Preparation:

This blog is about a series of activations during my holiday on Cyprus in August 2026. The preparation through antenna builds and operational tests took place during June and July and is covered in other blog pots. In short, the principal was to take as little radio equipment as possible, so as to reduce both the weight and volume of what would have to be transported.

The configuration decided upon was the QRP Xiegu G106 radio, which while specified as producing 5 watts output, is actually nearer to 8 or 10w on several bands – in any case, still, as per the definition “QRP” as I would be using this on SSB. Given that operation from the beach was planned, even though the Beaches on the air is somewhat strange and incorrect with beach names in Cyprus, The main antenna would be the two element parasitic array or two Chinese telescopic whips, that I have been working on over the last few weeks. For non-beach operations, just the driven element (a quarter wave ground mounted vertical) would be used. This antenna covers the 5 bands from 20m to 10m. As a backup, I packed the RHM8B loaded telescopic whip from Diamond and a mini-tripod and radial wires as well as a single magnet, car rooftop mount.

Given the G106 uses very little power, I took just a 2 Ah 12.6V LifePO4 battery which I was able to charge in a couple of hours from my smart LifePO4 charger. In fact the battery was only one one occasion less than 3/4 full after an activation, and then it was only half empty. The 4 Ah LifePO4 battery which I took as a back up never got used.

The Activations

BOTA 37762 CTO Beach, Pyla 20-08-2026

The first activation after arriving was an early morning one from the local beach across the road from our apartment. I was not sure how this was going to work out as there are only a few “chasers” for the Beaches on the Air Scheme and no specific spotting site. I had however posted alerts for 4 beaches, two of which it turned our were not possible, one because access was problematic and the other as it was over the border in the “UK Sovereign Base Area” where the Cypriot licence does not apply and only servicemen or ex-servicemen can apply for the needed ZC4 callsign.

Luckily some of my UK and VK friends were willing to try for a contact. After setting up the quarter wave vertical, I was hearing them but not as well as I might, I set-up the parasitic reflector and things improved however conditions were not great. In the log for this first attempt, I got EA7BZ M9MMM/P VK3DET VK5PAS VK7DZ VK4ARZ and G1IZO – seven contacts in the log. Which was not a bad effort, for a first attempt.

When I was considering packing up, I was invited into the ANZ Net which runs each day out of VK and worked a couple of people there – Thanks Paul. Then a little later I was approached by a runner on the beach to ask what I was doing. I explained and he said he was a local policeman out for his morning run and had never seen amateur radio before. I offered to show him my licences but he wasn’t bothered and wished me an enjoyable day.

Photos:

Log: No log as there is no log entry to BOTA.

BOTA 37763 Havana Beach / POTA CY-0144 & PARC CY-LA-0144 Pyla Beach Park 21-08-2026

This second activation, a day later needed a 10 minute drive and had planned to be in the children’s Park itself as BOTA allows operation not actually on the beach as long as no main road is in between. In the end, I activated from the beach, as the ground in the children’s park was rock hard or filled with play equipment (how this is a POTA/PARC park, I’m not sure!). PARC is a new scheme started, it seems in response to the US POTA management cutting 75% of all French POTA parks out of the POTA system. It appears to cover all POTA regions however.

This was not to be as productive an activation as the previous day with several more stations on 20m causing QRM and forcing me to QSY on a regular basis. In one case, a VK4 station who was trying to work me, told off in no uncertain terms, a VK2 station, who had simply come up and started calling CQ on top of me during an over. I could hear both sides of the (heated) conversation perfectly. I had the antenna set up for Long Path, it would have been interesting to switch the reflector to the other side and try short path, as from Cyprus, at this time of day (0600 UTC) short Path may have been a better option (short path is rarely an option in the more northern latitude of Germany) but I didn’t get chance to try it. Given that the long path needs to go over the mountains on the island of Cyprus where short path would be a take off over the Mediterranean sea.

