Story 47DX/SJ020 Story of 47DX/SJ020 (May 15th 2010). FACTS: Fejø (Fej island or Fejoe island) is located 2,2 km north of Lolland island. Fejø is approx. 16m2 with 600 people living there. There is a ferry between Lolland (Kragenæs city) and Fejo, with approx. 20 daily departures. Transport time on sea is approx. 15 minutes. The highest point is 13 meters a.s.l. Skalø (Skal island or Skaloe island) is located 200 meters west of Fejø. Skalø is approx. 1 m2 and 9 people lives on the island (4 houses). On the island there is a small privately owned harbour situated at the south western part of Skalø. The harbour has a nice pier, good for parking a car very close to the sea :-) Story: After long time waiting E-skip finally began around the beginning of May. During the entire week, the S-meter at my radio at home was pounding S9, so I decided to start my own activation-season the following weekend activating 2 islands that had been activated before, but with few contacts: Fejø and Skalø islands. To get there means that we take a ferry from Lolland island to Fejø – there is a 200 meter long dam connecting the two islands, so its no problem to get to Skalø from Fejø. Back in 2005 I did both islands with Niko 13DX028: Skalø gave us 5 contacts, Fejø gave us 19 contacts, so I knew many stations was keen to work these two islands. I rented a house on Fejø from Saturday till Sunday and hoped for at least 100 contacts from each island. Thursday I noticed the weather forecast: 25-30 mm of rain from Saturday 12:00 to Sunday 12:00 and wind between 10-15 meter/second (=45 km/t)… Hmmmm, not good. I arrived Saturday at approx. 12.15 at searched for the landlord in order to get the key to the house. After some time I finally got the key to the house. It turned out that the rented house was an old farm, - surprisingly old: only heating system in the house was an old stove, all windows glass was one layer glass (no thermo), and several of the windows were slightly broken. Rain kept pouring down while I brought my stuff from the car to the house. After a quick lunch I decided that it would be better to work from the car than from the house so I found a good place to erect the antenna and connect 230v power from the house to the car (for the PC). 15 minutes later – and soaking wet – I made my first call. Unfortunately propagation was not as expected. After 2 hours of calling I had 7 stations logged from Denmark, France and England. Absolutely not as expected !! I decided to leave the radio and watch some handball on TV, waiting for the propagation to open up. One hour later I again began calling – however since nothing happened, I decided to take a tour round the island. During the roundtrip I passed the dam to Skalø island. From Skalø I heard several stations (from Romania and Turkey) using the mobile whip so I went back to the rented house at Fejø and again connected the radio to the Bamby11-antenna. All I heard was 3 Romanian-stations at 27.275 FM (which I worked with strong signals) – but “555” was dead: total silence... Weather was absolutely not fine. It kept raining heavily, the house was cold and not friendly, there was no propagation on radio, I was wet (again), so I decided to pack all my stuff back into the car – and then give it a final try on the radio. If still no propagation I would leave Fejø heading back home. After packing all stuff into the car and being even more wet, I came back to the radio at around 18:00 local time. As propagation still was Zero, Nix, Nothing, only zzzzzzzzzzzzz, I de-erected the antenna system, got even MORE wet and left the house. Time was 18:30 and since next ferry was scheduled at 20:40 (I had an extra hour of free time) I decided to visit Skalø once again, hoping that the parking at the harbour pier – with the ocean 2 meters from the car would give me some luck. But NOPE!! So I went back to Fejø, down to the harbour waiting for the ferry to take me home – to a warm hourse and a warm shower. 47DX/SJ020 Fejoe island (15/05/2010) was over, 47DX/SJ037 Skal island never happened – but I will come back AGAIN, sooner or later I will work more than 100 QSO’s from each island… Thanks to all operators trying and sorry for lousy propagation. Greetings Søren 47DX002 return