Month: October 2008

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Historical events

October 12, 2008 | Rockall 2009 | No Comments

Historical events before the 2009 IOTA expedition 

  • On Saturday the 18th of October 3 core team members (ON4HIL; ON4ATW and ON6CC) climbed a marl rock about 20 meters high. We also had our cameraman with us (ON6ZG) and 2 team builders (ON7YT and ON6ZU). 
    Initially we had a rough time but as time emerged things got easier and everybody reached the top several times that day. Not only up but also down was a tricky business, but everybody succeeded in the mission. A special thanks goes out to Serge who learned us some good tricks to climb the mountain.
  • On Sunday the 19th of October we headed for “Maaseik” to get some water experience.
    4 core team members (ON4HIL, ON4ATW, ON6CC and ON4IA) were present. Everybody had their diving suit on and Marleen, ON6ZU had some hard action planned for us. First we had to do some swimming with diving suit on, and swim to the boot. The most difficult thing to do was climbing on the landing pear. It was a hard but rewarding day for all of us. Our cameraman, ON6ZG took some nice shots with his camera.
  • On the 21st of December almost all team members were present to have a climbing drill in Hasselt (Belgium) with all the climbing gear. ON4HIL, ON4ATW, ON4IA, ON7YT, ON6ZU and ON5TN had a go to climb a 20 meter high wall. Pictures can be found at the media link.
  • On the 18th of January we had a special session in building and stripping down the shelter. All tubes were marked. We have made a special movie how we did it. Pictures, click here 
  • On the 25th of January we once more had a climbing session in Hasselt with this time ON5TN; ON4ATW; ON6CC; ON6ZU and ON7YT.
  • On the 1st of February the whole team was present at the climbing day in “Dave”, in the province of Namur. ON4ATW; ON4HIL; ON4IA; ON5TN; ON6CC; ON6ZU; ON7YT and our climbing instructor Guy. The rock had 2 stages. The first stage was about 35 meter high. The second one was another 20 meter steep climbing. We had a great time and everybody succeeded in climbing the steep mountain. Click here for pictures 
  • On the 15th of February almost the whole team (ON4HIL; ON6CC; ON4ATW; ON5TN; ON4AHF; ON7YT and ON6ZU) was present on the “rescue-exercise” in Oostvoorne (Holland). It was an exhausting day for us all. Besides Theo’s perforated eardrum, everybody succeeded in the mission ! Pictures, here.
  • On the 1st of March we had a climbing session at a place called “Hotton” in the province of Luxemburg. The whole team did a great job and learned a lot more from our climbing instructor Guy. It was a very steep rock with few useful holes for climbing. Click here for pictures
  • On the 22 nd of March we had a big event in “Dongelberg” where we sailed to a rock with our shelter and pulled everything up with our hoisting-arm and set-up the complete shelter. Also our famous launcher was tested again. This was the final stage in our expedition setup for next month. Pictures? Click here and here
  • On the 5th of April our team descended from up-river towards the finish 6km further downstream in divingsuit. We also tested our portable radio’s. They had to be waterproof, and they were !! Pictures were taken, click here
  • On the 19th of April we had our final trip on the sea. We sailed from Ostend to the open sea, 35 km away. We had a vertical and our FT-897D with us. All worked great. We worked a couple of stations on 80, 40 and 20 meter band. Look for pictures here
  • On the 25th of April, Henk, ON4AHF and Dirk, ON5GS left our base in direction of Stornoway ! Pictures can be found here. 

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By Marc Cosemans