Mull DX-pedition ‘08
Info about the CAMB-HAMS DX-pedition to the Isle of Mull between April 26th to May 3rd 2008.
Thursday 8th May 2008
We are already starting to get lots of QSL cards arriving :o) Currently we are choosing the best photo (out of thousands) to use on our return card to make it special so please bear with us. The feeling amounts us all is that the trip went really well and we are already thinking of what we will be doing next year. We have already had requests from local clubs for presentations about the dx’pedition.
As always any questions don’t hesitate to email us mull-info@camb-hams.com
LATEST NEWS FROM THE ISLAND!!!
Saturday 3 May 2008
We are all home safely after a 13 hour drive back from Mull to Cambridge. The VHF station was disassembled early on Friday afternoon due to unfavorable weather being forecast and the last HF contact was around 10pm on Friday night. Initial QSO figures for the trip look around 800 on HF SSB, 70 on HF PSK31, 55 on 2m SSB/FSK441 and 45 on 4m/6m SSB/JT6m. On top of this there were around 260 QSOs made on the Isle of Lunga (EU-108) on Wednesday and Friday, around 50 from Staffa on Friday and many more from the /p stations and SOTA stations during the week. Full (and accurate) figures will be published as soon as possible, along with photos.
Can I take this opportunity to thank John M0EAV, our 11th member, for keeping the website updated and giving us all the support we needed when on the island. John couldn’t make it as his wife is expecting their first child in 2 weeks time…Thanks again to all the stations who called us and made the trip worthwhile, especially those who passed on good wishes - keep an eye out for our next activation.
Friday 2 May 2008
GM0BOE and GM4HUN are on their way to Lunga, Island of Treshnish. They should be QRZ on 14.260 +/- QRM at about 1430 local time (1330 UTC) as GM0BOE/p. They are hoping to work from Staffa (still Inner Hebrides EU-008) for about 45 minutes at lunchtime whilst waiting for the ferry. Listen out for GM4HUN/p around 14.260 +/- QRM.QSL for both calls via G4HUN as before.
Friday pm update
Neil and Voi had a good day racking up 40 QSOs in 45 minutes from Staffa (EU-008) and 108 QSOs from Lunga, Treshnish (EU-108) including contacts as far away as Alaska and Japan. Allan, MM1BJP, was out and about on a last ditched effort to activate some more SOTA summits and managed over 40 contacts from Beinn na Croise, SI-067! Time flies when your having fun, as the saying goes and the team are now beginning to pack everything away ready for the journey back south to Cambridgeshire on Saturday morning. The team will be QRV on HF this evening, probably 80m, using the Icom 756ProIII and the G5RV. I’m sure this will be said again upon the teams return but I would like to express, on behalf of The Camb Hams Mull Expedition Team, a big THANK-YOU to all the stations that contacted them during this past week and a special thank-you to all those who assisted in making this trip happen, including Icom for the sponsorship of a number of radios. Don’t forget to check back later for more photographs and the finals scores!! So from me, M0EAV, thank-you all for taking part and for reading these updates. 73 for now…
Thursday 1 May 2008
A quiet day for the team as most went on a sightseeing trip to Tobermory. However, Allan, MM1BJP/p, activated another SOTA summit of Corra-bheinn, SI-031. Voi, GM0BOE/p, went on a general tour of the island and some of you may have found on various bands during the day! This evening, the Carsaig Radio Group (CRG!!) are venturing out to the local Reef Restaurant, a short journey of a mere 8 miles!!As tomorrow is the last on air day of the expedition, the team are looking to give the bands a damn good thrashing! Look out for them on 80m, 40m and 20m. It’s best to keep an eye on your favorite dx cluster for specifics.
BREAKING NEWS
Voi, GM0BOE, and Neil, GM4HUN, have decided to make a second journey to Lunga, part of the Treshnish Isles, tomorrow (Friday 2 May) assuming the weather will let them. Activation times will be about the same due to ferry timings so keep an ear out for them on 14.260MHz (+/- QRM) SSB at around 1430 local time. Check this page again on Friday morning as they hope to contact me and confirm these plans.
Wednesday 30 April 2008
A small team of Camb-Hams are on their way to Lunga, part of the Treshnish Isles (EU-108). They hope to be QRV on 80m or 40m and 20m this afternoon. Keep your eye on the dx clusters for more information.
Waiting for the ferry to Treshnish.(Right to left - Rob, M1XZG, Neil, G4HUN, Gavin, M1BXF and Voi, G0BOE)
Wednesday pm update
Just heard from the Treshnish mini expedition team… Neil, GM4HUN/p, Gavin, MM1BXF/p, Rob, MM1XZG/p and Voi, GM0BOE/p notched up a whopping 150 contacts from Lunga on the Island of Treshnish (EU-108). Contacts as far as US, Canada, Cyprus and Japan were made despite unfavorable weather conditions including heavy static rain and all in less than 2 hours!! Just a quick reminder, QSL for all contacts via G4HUN, please see bottom of this page for more info).
