K5C Cat Island 2003 IOTA Expedition

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Return to Cat Island, NA-082

The weekend of April 4-6, 2003, several members of the Magnolia DX Association made a return trip to Cat Island, IOTA NA-082. This was an expanded follow-on to our trip to Cat Island in September of 2002. This year we extended the length of the trip from one night to two nights and added additional operators. The core overnight crew for both Friday and Saturday nights was Bill/K5YG, Glenn/K2FF, Darryl/KD5CQT, Bernie/KK5EW and Randy/W5UE. We were joined by Ike/N4FF on Friday night and Travis/W5GED on Saturday night. In addition, we were able to ferry a day crew out to the island on Saturday morning and back to the mainland in the afternoon. This crew consisted of Bob/AE5RM, Joe/N5ID, Stan/K5NY and Ray/WQ5L.

Weather along the Mississippi Gulf Coast is always unpredictable, especially in the spring, and this weekend was no different. It started off peaceful enough on Friday morning. We left Gulfport Harbor at 10am local time and our arrival/setup on the island went fairly smooth. Friday afternoon and evening everything was proceeding according to plan. Lots of QSOs were filling our logs, WX was great and there were no gnats!!! Well, Saturday was another story. Propagation seemed to take a nosedive on Saturday morning making QSOs outside the US very difficult. The stiff southerly breeze that had kept the gnats away the day before had calmed and they were a problem. Seas were on the increase, making ferrying the day crew back and forth difficult and potentially dangerous. Then the thunderstorms hit, dampening our equipment and spirits. We spent a good portion of Saturday afternoon/evening trying to keep equipment dry and tents from getting swamped. By the time K5YG returned from bringing the day crew back to Gulfport Harbor, the camp was a mess. However, the rain finally let up, we dried off the equipment and got back on the air. Propagation even seemed to return, providing steady QSOs up until midnight. Unfortunately, we were all so exhausted from the day, we had to shut down and get some sleep. Sunday morning there were ominous clouds around and the forecast called for increasing seas by early afternoon. We made the decision to break camp early and head home.

Despite the challenges of this trip, everyone had a great time. We were able to offer several of our members the opportunity to operate from a remote DXpedition style location without having to endure camping out. This was important for some of our more "experienced" members. The core group again proved our ability to cope with hardships and approach challenges with humor and teamwork. We wouldn't trade the experience for all the QSOs in the world.

Be sure to read the entire Saga of K5C 2003 by Darryl, KD5CQT and view the photos from our trip.

We would like to sincerely thank the National Park Service, Gulf Islands National Seashore, for granting the official permit that allowed us to conduct this operation from Cat Island.

QSL Info:

Visited by: since 04/14/03

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