[UK-CONTEST] IOTA 2008 - GJ6YB Jersey EU-013

[g4fka at aol.com]

After a small scale expedition to Jersey last year, it was back to business  
this year for the Bristol Contest Group. Discussions with various people on 
the  island suggested a number of site options so it was decided to  make Jersey 
the venue for a full scale entry this year and ferries and hotels  were duly 
booked. So it was that the troops gathered in Weymouth at the  unholy hour of 
05:30 on the Wednesday to catch the 06:30 ferry to St  Helier. Two heavily 
loaded trailer towers and the "horse box for humans" along  with other non-towing 
vehicles all went across; only a few inches clearance for  the towers but on 
they went and 4 hours later after a perfect crossing we  arrived in Jersey. 
The weather was warm and sunny and thus it remained for the  whole week, a real 
bonus.
 
Towers parked up, it was time to visit the sites. The local environment  
authorities and land-owners couldn't have been more helpful and we ended up with  
a fantastic site on the north coast, a long field with land sloping down to  
the sea, 180 degree sea views and plenty of room to spread out the antennas.  
Then it was down to the task of building the run station and mult  station. One 
tower was used for each and the usual eclectic mix of  beams, dipoles and 
verticals was constructed and mounted on the towers and  some masts we had also 
taken. A few more operators flew in and with the  team now up to 11, the 
construction went well and by Friday the hardware  was complete and it was the turn 
of the logging and networking to receive  our attention. A lot of preparation 
had gone into this part of the operation and  it paid off as everything worked 
faultlessly through the contest.
 
Off we went at 12z and the run station was soon running the  pile-ups, whilst 
the mult station started its hunt. 10m and 15m played the game  on Saturday 
with some short skip into UK and Ireland as well as good EU  coverage. 20m was 
excellent throughout with world wide coverage, including  JA, VK, ZL and some 
pacific islands; it also delivered a high number of  mults.
 
The antennas attracted local attention and we were even mentioned on Radio  
Jersey!
 
Sunday came and it was time to take it all down again. Everything was  down 
and loaded by mid afternoon on Monday which left us Tuesday free to see the  
island before coming back on the afternoon ferry on Wednesday.
 
How did we do? Well we thoroughly enjoyed it and a great site and fine  
weather spurred us on to make a good total. The raw scores are as follows:
 
Band  CW Qs  CW Mults  Ph Qs  Ph  Mults
---------------------------------------------------------------
80:     111           50           172        37
40:    318           75           597         61
20:     221           70            966       102
15:    124           50          465         57
10:     42           39            298         41
----------------------------------------------------------------
Total:    816         284            2498     298  Total Score = 14,194,980

Thanks to all the callers for making it go with a swing. Also to the States  
of Jersey environment staff and local landowners for making us so welcome and  
allowing us to use a most excellent site. Probably one of the most enjoyable  
IOTA expeditions Bristol Contest Group have done.
 
 
Geoff G4FKA