304DX/EU-178

It all started long ago, very long ago… some even claim the Swedish Vikings where the first to set foot on Ruhnu Island (Runö in Swedish). Later Swedish law governed the island, the priest was Swedish and taxes where paid to the Swedish king. In 1944 all Swedes except to families abandoned the island in fear of the Russians but today some are back to seek their heritage and history.

During all those years no signals where never emitted on the 11 meter band. As a Swedish founded expedition group Shadow DXers were proud to activate the small island of Runö in the Gulf of Riga. The expedition to Runö was active June 6-7 in the WWRO Island Festival 2009.

Runö proved to be a very friendly island, the only danger on the island is the brown bear arriving on the ice in the winter of 2006. It is believed that the bear left the island but it has not been confirmed, so the bear warning sign is still in place when entering the forest. A more annoying inhabitant is the mosquito that thrives in the wet low land and forest, a very persistent and aggressive mosquito forcing us to keep doors closed at all times.

A three person team consisting of 21AT113 Hans, 21DX116 Chris and 21DX139 Patrik left Stockholm on Thursday June 4th 2009 on a flight bound to Kurresaare on Saaremaa Island, a bigger island on the west coast of Estonia.

In Kurresaare we split up and Patrik continued to Runö directly to reconnoitre for the Island Festival while 113 Hans and 116 Chris stayed in Kurresaare to put Saaremaa Island on the air as 304DX/EU034 (222 contacts logged). On Friday the 5th of June the team reunited at Runö and began preparing for the Festival.

Friday night we had all equipment up and ready to go but after a few test calls we recognised a problem with the amplifier fan control circuit generating interference to the receiver. 116 Chris opened the ALS-500 amp and bypassed the fan control circuit witch killed most of the QRN and the amp was ready for use.

The Island Festival started at midnight UTC June 6 and already a minute later the first station, 26DX047 Darran, was logged. Then 47DX101 and 47DX002 made it into the log. That was it for the night and it took until next morning until the QSO rate picked up. The propagation during Saturday was slow until around 15:00 UTC when Sporadic E propagation exploded and the band filled with signals from all corners of EU and also a few DX from 3 and 4 divisions. Saturday night ended with 445 stations logged and we where very hopeful of good Es on Sunday.

Sunday morning started with weak Es and but the QSO rate during the daytime hours was slightly higher than Saturday, but when propagation increased in the evening QSO rate slowed down and when Es propagation closed around 21:30 we decided to go QRT with 604 stations in the log. After all we had beat the result of our 2008 expedition to Kumlinge Island (212DX/EU002), and the team was tired but happy.

On Monday at midday we left Runö to return home to 21 division.

The equipment used for this Expedition was a Yaesu FT-897 (plus a FT-857 as backup), an Ameritron ALS-500 amplifier delivering 500 watts and a Skypper 3 element portable 3-element lightweight yagi. Two 15V/40A power supplies powered the amplifier and the total power consumption made the lamps blink off beat to the SSB peaks.

The Shadow DXers Runö team likes to thank 13DX028 Niko for all the help with the web, 47DX101 John for all kinds of background support, 47DX052 Tom for QSL management and all operators who worked or heard us. A special thank you to those of you who contributed to the expedition through Paypal.

QSL route is via the DXRC Bureau, P.O. Box 202, DK-2640 Hedehus, Denmark.

Now it’s time to get busy preparing the next expedition.

73!
21DX116 Chris, 21DX139 Patrik, 21AT113 Hans