Gavin, MM1BXF/p operating on the Island of Lunga, IOTA reference EU-108.
The final news for the day is that the HF amp is still unserviceable after the replacement valves didn’t arrive. So much for Next Day Delivery, although I don’t suppose they had the middle of nowhere in mind when they quoted that!!
Tuesday 29 April 2008
Latest Update - Yesterday saw a mammoth 14 hour run on 3.750 resulting in a large pile-up of mainly UK and European stations. The team gave regular intervals where only M3 and QRP stations were invited to call in, giving everybody an opportunity to get into the log! Many CRG members have contacted the Team including Martyn (M1MAJ), Caroline (M3ZCB), Eddy (M5PYE/m), Howard (G0AYE), Ben (G6YQJ), Mike G7VJR and, of course, myself, M0EAV! Today sees another SOTA mini-expedition for Allan, MM1BJP, who is looking to provide activations on both HF and 2m bands of Beinn na Sreine, SI-061 and Coirc Bheinn, SI-055. A small team are also activating the IO66 grid square on 2m SSB with the addition of some of the local WAB squares on HF.Wednesday is the planned excursion to Treshnish (IOTA EU-108), the hope is to be QRV on 20m (14.260 +/- QRM) by mid afternoon.
HOT NEWS
Disaster struck today as the HF Amplifier decided to leave the land of the living and go offline. Currently the team are running the native 100 watt maximum (although they were only running 200 watt previously, so not too much of an issue!). However, with the efforts of Darren, G7LWT, sourcing replacement valves, the team expect to have the amplifier back up and running by the end of Wednesday.
The team wishes to express a huge thank-you to Darren, G7LWT for his assistance in obtaining these replacement valves.
Monday 28 April 2008
The team has made a few adjustments to the mast and they now have the 4m Jaybeam up. They have had some success with 4m contacts into Europe. The HF bands appear very quiet so the team have been concentrating on 80m and all modes on VHF/UHF. Below are a few early pictures sent by mobile MMS messages so I apologize if the quality is a little bit lower than what you would expect.
The view to the South
The cottage - the G5RV is actually in the trees behind!
The cottages with the trailer mast in position, the fishing rod vertical in the foreground.
Icom sponsored HF Stations - CW left and data modes to the right.
Daryl, G0ANV, working 80m.
Allan MM1BJP building a 2/70 SOTA beam. To his left is the 2/70 station with 4/6 to his right.
Plenty more pictures will be uploaded to the gallery upon the teams return.
Sunday 27 April 2008
The Camb Hams Mull expedition have been active on almost all bands today (Sunday 27th) running pretty much all modes. 80, 40, 20 and 17m seem to have been most favored HF bands on voice, cw and data. They have also been active on VHF with 6m and 2m data and voice. 2m SSB seems to have been most successful with contacts into Devon and a spotter as far away as Hungary! A promising start to the week. Currently the most significant contacts have been with DG6JF/p @ 561 miles on 2m and OE5MPL @ 1007 miles on 6m.Summits on the Air (SOTA) also saw a number of activations from the team. Allan, MM1BJP, did a sterling job of activating three summits today. These were Ben More, SI-003, the first time in nearly 2 years, Beinn a’Ghraig, SI-043, for the first activation of this summit and Beinn Fhada, SI-034, a summit last activated in Oct 2005! Dave, MM0VMC, Neil, GM4HUN and Voi, GM0BOE were not to be outdone and activated Beinn Chreagach, SI-123 using 2m FM, another summit that has now had its first ever activation! All in all, a great day for the SOTA teams.The team is intending to carry out WAB mini-expeditions on Tuesday (obviously weather permitting!), hoping to cover as many of the squares as possible.Keep checking this page for more news from the island. The team will be updating me as often as possible, apparently mobile phone signals can be described as intermittent at best!
Overview
The Camb-Hams sat at one pie and pint in late 2007 and decided we had to do some IOTA, SOTA, WAB or VHF portable operation in 2008. Suggested locations were made for SOTA, others for WAB or VHF and many ideas were mentioned for which island(s) to activate for IOTA, most of which were tropical! It was then realized that we can do it all on the Isle of Mull. At this point the Camb-Hams DX-pedition to the Isle of Mull was born.We plan to be predominantly operational on most HF bands (inc. 5Mhz), 6m and 2m. We will also have the capability for 4m and 70cm operation, but will only be QRV if there is enough demand. Please see the sections below for more information on each operating section. The G3PYE call sign which will be used from base camp belongs the CRG (Cambridgeshire Repeater Group) and as the activation is in Scotland the prefix becomes GM3PYE/P or GS3PYE/P, both of which will be used. SOTA, WAB and VHF operation from IO66 will be under the operators own call sign, they are listed below in the ‘Operators’ section. Please see the QSL information at the bottom if you are interested in a QSL response.Base camp is at Carsaig on the south coast of the island, OS ref NM545215, lat/long 56.19.31N 5.58.53W, IOTA group EU-008, WAB NM52 and maidenhead square IO76ah. For more info on any aspect of the trip please email us at mull-info@camb-hams.com. For skeds email us at mull-skeds@camb-hams.com.
