Canary Islands - La Palma, Teneriffe

It was family holiday trip - group of 6 people. --- So I took only minimum hardware with me - hand held device for 2m and 70cm bands = Kenwood TH-F7e with output power max. 5W. Except of rod antenna I used 4-element log-periodic antenna (2m band, being able to be folded and carried in small bag) and fishing rod as antenna mast.

Our group made several trips along Ruta de los Volcanes and I tried to make some QSOs from the top. I can warmly recommend this route to everybody, who likes mountains, nice landscapes, ....

QRA	loc.	asl (m)
Roque de los Muchachos	IL18bs	2426 m
Pico de las Nieves	IL18cr	2247 m
Pico Birigoyo	IL18bo	1808 m
Volcán de San Antonio	IL18bl	657 m
Volcán de Teneguía	IL18bl	439 m
Mirador Fuente Chave - (above Santa Cruz de LaPalma)	IL18cq	800 m
Cancajos - hotel terrace	IL18cp	20 m

Serious difficulty was my poor knowledge of Spanish language. I did my best to prepare myself. I prepared short Spanish vocabulary of QSO sentences and phrases, spelling etc. and tried to learn them by hard. But I found, it was not enough. After trying to use it, my partners frequently started to speak fluently and too fast for me. English was usually not usable. So my advice is: when planning visit of Canary Islands with VHF device only, learn Spanish better than me. above Tazacorte - west coast

Interesting experience for me was activity at Echolink repeater @145.3750 MHz located at Teneriffe Island . By courtesy of sysop I was allowed to use it 7 times to connect to EB3, XE, CE, VE, KD, DK and LU. Some time later I was told, this repeater is rather intended as Spanish link from EA8 to EA, LU, PY,.. and access from Internet is restricted.

There are radio repeaters located at Teneriffe, Gomera, La Palma and Hiero Islands. I didn't use them for QSO a lot, but I tested their accessibility and my results could be interesting for somebody else. (Even to connect from eastern coast of La Palma to western coast you simply have no other chance.) I found following repeaters in the air from La Palma Island east coast:

Repeater call	freq out	freq in	located at	my power needed at LaPalma to activate it	Remark
EB8CME	145.3750	145.3750	Teneriffe		Echolink
?	145.4750	145.4750		no experience	Echolink, I was told

?	145.6000	145.0000	Hiero ?	500 mW	located somewhere south-west from La Palma Island
EA8G	145.6375	145.0375		50 mW	EA8G ro21 e k
?	145.6500	145.0500	Hiero	50 mW
EA8E	145.7250	145.1250	Gomera	50 mW	EA8E gm05g
?	145.7375	145.1375		5 000 mW	week signal at La Palma east coast
?	145.7500	145.1500	La Palma	5 000 mW	Santa Cruz de La Palma ?

Last but not least, I want to thank to Damian, EA8BWW from Teneriffe, who gave me lot of usefull initial information (in English) and to my friend Bert, EA8/DLFAW, whom I met after all personally at El Paso, La Palma and spent pleasant and interesting afternoon with him.

It was another family holiday trip - group of 6 people.
The same equipment: Kenwood TH-F7e hand held device for 2m and 70cm bands with output power max. 5W. Rod antenna and portable 4-element log-periodic antenna (2m band) at fishing rod as antenna mast.

Between other trips, we succeeded in visiting top of Spain - El Teide volcan. With my THF7e and log periodic antenna of course. Perfect straight radio path to La Palma Island.
And there was also something special this time - one day we visited Gomera Island and I made several QSOs from the boat as real marin mobile EA8/OK1CJN/mm.