Photos:

Log:

SOTA 5B/CY-047 Neon Appidhaki 25-08-2026

The first activation away from the beach, was planned to be the first of three in the day and turned out to be a “challenge” to get to. Although the review I read, said a 4WD car was not needed, only one with good ground clearance, I should have seen from the photo in that review, that a 4WD was actually being used. Even with a fairly high rental car (a Toyota Corolla), it was a very difficult drive to get up the summit. I eventually got to the point where SOTA mapping shows the summit to be (not at the small church as stated in the other report, however that would still be in the activation zone). This was not going to be a location where I could put both sections from the array up and indeed, being later that the previous activations, I needed a 360° antenna pattern and so simply put up the quarter waave vertical. It was a VERY hot day and on top of the hill, there was no shade, so I was happy when I eventualöly got some contacts in the log. These were mainly search and pounce or trying to call other SOTA activators, although I did get a few responses to mx “CQ SOTA” calls.

Photos:

Log:

HEMA 5B/HCY-050 Orokini Hilltop and POTA CY-0063 Orokini Lake park 25-08-2026

Both of these activation attempts were “fails”. The first, Orokini Hilltop was equally difficult to drive to as the previous SOTA site. The views were nice and the equipment seemed to be working fine, but I was getting no response to my CQs and calling stations, I was not being heard. I believe this was simply a bad time of day for 20m (around lunch time) and too early to get contacts on 40m. With the heat from the pounding down sunshine, once I realised I would not be getting any contacts, I decided to pack up and head down to the (hopefully) cooler POTA location for the next activation.

On arriving at the parking spot, this was always planned to be a “PLOTA” as there is very little room to set up the quarter wave vertical, even though the lake (or salt fields as it was on this day) may have helped the vertical, had there been any space to set it up.

Tuning around 20 metres there was NOTHING – so I thought, this is likely, again the wrong time of day so I re-adjusted the RHM-8B on the mag mount, to its 40m setting and tuned around again – northing!

I was suspicious – so I pulled the coax lead and the background noise level from the radio did not change! I checked the coax cable and the Diamond antenna as best I could and could not locate where the fault was. With time lost on Orokini Hilltop and the problems now at this site, I decided it was time to call it a day and go and pick up my wife from the beach.

Photos:

POTA CY-0099 & PARC CY-LA-0099 Lefkara Area Natura 2000 27-08-2026

This was an extra activation, fitted in after the previous two fails, to make sure the equipment was still working. Unfortunately, as this was to coincide with my wife visiting the crafts village Pano Lefkara, the time of day would again not be great. This time however, I did make enough contacts. This park is in two pieces, one half has no roads running through it and no where easy to walk to to activate within that half. The other half however overlapped part of a road near to where a convent is located and their large car park is nicely in the park. Better still, as I found out, just off the end of the car park and further into the park, there is an orchard area, which was ideal to set up the radio and antenna in. So that is what I did and while there was no real DX contacts, I did manged to get the needed 10 contacts to qualify this POTA/PARC park and head back into the village to collect my wife before I totally roasted away in the hot sun!

Photos:

Log:

Equipment taken:

• Xiegu G-106 HF 5W radio.
• Diamond RHM-8B loaded HF antenna and tripod and mag mount (failed).
• 2 element parasitic phased vertical array antenna for 20-10m
• 2 Ah LifePO4 battery.
• 4 Ah LifePO4 battery (not used)
• Lightweight headphones.
• Smartphone for spotting.

Conclusions:

Although, the configuration that I took worked (at least when something didn’t fail and there were better than average conditions), I feel that despite the extra weight, I would have been better taking the 20w Xiegu G90, two 4 Ah batteries and the Komunica Power HF-PRO-2 antenna, in place of the G106 and Diamond RHB-8B antenna. The two element parasitic phased array however would still be taken as it did appear to perform well. 

73 ’til the next activation!