Hi DX-World,

Here are some pictures of the recently completed Lubang Island OC-126 activation as DU1UD/p.

We had been planning the OC-202 activation for sometime now. What Dindo and I had not planned for was the weather turning sour on us.

Dindo picked me up at NAIA Terminal 3 for what turned out to be a 9.5 hour drive to Port of Paracale in the Bicol region of Luzon.

It was a long slow drive, due to torrential rain falling most of the way. We should have realised that this was not a good sign for things to come.

We arrived in Paracale around 1:15am and our hotel was waiting for our arrival. We quickly checked in and went to sleep hoping an early start to the pier would see us off early to Calagua.

It was not meant to be. The resort rang us and advised that the Coast Guard would not let any vessels out due to worsening weather conditions with high winds and much higher wind gusts. Extremely high seas. M0OXO has Dindo’s video posted on his FB of the weather report by Dindo.

We quickly decided after meeting with the Coast Guard representative that we needed to go to a PLAN B.

Then it was a choice of were to go? It was decided that we needed to be on the Leeward side of Luzon to get better sea conditions.

We chose Lubang Island OC-126. So once again we hit the road.

After an additional 12.5 hour trip we arrived at the Port of Nasugbu.

Went spent the night here and proceeded to the Pier to catch the Passenger Bunka scheduled to leave at 7:30am.

We had a considerable amount of gear with us. Mainly as Calagua doesn’t have 24/7 power, so we were lugging a Generator and Fuel with us also. Probably in excess of 200kg of equipment.

We boarded the vessel and arrived on Lubang Island OC-126. Had a quick feed and proceeded to The Bamboo Hut Resort on the Northern Tip of the island to maximise EU, AS and NA contacts where possible.

As soon as we arrived we began the installation of the Vertical and its radials.

Once that was done the first station was readied whilst the second antenna a VDA for 20m was deployed.

As the sun was beginning to Set the first calls on CW went out, and DU1UP/p was on the air.

We had two stations up and running. One with 500W, the other 100W.

Clearly conditions were dictating that we needed 500W for both.

The stations were as follows;

Station 1; K3 with KPA500 and Pan adapter MicroHam Keyer ii

Station 2; iC-7300, MicroHam Keyer ii

Filters; N3NQN Filters

Antenna 1: Vertical 16x radials

Antenna 2; VDA 20m

DU1UD/p placed 1500 contacts in the log. Mainly CW.

Dindo DU1UD and I (Chris VK3FY) hope we made some happy with an ATNO IOTA.

Look for us from OC-202 in June 2017.

73 Chris VK3FY