ZD7Z Elvira on the road again

Remember Elvira, the world traveller, DXer and ham ambassador? The dust barely settled from her operation as 6W/IV3FSG from Senegal – and she is now on St Helena, signing as ZD7Z.

What a life! On early Friday afternoon, I saw her on 30m FT8. The signal was building up slowly, and an hour later, she was strong enough to be called. Bingo. St Helena is volcanic rock, and looks like she was on the ‘right side’ of the island for a long path to VK.

What makes the contact even more special: Elvira is running 100W from an ICOM IC-7300 into an inverted L antenna for 160-30m.

As we say: the best radio is a quiet island in the middle of ocean…

What is preventing you from traveling on an expedition? Money? Time? Work commitments? Bad knee? Non-supportive wife? All the above?

Fair enough, understood.

But what is stopping you investing in IC-7300? You already have too many radios? Fair enough, understood.

Here is a suggestion: get rid of that pile of junk; 1980s transceivers. Put them on Facebook, give them away. Life may be too short for traveling to remote islands, but definitely not for a new, shiny piece of cutting edge technology.