Another island activation is in the books. Gary WBØRUR and Kevin K5KVN set out on a three-hour tour to Deer Island to qualify and activate it as part of the U.S. Islands Awards Program QSO Party. This was the group’s second island activation.
Gear ashore!
The setup was pretty simple: An Icom-746Pro, multiband vertical antenna, coax, card table, camp chairs, generator, food for lunch and a hound dog. Here’s the gear (minus the hound dog) upon coming ashore. A suitable operating position a few feet from the waterline was quickly found.
Here’s WBØRUR showing the generator setup:
After 30 minutes of setup, the production of RF began.
Noise on the bands was high and it seemed like propagation was poor. It had its moments, though, as a VE in Manitoba was logged to count as one of the two required DXCC entities to qualify the island. SWR was funky, too. There was some head scratching over that, then it was ignored. Here’s Gary calling CQ in the poor conditions:
This island activation is brought to you by… BUG SPRAY.
A few ticks joined the fun, but nowhere near the amount encountered during the Horseshoe Island activation. K5KVN brought the bug spray.
After three hours of on-air time, the gear was packed up. We had enough QSOs to officially “qualify” the island, with several to spare. So, that’s a win.
Please QSL via LOTW. You can read Gary’s account of the day on his blog.
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- Deer Island (AR018L) on Beaver Lake in Northwest Arkansas
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- Gary WBØRUR gets the boat ready
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- Underway! Petunia the hound dog keeps a paw on the vertical.
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- Gear is ashore!
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- Gary WBØRUR prepares a radial for the vertical antenna.
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- Gary WBØRUR ties a radial to a bush in the water. Lookout for that boat!
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- Kevin K5KVN tries to cut through the noise.
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- Gotta have the bug spray. A lesson we learned during another island activation.
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- A K5KVN selfie.
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- Gary WBØRUR makes a few final contacts.
