Tunisia-Kerkennah DX-pedition 2003 - my second experience!    IT9ESZ

 Who wonders that I wanted to give it a second try since my first experience on the island 3 years ago was a great and wonderful chance.

When Andy DJ7IK asked me to join the group, I didn’t’ hesitate, also because I heard that my friend Evelyne F5RPB would be in the team. -  The usual preparations for a trip – I travelled on my own from Sicily to Rome and Tunisia with very heavy hand luggage (TS 440+PS52) one day before the arrival of the team in Monastir.  The VW-Bus of the Tunisian scout group was heavily loaded with all equipment, our personal luggage and anyone who looked at the vehicle would have made a bet that it never could reach Sfax, 180 km south, without breaking down…but we made it and reached the last Ferry boat of the evening on time.

The accommodations were the same as 3 years before and some of us felt immediately “at home”, as we were warmly greeted by the owner and director of the Hotel Cercina.

With another YL from DL-land, DL4BO Ingrid in the group and the valuable participation of a  Tunisian scout YL, Faten 3V8ST, we decided that a YL-shack would be a good idea ! The first day we were all excited about adorning our own shack, flowers included and we made sure to have “ours” installed at first. So antenna, rig, PC, were ready in very short time by OM hands and in the late morning of the first day we made our first QSO from TS7N. Pile up’s right from the start, we had not much time to get used to use the PC log but we managed to be heard from IOTA AF- 073 with a Butternut HF9V and the IC 736 with 500 W output, all  QSO’s were correctly in the log. Of coure, being a YL in a mainly OM-team has it’s good side; while the OM’s installed, assembled, fixed and tied up for the several days, we either could be QRV, lay in the lovely November sun, go shopping, at the local Pharmacy in Remla for medicaments for poorly injured OM hands, hi. Evelyne F5RPB was curious to visit a Tunisian Pharmacy !

At the end of the first week,, 6 different antennas,(from Spiderbeam,WARC-beam, to a 6m Yagi), 6 stations in 4 different shacks all was ready; a Titanex V160 E-Vertical 27 m high was installed in the middle of the water; this place was the same as years before and our Antenna-specialist knew how and when to put it up in the water, during ebb tide! All antennas were near the water and the OM’s made it possible to be QRV in parallel with all 5 stations and linears. In order to avoid interferences, our clever companions provided each shack with a set of different bandfilters, so all stations could be QRV but never on the same band!   Not always pleased were some OM’s about our request to use our shack also during night time but of course, we cleared this and some nights our YL station was used for digital mode and we got enough sleep to be fit for the next day.

We usually had dinner all together and Andy DJ7IK made his daily briefing and eventual changes for the next-day programme. This gave all of us a chance for socializing and of course for discussions about the daily activities.  At the beginning the team members introduced themselves and gave a short view of the personal life and radio activities.

We worked all bands, main emphasis was for the WARC and low bands.  The second week was mainly filled with the preparation of the CQWWDX-CW Contest team (OM’s only), and for  the others of the team, culture and sight seeing was scheduled.

The aim and challenge of this second DX-pedition to Kerkennah was also to teach CW operation to the several tunisian scouts present during our stay on the island. Of course we  brought radio equipments, antennas etc as a gift for other new scout club stations. ASTRA- the tunisian radio amateur association is growing well and they don’t have shortage of young people interested in the amateur hobby. Hopefully the individual licences for tunisian amateurs will  soon be  reality!  The big help and  support of Mustapha DL1BDF is unbelievable and the boys and girl-scouts have with Mustapha’s assistance  achieved great improvements.

A rare speciality of this DX-pedition was our own doctor, Andy’s daugther Sonja and a farmacist, Evelyne;  so whatever happened to us, both took care of it, hi.

To mention as well several “big shots” in our 23- member team: HB9AHL, JH4RHF, HB9CRV and DK1BT; also 4 XYL’s plus 2 little japanese girls gave a feminine touch to the group.

The final result of this Contest : 10.248 QSO’s and 23.617.880 points in the log. All together we reached 53.000 QSO’s and our QSL manager DL9USA Andy will not run out of work during the next days!!

MANY THANKS to:  all participants for the pleasant and relaxing days on this wonderful island,  the great job of Andy (he’s now a professional organizer) and to his very helpful wife Jutta for her administrative work. - We YL’s want to express our special thanks to the helpful OM’s who never complained about us when asking for help in critical situations like changing antennas, to plug in the band filters or adjust the linear etc. Maybe they hated to leave their seat in the shack but they never let us down.

To finish I would like to say: ARRIVEDERCI in a few years: same time- same place- same group,hi.

IT9ESZ / TS7N Ruth