Full of Surprises!

The sun has just set here and what a day it has been! Radio has been fantastic and thanks to all the people who have managed to work us during a very busy morning and afternoon. The bands are changing now, although 20m is still open. Our first foray into psk31 on 30m seems to be working just fine, other data modes and hopefully some CW a little later on.
Surprise of the day was a visit by a dear friend who sneaked onto Jura on his bicycle all the way from Lancaster ( he didn't peddle all the way!) Nice to see you Barry G1JYB and you are truly mad, its a long way to travel for some light refreshment!!!
We have had a lovely meal tonight, prepared by Mark, roast Lamb with all the trimmings! Mark is the chef for the week and has made sure we start each day with a hearty breakfast and a wonderful main dinner in the evening washed down of course with a glass of beer or two

Very Busy So Far!

Up and running now and so far and over 1000 qso's by mid afternoon! All bands seem in reasonable condition and contacts are coming in very fast indeed. The sun continues to shine, we could not have asked for a better week!

First Day There

Its Been a busy 24 hours but we are finally organised! Virtually all the antennas are up now apart from the VHF Moxon. Antennas are as follows.

Nest of dipoles for 40/80/160m
40m 2 square
80m vertical
2 element Delta for 17m
Spiderbeam 10/15/20m
Dipole for 10m
Moxon for 2m/6m

Radios used are as follows..

Elecraft K3 (two of them)
Yaesu FT1000
Kendwood TS2000 (two of them)
Various other ones for mobile use

The gang comprises.....

Kev G6FKE
Ian G0VGS
Andrew G0LWU
Frank G8BME
Brian G0RDH
Paul M1PAF
Steve G0MTD
Mark M0WCR
Mike 2E0VMF

Already had over 200 contacts despite the late start and worked Falkland Islands and Ivory coast as well. Hopefully we will upload some of the log and some pictures to the website and blog later today. Oh and Mark M0WCR is convinced that Jura House is haunted but the whiskey may have had something to do with that!

We Have arrived!

Arrived at the first Ferry terminal on time after a very uneventful drive.


The ferry crossings were very smooth, although Kev G6FKE is not a good sailor but we got him there in one piece!


Jura house is wonderful and there is plenty of room. We have just finished a light lunch, washed down with a wee glass of Jura Whisky. We are now going to make a start on putting the antennas and masts up. With a bit of luck we should be on the air by late afternoon, certainly on the higher HF bands.

The Isle of Jura EU-008

The location MS0SCG will be operating from at Jura House

This shows where we are in relation to the rest of Jura, the southern tip of the island.

Feeding the 5000

Thats the shopping done! Just the radio and computer gear to pack now. A few hours sleep for everyone now and then we set off at 23:00 hours and pick the Workington Club up further up the motorway. The early morning ferry leaves at about 7am, so we should be there with plenty of time to spare!

Loading Up

Made a start loading up this afternoon and thats just a small amount! Makes us wonder if we should have ordered a bigger van! We will load the valuable stuff tomorrow and, of course, do the huge amount of shopping on the list. 

The sun is shining and the forecast is still good for next week so smiles all round....

Blog Birthday!

Just browsing back through the entries in this online diary it suddenly struck me that this Blog has been running exactly 2 years! It was interesting to go back to the ramblings of September 2006 and look at the gang going through similar preparations then for the trip to the Isle of Mull, it brings back many memories. A couple of years on we hope that Jura will be even better both in how we approach things, the number of stations we can run, the antennas we can experiment with and the number of contacts we can make. This time we have the company of members of Workington Radio Club who bring their own experiences of Island DXpeditions and their own ideas!
I will be back at base again this time helping run the websites and keeping an eye on the DXcluster. Dave G6CRV will also be on hand to upload the logs each morning onto the home webpages. Some pictures and diary entries for this blog will also be uploaded every day.
Good luck folks and good DX
Linda G0YLM

So It Begins....

The weekend is nearly here and everyone is working very hard on final preparations for Sunday's trip to Jura. The van hire company have been fantastic and let us have the van today for no extra charge, which gives us far more time to get things packed! Apart from getting all the equipment sorted the main thing left to do is to do a large shop for 10 hungry people on Sunday morning and, judging by the planned menu, we will need the van for food and drink alone!! All the pc's are loaded with WinTest software for logging during DXpedition and Ian and Dave G6CRV have done final tests with Win DRM over 80M to make sure we can get the logs on the main website each day. The weather forecast for next week has improved and we may be lucky to have reasonable weather, particularly on Monday and Tuesday when the antennas are being erected.

Building a Moxon

How many amateurs are needed to put together a VHF Moxon Antenna? Well at least a small gathering! Today we put together the Moxon for 2m/4m/6m that we are taking to Jura. The overall build quality is very good, although it has taken about an hour to get everything right. We purchased the item from Sandpiper Antennas and for the price (£55) it seems to be very good. Hopefully it will perform well and will pack down and reassemble very quickly once we get to the island!

Jura Webcams

Here are a couple of webcams on the island

Jura Stores Webcam.

ISLE OF JURA B&B AND SELF CATERING ACCOMMODATION WEBCAM

The second webcam also shows weather conditions on the island

Jura Video Available

As we continue frantic preparations at this end the start of the trip to Jura looms large. We think everything is accounted for, even stuff to keep away the midges! In the meantime we have found this nice video for anyone wanting to know what the island is like....

Jura Video

Enjoy......

Rain, Rain and More Rain....

The monsoon season has arrived in the UK, flooding almost everywhere!! For this reason our intrepid gang of contesters have decided to abandon ship and not go out in the middle of nowhere to do Field Day! A mite disappointing but as the field is flooded we have decided to give it a miss this year, not that a bit of wet ever harmed anyone but we need all the gear to be in good fettle for the trip to Jura, which is only a fortnight away. No good turning up on the island with wet ropes, broken masts and damp spirits!! A few of us, however, will surely be about on the bands to give the odd point away here and there.
May we wish all those people who are brave enough to don goggles and snorkels a very successful weekend and hope that the weather hasn't put a lot of stations off! Good Luck in the contest...

Sprint!

Well tonight was the first SSB leg of the new RSGB CC Sprint contest on 80m. Great fun :) It takes a bit of getting used to as once you have called CQ on a frequency, you have to give away the frequency to the person you worked! It levels the playing field rather nicely. A few of our members took part and the challenges are now set for the next leg!

Getting Busy!

It is a busy time for us at the moment with the trip to Jura being only just over a month away. We have hired a transit van for the trip which will be an immense help with the amount of gear we are taking and the cost, including fuel, is very reasonable! All equipment is being checked over and various lists prepared to make sure everything is accounted for. Information about the event is now on the home website and on QRZ.com under MSoSCG.
Meanwhile we have HF SSB Field Day coming up on the 6/7th September. This promises to be one of the busiest weekends for radio this year. We will, again, be located at Barrie's G1JYB, thanks again to his and Kathy's generosity. We also hope to be joined by Chris and Bex, who are hoping to travel up from Coventry for the weekend, it will be great to have them on board again for a major contest! This year we will again run in the restricted section which means a single element antenna and no more than 100 watts. Field Day will also give us a last chance to check out the Spiderbeam, masts and any other equipment going to Jura to make sure all is in order.
Finally the transfer of our homepages to the new server went very smoothly and hopefully you will find them informative and a lot faster to browse. Oh ....nearly forgot...congratulations to Faris M6FAZ who passed his intermediate licence exam with flying colours last week!