Preparation:

I asked our local authority for new CEPT class 1 licence and I have got it after few weeks. I was thinking about the all equipment what I should have with me, but I had no time to do so much with it. Either to build new antennas or to buy anything, therefore I decided to take:

Anyway, there was not enough place in the luggage for any other things.

Traveling:

I read many articals descibing the problems to take a TRX on board of the plain, but I definitely did not want to leave my radio in the normal luggage. Once I saw the airport personal handling the luggage, I would never put inside any expensive thing. I was very surpriced, It was not a problem at all. Tranceiver in cabine luggage... No problem. Pb acid accumulator was also no problem. Only the suspicious piece was my AT-1080 antenna, but after short demostration to the guard it was also no problem. Of cause, I had it switched off during the flight.

Operation at local conditions:

I started an exploration of neighbourhood after our arrival. The biggest disappointment was, that our hotel room was in 1st foor and the windows were directed to the Africa instead of Europe. I could not expect to make a good contacts from the hotel. VHF and UHF band were silent, therefore I concentrated to HF. I found out quickly, that only the place and only the time for operation were at the beach, when others were in the sea. I made some test and finaly mounted the ATX-1080 on the top of the sunshade (beach umbrella). Counterpoises were hanging down and spread almost to the sea. I had only one wire for each band. I was able to tune the antenna on all bands with best SWR at 40m, 20m and 15m. It turn out, that FT-817 is very sensitive to unmatched antenna, it reduce the power very soon. The SWR about 1:2 was causing total imposibility to make QSO to Europe (realy none heard me). So, I tried to operate mostly on 20m and it was a good choice. Most of the stations were comming to my CQ, what is a good job for 5W PEP on SSB and 1.5m long compromised vertical antenna. It is a pity, that I had only a very limited time and opportunity for operation. On the other hand, we have visited a lot of interesting places like Heraklion with archeological museum, Knossos palace, Gortys, Phaestos, Chania, Rethymno, Samaria gorge, Kourtaliotiko, Matala, Preveli, Frankokastelo and much more others.

Log:

Here is the list of QSO from my log.

Photos: