An update from the island

A quick "guest" post from M0VFC!

Firstly, a huge thank you to a whole load of people: Martin G3ZAY for so much of the organisation that made the trip possible, Dom M0BLF for keeping this website updated while I'm (mostly) without Internet access, Gerald G8AKL for relaying news back while I was on the Baltic Trader via frequent contacts on 10m, everyone here on Tristan for being so amazingly friendly, and of course everyone who has spent the time trying (and hopefully managing) to work me.

If you're interested, the photo shows my guest house for the week - as you can see, the very large volcano behind means there's absolutely no take-off to the south. However, west through north to east is a clear view of the ocean. The antennas from left to right are a vertical dipole for 10m, elevated ground plane for 20m with a single elevated radial pointing north (thanks VK4OQ for that tip), and a ground plane on 15/40m. Yes, the power lines are just as close as they look!

In terms of operating, the pileups have been immense: even spread out 5-10kHz up, it's often simply a wall of sound, and copying even a single character initially can be difficult at times, so sorry if it's taken a little time to get to your callsign. The trick is to work me before I'm spotted - often I spend several minutes calling CQ with no replies until the first spot goes up, at which point it goes from nothing to what seems like the whole world within seconds.

One request: if I'm asking for a particular partial callsign or geographic area, please respect that. If I'm asking for VK/ZL long path (a very difficult opening that only exists for a short time), I will not work you if you're in Europe, so please don't make everyone's life harder by calling.

I'll try and keep uploading the log to Club Log every day or so, currently in the morning (so I can get a cup of coffee in the Cafe at the same time).