 For the IOTA Contest 2008 we, Christoph DK2CRN, my YL Sabine and I, went to Madeira AF-014. We were QRV as CT3/DF1LON and CT3/DK2CRN on 80m to 10m and came back with in total 3.200 QSOs to Germany. As Christoph is not a real contester the goal was not to win the contest, which is nearly impossible from Madeira in the Multi Section, but to have a lot of fun and to enjoy the pileups. 
| After we arrived on Thursday evening we first had to setup the antennas. The station itself, transceiver and amplifier, were already read to get on air and the TH5 (20m/15m/10m) was still on the tower. In less than 2h and before sunset we erased the fullsize 80m GP and rolled out 4 radials. The GP was resonant below 80m but with the 10 radials we roled out on Friday it was nearly perfekt. On Friday we met our biggest challenge: 2ele 40m Beam. The 2ele 40m Beam was send a couple of month ago to Madeira but has not found its way on the tower yet. So we spend 7h on Friday to read the polish instruction manual, to assemble the elements on the ground and to put the whole system on the tower. Not easy if only three people are available. But in the afternoon the beam was on the tower and covering the whole 40m band in CW and SSB. Next antenna for the contest was the the GP404 for 40m/20m/15m/10m which was used for collecting multiplier with a TS-480 running just 100w. What a challenge... |
Finally we had to arrange the station, pull in the coax cable and setup the PCs. On Friday evening everything was ready and we could run some "warm up" pileups. The contest went very smooth. We discovered only one main problem which took some time to notice and to fix. I started the contest with 15m CW. I called CQ for about 5min with now success. I tried to call those station I could hear, but no reply. After 15min without any CW QSO I switched to SSB. Later on we tried it again on 10m. After 10min of CQ in CW and no reply I thought that something very strange is happening. Christoph, DK2CRN, had a brilliand idea: let's listen to the transmitted signal. I hate this to say, but I am sorry for all those stations we have QRMed in CW. The only thing send out was a carrier signal on full power. And the strange thing about it: I could hear morse code in the headphone but the TRX was sending out something else. We searched the shack for some kind of adapter for my 6,3mm mono CW plug to convert it to a 6,3mm stereo plug. After 10min of investigation we found something and CW as ready on the running station. Beside this we had no problems for the remaining hours of the IOTA contest. Call: CT3/DF1LON
Operator(s): DF1LON, DK2CRN
Station: CT9L
Class: Multi-Op HP
QTH: AF014
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Summary:
Band CW Qs CW Mults Ph Qs Ph Mults
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80: 28 12 48 25
40: 231 32 166 34
20: 108 24 534 51
15: 171 25 312 38
10: 90 12 306 32
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Total: 628 105 1366 180 Total Score = 3,718,250
Club: Rhein Ruhr DX Association
Now it was time to relax, to do some sightseeing, to enjoy the holiday and to do some pileups in the late evening hours. Beside the antennas for the contest I also setup a wire GP for 30m/17m/12m. It was just build for max 200w. I made +200 QSOs on 30m including some W's and even JA's in the late evening hours. On 17m it were only 25 QSOs but as we came back to our QTH after our daily tours mainly around 18.00h local time it was always to late for 17m and signals very much too weak. So we were mainly QRV after dinner until around midnight local time on 40m, 30m and 20m. Final Result:
CT3/DF1LON: 2000 QSOs (IOTA Contest)
CT3/DF1LON: 800 QSOs
CT3/DK2CRN: 400 QSOs
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3200 QSOs |  |
Where is Madeira (CT3)? Madeira is an Island belonging to Porutgal (CT). It is located some 700km west off the north African coast and about 1.000km south from the european mainland. The Autonomous Region of Madeira is composed of Madeira Island, Porto Santo Island, Desertas Islands and Savage Islands. The highest point on the island is Pico Ruivo, at 1,862 meters and it has the most famous sea cliff, the Cabo Girão, the worlds second highest with about 580m. Now have a look on your own... 
Porto Moniz
Along the north coast
Valley
Levada
Second highest mountain view to north
Desertas Islands
Madeira flowers
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