HI7 operation

A short story about our holydays and Amateur Radio activities in the Dominican Republic.


	From the 22nd of september 2001 until the 30th my xyl Manuela (DF9NM) and me (DK1NR) spend our vacations on the Playa Bavaro in the Dominican Republic.


	Due to the fact that we both are fascinated by amateur radio we did´nt want to miss it on our trip. So we departed finally at the 22^nd after requesting our guest licence and giving our custom declaration concerning the radio equipment.


	Ater a 10 hours flight and a short bus trip we reached our hotel at the Playa Bavaro near Punta Cana.

	I started immediately to find out the possibilities for our antennas.

	There were no problems for my FT-100 and the power supply because we had enough plugs with 220 Voltage. But the possibilities for the 15 meters dipole and the windom antenna for 10, 20, and 40 meters were quite bad. So I decided to install only the very short vertical antennas for 15 and 20 meters at the balcony.

Our both antennas:

Left one is the antenna for 15m, the right one for 20m band.


	At 21.30 UTC I checked first the possibilities on the 20 meter band. Some stations from Finland, Sweden and Denmark obviously participants of a contest were readable with good signals. I called some of these stations and was also heard notwithstanding using the extreme short homemade (by Gerhard DC6NG) antenna.. The reports of 59 were obviously not serious but the contact to Europe worked.

At the next morning even prior breakfast I checked the 1.20 meter vertical antennna for 15 meters. Immediately after my 2^nd cq call the 1^st station from the USA answered. Many further stations from the USA and Canada followed. They could´nt believe that I actually worked with a small vertical in 10 ft above ground. Most of my received reports were between 59 and 59 plus 20 db. Later I worked on 15 meters also stations from Lithuanian and Portugal.

Result: Even when the both small antennas are not considered to be qualified for DX traffic we had a lot of fun using the calls DF9NM/HI7 and DK1NR/HI7. So let´s say: it´s better to use a bad antenna than no one.

At the end of the holidays we had more than 80 qso´s in our log, most of them very jovially and not according to the procedure 59-73.

In the future we will extend our equipment by a fishing rod for a possible dipole or windome antenna to increase the chances for DX connections.


	We thank Erwin (DL4NCF) and Luzia (DL4NYL) very much assisting us to get our guest licence.




	Vy 73 de Ronald (DK1NR) and Manuela (DF9NM)


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