After five nights in Guernsey, including a day on Sark, when I activated Le Moulin GU/GU-001, we were on the move to Jersey for another four nights in a hotel on the western side of the island. I drove my Ford Kuga on to the Condor Liberation - the same vessel we used to travel from Poole to Guernsey. Liberation is a powerful trimaran and can carry up to 245 cars and 880 passengers.
Liberation - photo by Condor Ferries
The journey from St. Peter Port to St. Helier takes one hour. As we were not permitted to take our hotel room until late afternoon, arrival day presented me with a good opportunity to activate GJ/JE-001 Les Platons (143m ASL), which is located near St. John, on the northern coast of the island.
We found Jersey to be more commercialised and “touristy” than Guernsey - less rural with wider roads. The island is around 9 miles across and 5 miles wide. We found a local cafe in St. John’s for lunch and then made our way to Les Platons GJ/JE-001, which is a drive on summit if you want it to be.
I turned off the Rue de Platons into a small parking bay at N 49.246 W 2.103, and carried my picnic table and chair about 75m up the road where I set up my station on the grass verge surrounded by bracken:
HF Conditions were very poor on 21/06/23, even 40m CW only gave me ten CW contacts before my CQ calls produced a blank. Moves to SSB, then 30m and 20m accrued me 37 contacts in 50 minutes at which point I packed up the station and we made out way to our hotel.
Trying to keep the KX3 cool shielding it from the sun with my bag
DX? No - only contacts with Europe were possible in my 50 minute session - and no S2S either
We spent the rest of time in Jersey doing touristy stuff - the radio never came out of the rucksack again…