|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Rockall is 188 miles west of the St Kilda islands in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland This was the last un-numbered IOTA island in Europe and probably the most difficult and dangerous to activate due to its nature and location in the North Atlantic with violent storms occurring in this part of the world year round Even under calm conditions landing and more importantly getting off again can be a problem due to the ever present swell
.................................................. MSØIRC/p ......................................................................... On the morning of the 16th June 2005 after spending 46 hours at sea a well equipped and experienced team who's main aim was raising money for charity landed on Rockall. Two of the team were radio hams MMØALM, David Wood from Stonehaven and MMØCWJ, James Cameron from South Uist ... On arrival the sea was flat calm but the swell was running at about 10 feet which is about normal in calm weather this made landing very tricky and it took the team a few hours to get everyone, 9 people in all, and all the radio related equipment and necessary safety equipment onto the rock ... All the gear was checked, the antenna and radio equipment was assembled and the amateur radio station MSØIRC/p was operational ... the first amatuer radio activation of Rockall was on air ... David kicked off with a CQ call on 40m but very little was heard and only two stations were worked so he moved to the 17m band again poor only 8 stations worked on the band and with that James takes over and a move to 20m where conditions were good ...
The team were constantly downloading weather fax information which showed two low pressure fronts coming together in the locality so due to team safety being top priority the activation had to cut short from the planned couple of days due to the approaching storm so 9 hours after landing the team had to leave ... unfortunate .. yes ... the right thing to do .. yes you don't take unnecessary risks in this environment
3½ hours operating and 262 stations worked
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A well planned and successful trip
The first Amateur Radio activation l6th June 2005 by MSØIRC/p
The Islands Radio Club Outer Hebrides
Rockall has now been issued the IOTA number EU-189
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
