. But in which airplane?". I changed 8 airplanes to go to Kish Island and return back home. I was over 20 hours in an airplane and also over 20 hours in a car. I turned my head and I saw Ron PA3EWP beside me. He was sleeping also. I searched for the other guys. I fell better when I count them one by one. "What an adventure" I told to myself. "fifteen days shrinked to one looong day".

Our story started more than three years earlier. When Patrick ON4HIL and the other guys of Rockall group, decided to put as their next target, to make a DXpedition to IRAN (EP) possible. Patrick has made numerous calls, sent hundreds of emails and letters, and finally made some trips to be able finally to get a license to operate from Iran and give an All Time New One to many hams. I joined with the Rockall's team after Patrick invited me and I had the opportunity to live a unique experience. I know that many of you would like to be in my place and sincerely I wish you have the chance in the future. The participation in a well organized Dxpedition is a life's dream for every radio amateur...

Iran is one of the oldest countries in our planet, also known as Persia. It is located in Western Asia. It is the 2nd largest nation in the Middle East with 78.4 million inhabitants. Unfortunately only 13 of them are radio amateurs or and have a license to operate (there are more hams having a call but waiting for a license to operate). Iran is the home to one of the world's oldest civilizations but it is known today mainly for the largest proved gas reserves in the world. On the south of Iran and in the entry of Persian Gulf is located our destination: Kish Island (AS166 for IOTA). Kish has a free trade zone status and is touted as a consumer's paradise, with numerous malls, shopping centers, tourists and hotels. It was ranked among the world's ten most beautiful islands by the "New York Times" in 2010.

Of course we went there not to admire the beauties of the Kish but to build our antennas, operating, giving a new one to many people and enjoying our wonderful hobby: ham radio. The ham radio community was waiting for us anxiously and we had that feeling prior to our arrival in Kish. We arrived to Imam Homeini airport in Teheran at the midnight of Thursday 15th. It was a real pain and a long procedure to pass the control in the Custom. We needed to open almost every suitcase and explain what it was every item inside. I think they stopped asking when they saw more than one suitcase filled with thousand meters of wires!!! When we were going out of the airport, we had the thought that nothing will be able to stop us now.

It is Friday morning and we are in our hotel in Kish, we have all the documents we need and we are starting to build the antennas. According to our plan, even we are already awake for more than 24 hours, we will be on the air late in the afternoon. Suddenly a guard comes there and after many questions and negotiations with Mr. Mohamed EP3MIR (who has helped us a lot and he was with us all the time), ordered us to stop. He was needed a license from his boss to allow us to continue building our antennas. But Friday is a public holiday in Iran!!! So "We have a problem" as Mr. Mohamed used to say. We need to wait until Saturday noon to get this license. We decided to put a temporary antenna, assemble the shack and start the operation. So we did...

We are on the air. Pileups are heavy: Extremely strong Europeans, many Japanese and Russians. Unfortunately we work just a few North Americans with weak signals. We loose the Saturday's opening to NA because we get the license to continue building our antennas just in time of the pass. But we are very optimist that when we finish with the antennas, we will have strong signals everywhere and we 'll be able to work everybody. We have time... Soon we have ready 3 Hexbeams (12,15,17,20m), a 5el yagi for 10m, 2 verticals for 30m, a 4 square for 40m, a vertical for 80m and a 26m vertical for 160m. Also a beverage to EU/NA, a K9AY to JA, and 2 more loops for RX. We put over 6Km of radials there!!! I have not walked so much in my entire life :) Only the 5el yagi for 10m and the K9AY were built on Sunday. Beside all the antennas, we have 5 complete stations with amplifiers, interfaces, high and low power bandpass filters, rx distribution system, combiners, computers, etc.

After the antenna work is finished we are very tired but ready to fill the radio waves. Everything is going according our schedule now. The number of QSOs is growing quickly, pileups are very big, Japanese openings are really good, we work Europe during all day, some Africans and South Americans are also in log. Everything? No. Unfortunately the propagation and our local manmade noise, do not help us to hear the North Americans. The signals are low (S3-S5) the most of the time and we have a local electrical noise S9 in some bands. We buy a portable radio in the local market and we start to investigate for the noise's source. We find the main problem to be located in the next room. After we fixed that, the noise dropped to S5 but we still have problem. After 2 days of searching we find that the problem is the electric scooters' chargers. There are many shops which rent electric scooters to the tourists for driving and exploring the island. They have many chargers to charge the scooters and use them especially during the afternoon and night!! The same time when we have the openings to NA!!! The closest shop to us is 15m from our beverage but there are more at 50, 100m far!!!

Even when the noise breaks our moral and gets us tired, we try hard to do our best. Europeans are not so gentle to allow us to work North America during the very short openings. Don't forget that really the opening is possible only when North Americans come over S5. Then Murphy comes again and again..Two power cuts over ten hours in total, during NA openings again. An amplifier which has broken during shipping and repaired by Henk ON4AHF, stopped working the next days. This is "Insha'Allah" (Destiny or God willing according Muslims) anyway that does not allow us to work as much North America as we want.

We keep fighting among the pileups, Mr Murphy's visits and the visits of the many Iranian friends and Authorities. We try to work with the radios but also to be good hosts. Finally this is the most important. We are not trying just to make some QSOs (more or less) but mainly to promote Amateur Radio in Iran. And we are proud because we made it possible. Iran is not a rock in the middle of the ocean. There are million people. This way we all will have the opportunity to work again and again Iranian amateurs or future Dxpeditions in the near future. Dr. Fard, the President of CRA, left this possible. During our departure when he came to say us goodbye, he was clear: "The second DXpedition will be easier with less problems, the 3rd better and so on.". The most important achievement for us is not that we gave more than 68000 QSOs to fellow radio amateurs but that we planted the seed and we will have soon the opportunity to hear more and more hams from Iran. We sent to Iran books in Farsi language for candidates to study about amateur radio, we prepared the material for the examinations. We showed the road to Dr. Fard and CRA to organize amateur radio in another, more friendly, basis. This way we already have 60 more new amateurs. Some of them visited us in Kish. We have new friends there but mainly people ready to make their best to satisfy the demand of EP.

Personally I had the chance to be part of a great group. Rockall's DX group consists of wonderful people. They are all dedicated in what they are doing, well organized and ready to learn from possible mistakes. We all have more to hear from them and I am proud because I was one of them at least in one of their tries to offer in Ham radio Community.

I want to thanks Patrick ON4HIL because he gave me the chance, Henk ON4AHF for driving more than 250km for me and his patience to hear me, Ron PA3EWP for teaching me how to manage the pileups and explained to me everything I asked, Wim ON6DX for the courage during our flight to Kish with an old airplane :), Luc ON4IA for teaching me the low bands tricks, Marc ON6CC for his cooperation with the computers, Marc ON4AMX because he was a perfect roommate, Carlo ON4BR for his positive feeling, Franky ON7UR for his wife's tiramisu, Mohamed EP3MIR for the high speed connection with the God and Dr. Fard for his open mind and the way he welcomes amateur radio in Iran. See you guys.