SUWADI ISLAND
AS-112
MINI DX-PEDITON
15/01 to 18/01/2003
EVENT LOG SHORT REPORTS & QSL INFO HAMS WE MET ON AIR&TNX FOR QSL CARD HOME
A41MA A4/IV3NCC & A41MA A4/IV3NCC
During the visit of my friend Marco IV3NCC to our country Oman, he asked for any possibility to operate from an Omani Island, i said ok but let me arrange my business schedule as it is full of appointments..
On the evening of Tuesday 14/01 I got an opportunity for an island from 15 to 18/01 means Wednesday to Saturday, so i begin with some calls and prepared our programme .
On morning (15/01 Wed ) we started collecting of materials, also we got a company of our friend Fareed Al-Hadharmi an Omani SWL,
At 18:00 ( local) 14:00 UTC all gears were loaded to my Mitsubishi pick-up, and we started our trip to Suwadi Island AS-112 which is about 130kms west of Muscat the capital city of Sultanate of Oman, after buying some foods we reached to the beach
At 20:30 local 16:30 UTC .. here we faced the first problem as there was no boats to cross to the island, usually boats for hire are there upto midnight, but becous of winter season people don't stay long time on evening, after going to villagers with some more bargaining we got a boat but with one condition that he will not be responsible for our stay on island further he will not be standby for any emergency call from us.. So we reached the island at 21:45 local 17:45 UTC and started directly ascending up with our equipments (islands is about 400m high from the ground) ..
At 00:50 midnight (local) 20:50 UTC R7 vertical antenna and full size dipole were up, rigs FT- 747 & IC706 were switched On..
My friend Marco A4/IV3NCC/P takes off at 20:52 UTC on 15m and first QSO was from South Amirca with LU8XP we got first 59, oh great R7 is doing well, while he was making more contacts, I was fighting with my Laptop which I prepared for digital modes, but an-opportunity the line in of the Laptop had a shock from my rig IC706 so it gone silent.. i tried for long time but .. bad luck ! .. But Marco had about 10 QSOs uptill 22:00z 02:00morning local on 15m&40m then all bands been noisy with radars and some times too quit . so we said let us take some rest and we see the propagation morning..also we will try to see the laptop once again..night was very cold and windy but slept deeply .
Next morning propagation was very good Marco takes off again at 03:48z 07:48 local on 20m, pileup was good .. I was still trying with laptop but i found that the power supply is not functioning well and we got another shock in one ATU .. too bad !
ok Marco we will work on shift one by one, hour for each of us, because we lost last hope to work with two stations.. therefore at 08:14 morning of 16/01/2003 we started shift operating first by two hours for shift then one hour because the propagation was fading very fast..
We spent good time on the island as we were working continuously from morning to evening 22:00 local 18:00z after which propagation was going down and some times disappearing completely, only 40m was good after but problem was the heavy QRM from radars and many kinds of noises.. on our breaks we were having foods cocked by our best friend Fareed who is very active SWL in our radio society in Oman.. who we missed when he lift the island on 17/01/2003 to attend duty on next day as weekends in Oman only Thursdays & Fridays..
We were trying our best to give all hams around the world chance to put this iota on their logs .. so some times we were calling for stations out side Europe like north or south America, Africa , Japan , QRP Stations , Mobile or Portable Only , and we were getting good response from hams on the frequency but also some times some hams were not listing to us and interfering when we are on qso with other station .. also one ham with very strong signal was playing music on our frequency and trying to( kill ) our activation .. we tried to ask him many times if wants anything or maybe wants us to QSY from there but getting nothing from him just music and other sounds !!
Any way we had good time together and got good chance to sit alone some times in very quit and dark place , thinking about many things in our lives and understood each other better, also got new friends on air ..
We gone QRT at 12:06 z 16:06 local because our boat has been arrived so time was short to pack our equipments before getting dark .. at about 13:30z 17:30 local we lift the Suwadi Island with a promise from me to come again shortly and spend some time with digital mode which is very rare from Omani Islands ..
Thanks to all hams we met on air .. Thanks to all whom put us on dx spots .. Thanks to Royal Omani Amateur Radio Society for the support .. Thanks to villagers of Suwadi for their help with arranging boat at late evening .. Thanks for my friend Fareed - SWL for his help and delicious food aalso his delicious talk on our breaks .. Thanks to my friend Marco IV3NCC for his visit to our beautiful Oman and being with us for more than one month ..
SEE YOU SOON ON THIS AND OTHER OMANI ISLANDS
YOUNIS MOHAMMAD YOUSUF AL-BULOUSHI
A41MA
EVENT LOG SHORT REPORTS & QSL INFO HAMS WE MET ON AIR&TNX FOR QSL CARD HOME