(Isle of Mull)
Operators
Confirmed operators for Mull: Gavin, M1BXF. Bob, G1SAA. Neil, G4HUN. Daryl, G0ANV. Allan, MM1BJP. Dave, M0VMC. Voi, G0BOE. Geoff, G0DDX. Rob, M1XZG. Colin (BJP’s brother), tea boy.
NEWS!!
ICOM are in on the act! They are supporting us and have provided an IC-756pro3 + PSU + speaker, an IC-7000 and an IC-703 for the DX-pedition. Many thanks to Ian Lockyer and the team down in Herne Bay for this support!On top of this we will have an a second IC-756proIII, an FT-847, an FT-897D an IC-910H, a VHF amp, an HF amp plus a handful of FT-817D’s (for SOTA).
HF
We plan to run on 2 band simultaneously. The HF stations will consist of 2 x Icom IC-756proIII radios, one will be running into a Ranger amplifier. The antennas will be a full-sized G5RV, 20m 1/4wave vertical and a 40m 1/4wave vertical. Verticals are mainly being used due to the small area required to erect them. One station will be running CW and the other SSB, both will be used for datamodes at various times to give RTTY, PSK31 and SSTV operators a chance to work us - keep an eye on the DX clusters.
(80m Slinky Vertical)
WAB
We plan to work as many WAB squares as possible while on the island. There are 25 WAB squares available but we think 3 of them (NM23, NM33 & NM61) will be difficult to activate. Listen out for us on the rest, mainly under the operators own call sign /M. Base camp is in NM52. More details of the dates and times of operation will appear once we have a good idea of the weather. If you have demand for a particular WAB square please send us an email at mull-skeds@camb-hams.com and we will endeavor to prioritise the most popular squares.
(WAB Squares)
IOTA
The Isle of Mull falls into the Inner Hebrides group in IOTA. It’s reference is EU-008. At the time of writing EU-008 has been worked by 36.1% of IOTA participants.Also on the cards is a trip to Treshnish, IOTA reference EU-108. Only claimed by 19.8% of IOTA participants so this is going to be a welcomed activation by many. Unfortunately due to the logistics of the trip we will only be able to activate Treshnish for around 6 hours. It’s still weather dependant but we currently plan to activate it on Wednesday 30th April 2008 so listen out for us. A more accurate activation schedule will appear a few days before going…
(Mull IOTA Groups)
VHF
We will be active on 6m and 2m for most of the time while on the island. We will be capable of 4m and 70cm activity but will only setup the 4m and 70cm stations if there is enough demand. Radios in use will be an FT-897D or FT-847 for 6m and 4m and an IC-910H for 2m and 70cm. Antennas will be a 5ele Tonna beam on 6m, 4ele Jaybeam on 4m, a 17ele Tonna beam on 2m and a 22ele Tonna beam on 70cm, all will be mounted on our 10m trailer mast but due to size restrictions only 2 antennas can be mounted at any time.Base camp is just in the western edge of IO76 but we also plan to do some /P operation from IO66. SSB, JT6m and FSK441 will be the preferred modes on all VHF/UHF bands and skeds are welcome to mull-skeds@camb-hams.com. If we have internet access you will find us on ON4KST chat (GS3PYE/P) or MSN IM@Camb-Hams.Com. If there is no internet access then any requests for skeds during the trip will be forwarded onto us by other means such as directly over the radio!
(Maidenhead Grid Squares)
QSL information
- UK Stations should include a stamped addressed return envelope.- Europe: 1x IRC- RoW: 2x IRC.Our QSL manager is Neil G4HUN. QSL cards for GM3PYE/P & GS3PYE/P, and where possible any SOTA, WAB, Treshnish (IOTA EU-108) and VHF from IO66 cards (to operator’s own call) should be marked as QSL manager G4HUN and sent via the RSGB Bureau or direct to G4HUN:
Neil Whiteside, G4HUN
15 Strympole WayHighfields
Caldecote
CAMBRIDGE
CB23 7ZJ
Please do not enclose cash or loose stamps with your cards. Those cards submitted without the appropriate return postage will receive their QSL card via the bureau. All QSL enquiries should be directed to mull-qsl@camb-hams.com
LogBook
Logs will be uploaded to Logbook of the World, eQSL, IOTA and SOTA as quickly as possible after the trip.
