My activations

This activation was born not under a good omen.
A serious health matter has occurred to my wife, only two days before departure.
For that reason we had some problems in preparing the journey.
Besides I was not able to do the right check in the radio equipment.
So I had been in difficulties already the first day.
In fact, when I was installing the “station”, I have found that some radio material has been forgotten;

1) RG8 coaxial cable (unforgivable!!!!!);
2) radials antenna screws.

So I had to invent the missing radio materials. Unfortunately, the matters were at the beginning.
The camping space was not enough to put up the antenna.
The final arrangement was not much stable and absolutely not sufficient for normal radio operations.
The day after there had been a quite strong and long thunder-storm. In the afternoon a little “tornado” put the camping in confusion so that I had been on radio for a few minutes only.
At last, the propagation has been very “poor” for all week. The bad propagation and the not good antenna arrangement have been important contributing factors in this activation.

I think that the activation final results could be better in normal condition. I tried also to do something more with an extension of two days but it was all no good:

- Activation period: from Monday 25/08 h 10:00 GMT to Saturday 30/08/03 h. 16:30 GMT.
- Activation QTH: "Baia del Sole" camping, next to Giglio Campese (about 20 meter above sea level).
- Radio equipment:

Kenwood TS 50 with manual Kenwood matching-box;
Original Kenwood microphone;
“Mantova Turbo” antenna (5/8 wavelength vertical).

- Main “stand-by” frequency: Mhz. 27.595 in USB (Brazilian stations permitting!).
- I did 57 contacts with several countries:

Division 1 - Italy – QSO n. 10
Division 2 - U.S.A. – QSO n. 1
Division 3 - Brazil – QSO n. 1
Division 4 - Argentina – QSO n. 1
Division 12 - Uruguay – QSO n. 1
Division 14 - France – QSO n. 8
Division 16 - Belgium – QSO n. 2
Division 19 - The Netherlands – QSO n. 3
Division 26 - England – QSO n. 11
Division 30 - Spain – QSO n. 12
Division 31 - Portugal – QSO n. 3
Division 34 - Canary Is. – QSO n. 2
Division 161 - Poland – QSO n. 1
Division 163 - Wales – QSO n. 1

- The first QSO has been with 30 SD 311, on 25/08/03 at h. 10:15 GMT and the last with 3 SD 050, on 30/08/03 at h. 14:30 GMT. I had a contact also with 1 CM 477 Bruno, 1 CM 416 Alessandra and 1 CM 004 Marco, my group lucky members.

As for the QSL, every radio operator will receive the following one to confirm the activation:

Thank you everyone for taking part to the activation and particularly to 1 CM 004 Marco for his contribute.

1 CM257 MAURIZIO

If you want to contact me, please send an e-mail to

maurizio@1cm257.it

or write to