G4CIB and G4RHK on Lundy
24th September-1st October 2011

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Well - what a week! Stunning weather and we even had a couple of operating stints sat outside! The trip did start, however, under dark skies on the Saturday morning after a glorious trip down to Ilfracombe on the Friday, with a pleasant stop at Minehead for a couple of hours viewing the activity on the West Somerset railway. Departing Ilfracombe at around 10.00am on the M.S. “Oldenburg” we were soon ploughing through an extremely heavy swell accompanied by drizzle and soon many of the passengers on board were beginning to turn a bit green. Both Leta and I are reasonably good sailors and luckily we had no ill effects but we were both glad to disembark a couple of hours later. By now the rain was steady so all thoughts of antenna erection were postponed - the tavern seemed a better alternative. Contact was made on the 2m handheld with Les, G0ULH who was staying in Woolacombe for the weekend. Sunday dawned dry but dull so we soon had the roach pole up, supporting the 80m dipole, 4m/6m dipole and lightweight SOTA 3 element 2m beam. The first contact on 80m was with GB0GWR being operated by CARA members for the “Railways on the Air” event at the Cheltenham Racecourse Station, but with the 4m Practical Wireless contest about to start, we couldn’t resist a qso with Les G0ULH this time on 70MHz - a first for us on Lundy. Contacts on 70MHz were sparse but we did manage G3NYY/P, Walt in IO92BA square. The rest of the day was spent working more “Railways on the Air” stations on 40m, then having a bash on 10m which was wide open to the USA.

The usual routine for the week was the AM net on 3.615MHz at 7.30a.m. for 30 minutes or so then a quick look on 3.560MHz and 7.030MHz, resulting in several QSOs with G0NXA, Giles in Twyning. On Monday afternoon I managed to catch up with Trevor G3UUL on 40m SSB, and in the evening Tony G4HBV operating G4AYM from the new club shack. The weather was set to change and sure enough on the Tuesday lunchtime, the skies cleared and for the rest of the week we enjoyed wall-to-wall sunshine during the day and warm, clear nights. The Tuesday evening 50MHz RSGB Activity Contest was a struggle but I did manage a contact with G0LGS/P, Stuart located at his usual /P contest site IO81XV.

We’ve mentioned the Lundy Letterboxes before and although over the years we found every one, we have never done all twenty eight of them in one visit - the difficult one being on Rat Island, a small offshoot of Lundy only accessible at very low tides. A very low tide occurred on the Thursday of our week so the decision was made to try and “do” them all this time. With the majority of the Letterboxes under our belt by Wednesday evening we were in confident mood to combine Rat Island Letterbox with that at the South Light. Scrambling over the rocks to get to the cliff that has to be climbed to get on to Rat Island was more strenuous than we remember from ten or so years ago, the last time we were there. Unfortunately, Leta got the “jitters” and wisely turned back leaving our Lundy friend Derek and myself to continue with our adventure.

Having eventually scaled the cliff we were at last on Rat Island. I couldn’t resist giving out a call on S20 and to my surprise got a call from G3MCD/P, Keith. It transpired that he was with a team of amateurs who had just completed some antenna maintenance at the GB3NC (North Cornwall) repeater site at Hensbarrow Downs, St Austell - as his QSL card says, he was cheating as his antenna was a 5/8 over 5/8 over 5/8 atop a 100 foot mast. I’ve shown an image of his QSL card - it’s one I will treasure as a memento of my brief stay on Rat Island 2011.

By now we needed to get back before the tide turned so a scramble down the cliff, across the rocks saw us back on Lundy which we followed up with a stiff climb to the South Lighthouse to get the appropriate Letterbox stamp. On Thursday evening we had a super meal in the Tavern, and returning to “Stoneycroft” I had an inkling that 2 metres may be “open” and sure enough GD8EXI, Richard in the Isle of Man was calling CQ. After a bit of confusion regarding beam heading, we chatted for ten minutes or so on 2m SSB - I was able to give Richard a 5-9 report - he runs QRO into a large antenna array, whilst he gave me 5-5 with QSB - not bad for 3 watts into a 3 element beam. Friday came all too soon and with only five more letterboxes to do the task was almost complete. But it nearly didn’t come off - one Letterbox to do and horror - I’d forgotten the exact location and the clues to it were in one of the boxes across the island to which I had to pay a return visit to retrieve the information. The letterbox was soon found, and all that was left was to go to the island shop to claim my certificate.

After a quick chat on the AM net on the Saturday of our departure, we dismantled the station and I thought that was the end of my radio activity - but more was to come. As the day was hot and the ship wasn’t due to depart until early evening we decided to spend a quiet day reading in a sheltered spot on one of the cliff-top ledges. I usually have my Alinco 2m hand-held with me (which also covers the Marine band) tuned to Marine Channel 16 and I was aware of an incident unfolding which involved Rosslare Coastguard, a rescue helicopter and a French trawler “Alf” which had a sick man on board. For the next hour and a half I was able to follow the progress of the rescue right until the helicopter delivered the patient to a hospital on the Irish mainland. An interesting end to our 2011 visit to Lundy.

M.S. Oldenburg alongside the landing jetty. Rat Island in the background

To summarise, the bands worked and QSO totals were as follows:-

• 80m - 35 QSOs
• 40m - 30 QSOs
• 30m - 2 QSOs
• 20m - 6 QSOs
• 10m - 10 QSOs
• 6m - 3 QSOs
• 4m - 6 QSOs
• 2m - 8 QSOs

And just for the record - two light aircraft landed on the island during our stay - G-BPYN and G-AWPW also helicopter G-OPTF.

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Brian (G4CIB) and Leta (G4RHK)

Back to list of visits
or read about Brian and Leta’s preparations for their next visit