At the end of a successful 25th anniversary for the contest group DL0UL (twice winner on 2m) it was about time to thank our "audience" with the chance to work up to three new rare squares. After checking the map for the most wanted squares in 2002 (tnx DL8EBW) and taking into account the weather in November during the Leonids, we quickly focused on the island of Menorca. Mediterranean climate, three quite rare squares, favorable MS-distances to most metropolitan areas outweighed by far the possibility of storms during this time of the year

November 14th , after the necessary preparations, Wolfgang (DL1SAN) and I (DL6SAQ) started with a car heavily loaded with radio equipment towards our first destination: the ferry boat in the harbor of Barcelona. We could not afford to miss the ferry on the evening of Nov 15th, as the ferry runs only three times a week during this time of the year.

 

Running on schedule, we arrived in the early morning of Saturday (Nov 16th) at our final destination, a summer cottage in Addaia on the North coast of Menorca (JN20CA). After shopping for the most basic items (cerveza and vino tinto) we started setting up the 2m equipment and building the first antenna for short-wave. Karin and Thomas (DL1GGT) were expected to arrive by plane in the evening and by then we wanted to be ready for our first qso. Furthermore Ingo at DL0UL in Ulm would have been devastated if he missed being first in the log of EA6/DL6SAQ in JN20.

After erecting the R5 for short-wave and setting up the 9el Tonna for 2m, we rearranged the interior of our cottage to accommodate our hamming needs and we were ready to go on air. During our first contact (the only one scheduled) with DL0UL back home, Ingo gave us a favorable report and we seemed to be putting out a nice signal on 2m. Adequately motivated we moved on to the next important schedule item: dinner.

During the first night we logged already 15 complete contacts in WSJT on 2m. Next day, Sunday, Nov 17th, around noon we started to check out a portable location in JM29. Thomas planned using this location during the Leonid peaks. We drove to Cap Favaritx , according to a tourist guide the most hostile area on Menorca but an acceptable radio location. Setting up and dismantling the equipment in a rented car worked without significant problems. Thomas practiced the setup during day-light to be ready for the big event during the night of Nov 19th. Motivated by a strong ms-burst on 144.3 from a well known 9A-station we had found our first portable location.

Then in the evening, after we enjoyed various specialties of menorca's cuisine, we increased our HSCW activity. Ingo had already announced this on the dx-cluster and obviously DL1EJA had been waiting for us on 144.155. After receiving Oliver's final rogers we called cq for over an hour without any response. Should there be something wrong with our station setup ? Changing to the WSJT calling frequency and listening to the usual traffic resolved our doubts. Also future attempts in HSCW after the Leonid peaks were without success, obviously HSCW is dying and the last fans are busy mourning its departure.

We still had to find another location for our second portable station in JN10. Similar as with JM29, Chris (PA2CHR), who activated these squares a couple of years ago, recommended a good spot. On Monday we drove to JN10 and started our dry run. The rig had been fitted to my old VW Passat previously and we just wanted to be sure it still works.

The equipment in both locations was an IC746 with 100 Watt Output (powered by the car's dynamo) and a 9 element Tonna yagi. Our "Home-QTH" used an additional mast mounted pre-amplifier and a HLV600 PA.

Shortly after midnight, Nov 19th, armed with their equipment and some survival gear, Wolfgang and Thomas took off to the neighboring squares, while I enjoyed the increasing bursts in WSJT at "home". A few minutes before one a clock (utc) DL5WG was the first SSB-station in the JM29-Log. Wolfgang had the longest trip to his location in JN10 and logged his first station a few minutes after two a clock (utc). Just in time with the arrival of the Leonid peak my mast mounted pre-amp in JN20 resigned from his duties. Naturally it took a while until I noticed the defect amp and some may have lost their hope in working with EA6/DL6SAQ. Around 3:30 utc all three stations became really busy and we made around 400 contacts in SSB during the night.

Somewhat tired after the long night (and the long morning) including some vino tinto to celebrate the success we typed the logs into the laptops during the evening to send them on their way to Ulm via short-wave pactor the next morning. Ingo (DL5EBT) back home transferred the logs to our internet homepage (www.qsl.net/dl0ul). How lucky we have been became clear the next morning, when a power failure during the morning hours forced us to move back to the car to maintain our contact with Ulm on short wave. Fortunately this was the day after the Leonid peaks. In the meantime some typing errors in the logs on our internet homepage should be corrected.


The rest of the week we tried several times working HSCW without any success and worked quite a number of stations in WSJT. Including a few tropo contacts to F and IS0 we worked more than 500 stations from Menorca on 2m, a lot more than we expected.

Getting closer to the CQWW CW weekend, short-wave antennas started to grow around our summer cottage. Fortunately, the landlord took it with ease. The "multi"-operator team (Wolfgang and Thomas) had plenty of on-air time working more than 4000 contacts during the contest and around 2000 contacts on all nine short-wave bands the week before the contest. Operating conditions on short wave have been 100W and verticals for all bands.

On Monday, Nov 25th, the rising storm gave us just enough time during the rain breaks to dismantle the antennas and store them in the car for the return trip. Meanwhile the alarmed coast guard was relieved to see no antennas anymore on the "Costa Publica" (public beach) and our minds were on the return trip the following Tuesday. Karin and Thomas went home by plane on schedule, but the ferry had a two day delay due to the stormy weather and took as back to Barcelona on Thursday finally.

Tnx to all the stations calling us on the Island of Menorca and may be we will meet again.

Walter (DL6SAQ)