VK4EF, Michael is currently working on Mahe Island and La Digue Island from April 21 to May 31. Both islands are part of the IOTA AF-024 reference.
Mahe and La Digue Island
It's been a while since I posted here - I am
running out of new (sovereign) countries to feature and have not
been listing the granularity of zones and IOTA
(Islands on the air) that some hardened DX chasers worry about.
The Seychelles is indeed a sovereign nation as well as an IOTA
score.
There simply aren't enough
keen regular operators in many remote locations with an interest in the
hobby - and a desire to be a DX trophy. Not least because when they do
appear, a ton of unruly European DX fishermen descend on them,
and a shambles generally ensues as the technique escalates from
a gentle tickle to a stick of dynamite.
The FT8 digital mode may be changing this a
bit since it is nearly possible to sift through a tsunami of
callers and spend time making contacts rather than shouting at
over enthusiastic Italians and Spaniards to behave.
The antenna is a hex beam pointing 120 degrees
- current 10 feet up only. This snapshot about 20 mins after the
contact
20m=Brown
30m=Green
18m=Yellow
15m=Blue
Only 20m was doing anything interesting albeit pretty random. I am guessing
s79ld did not have an internet connection for reporting spots
- all digital modes inc ft8 operate independently of the
internet if required, you just don't feature in the reporting
network, and don't have access to the "instrument panel".
Typical list of stations present at the time...
Nothing much else from the Indian Ocean ocean, although the
Maldives did show briefly after this contact. I suspect the
popularity of FT8 is such that Euro-babble is drowning out a
fair bit of DX these days, and some new tactics will be needed
soon.
