Well I made it back to ZC4 for the 2nd week in July, back to the same location I was at last year, maybe I should have learned my lesson, dont go in the Summer and operate inland with a vertical antenna, conditions were really poor, I had really wanted to operate 50Mhz but the antenna i was promised fell through a week before I was due to go which gave me no time to find another, the whole week ended up with only 800 Qsos, really disappointed, I did that in one day the previous March whilst operating from the Beach
Its been an expensive lesson, the whole trip cost in excess of £1200 for just a handful of contacts, lesson learned for next time, I have uploaded all my contacts to LOTW so if you are in need of a confirmation you should already have it, I still love the old fashioned paper QSL so im still happy to receive your QSL card to my address on QRZ.
I made some new contacts locally on island this time and that bodes well for my next trip, my next trip will be a concerted effort to put up a decent station with a decent HF and 6m antenna, the only thing im unsure on for my next trip is whether im going to buy an amplifier to bring with me, I have an offer of help for my next trip so the planning has already started, watch this space.
I was contacted whilst in ZC4 by Dave WJ2O who was on one of his many DX trips to the various DX entities in the world, if you follow Dave you will know he is a very well travelled DXer, his website is here https://www.wj2o.com Dave wanted to set foot in ZC4 and although he was not able to operate he came to visit me for an hour or so along with Valdas 5B4AOF, I had spoken with Valdas a few times recently on 10m so it was lovely to meet up with them both, Valdas invited me to his QTH as well which I duly visited a couple of days later, an amazing hilltop location with fabulous views and and even more fabulous shack, Dave WJ2O was staying at Valdas shack which he rents out via https://www.dx-holiday-in-5b.com well worth a visit and Valdas is a really lovely guy.
