Overview:

My wife and I travelled to Cyprus for a two-week holiday in April 2025. I had been there previously in September 2023 for a Ham’s wedding and wanted to come back to explore more. Again, I brought my radio equipment along (of course).

The plan was to intersperse radio days and touristy days over the 14 days we were there.

The first couple of days that we were there, both the terrestrial and radio weather were fine. The following 5 days had arctic-like winds, making things somewhat uncomfortable, with clothing choices being critical when leaving the apartment. I had booked a hire car for the length of the stay, and that, as it turned out, would be the base for all but one of the activations. The weeks had been planned to activate the close-by and easily accessible POTA parks in the first week, along with a couple of Beaches (BOTA) activations and the more difficult, not yet activated HEMA and SOTA summits in the second week. Unfortunately, as the winds died down, some CMEs hit the ionosphere, making operations difficult.

Two full-day bus trips, one from Paphos, where we were staying, to Limassol and one to the capital city, Nicosia, were to take place on the Thursday of the first week and the Tuesday of the second week. As there was a POTA park in Limassol, the radio was taken along on the bus. The second bus trip was to be pure tourism, but that trip marked the start of a mild head cold that turned into 4 days of flu, ruining the second week, and none of my planned HEMA and SOTA activations were able to take place. I had to concentrate on shaking the cold before our flight back home (which I did thankfully).

So, the following reports are only on the POTA activations that I managed.

The Activations

7/4/2025 – POTA CY-0113 Paphos Archaeological Reserve with CY-0067 Kato Pafos Lighthouse (a 2-Fer).

This activation on Monday, the first full day of our holiday, was probably the best of all activations. The weather was nice (sunny but not too hot), the radio conditions were fine, the activation was for a POTA 2-fer, and it was an activation from within Paphos, where we were staying. Indeed, this is the activation that failed on my last trip to Paphos, so I was eager to get it out of the way. The equipment – the G90 and the HF-PRO-2 loaded vertical mounted on a very small tripod with 6 radial wires worked fine. There was some (possibly military) radio interference, but most contacts were strong, so this was not a problem.

8/4/2025 – POTA CY-0115 Maa-Palaiokastro Archaeological Reserve.

The morning of Tuesday the 8th of April was taken up with a trip back to the airport to swap the Kai Rio car for a Citroen C3 which I had originally requested as it is basically the Citroen version of the Peugeot 2008 that I drive here in Germany and has support for Android Auto allowing me to conveniently use the Google maps app on my smartphone through the cars screen as a route navigator. This meant the activation could only happen in the afternoon, and as my wife wanted to see one of the famous Cyprus sandy beaches, this POTA entity was chosen, as from the car park, she could walk down to the beach while I operated. This was to turn out to be a very eventful activation (and not for good reasons) …

Once we found the way down to the beach for my wife, I went to the entrance to the reserve to find it was closed and only open to the public at certin times, so this would be an activation from the car in the car park (a PLOTA as I call it – Parking Lots on the air). I set up using the HF-PRO2 on a magnetic mount on the roof of the car to find 20m was fairly dead. A CME had hit the night before, and now getting contacts would be difficult. A combination of spotting myself on both the POTA website and the DX clusters before calling CQ and hunting and pouncing other stations on the band slowly, very slowly, brought in the contacts. I reached the agreed time when I was going to go down to the beach, and I was still 3 contacts short of the ten needed to qualify the park. I texted my wife and agreed to try for another 15 minutes. That, unfortunately, was a decision that I would regret later.

In the next 15 minutes, I managed to scrape in the needed last three contacts, so I now wanted to pack everything up. When I was about to take the antenna off the roof, a well-dressed gentleman came up and asked me what I was doing. I, of course, went straight into my explanation of the hobby and its history. He asked, “So it’s like mobile telephones”, and in order to keep things simple, I said yes. At this point, he accused me of listening in on the telephones of guests of the hotel (to whom the car park actually belonged). I explained no, our licence does not allow us to do that, at which point he asked to see my licence, of which I had copies with me for just such a situation. I also gave him a copy of CEPT TR61/01 with Cyprus highlighted as a member of the agreement. He was not happy and said he wanted to see a Cypriot licence, and although I explained I am on holiday and only residents are allowed Cypriot licences, he called the police.

Now, at this point, it’s important to stay calm, not to tell the other person that I am fully within my rights (which I was). I was parked in his car park without permission. Rather, I inquired why there was a problem, and he told me that his hotel has guests from Israel and Saudi Arabia, and a car with a large antenna on top of it could easily cause concerns given the current political situation. I agreed with him, and his tone changed to being less accusative, and he explained that he had to be very careful. I expressed an understanding, which indeed I had for his situation. He then received a call back from the police saying they had been called to a major motor accident and would not be coming, so could he take a photo of my licence and they would look into it later if needed. His secretary had already taken a photo of my car’s registration (which, of course, being a rental was of no real value), I gave him copies of all three of my licences, the CEPT document, a brochure on the amateur radio hobby and a QSL card. We shook hands, he apologised for delaying me, and all was fine. I heard no more. It is always important to understand the other person’s concerns and to respect those.

9/4/2025 – POTA CY-0078 Ezousa River Estuary.

After the previous day’s stress, after the activation, I decided to head for a deserted area within a park, which was not far away from where we were staying, early enough to link up with friends from Australia and the UK. This was a park that, when I scouted it out at home, had not yet been activated, but the few weeks before my trip to Cyprus, there had been a few UK POTA activators on Cyprus, and so the easy not-yet-activated parks had been “snapped up”.

Upon arrival, I saw that my planned parking spot was close to a small farmer’s hut, and indeed, after I set up, he came out but had no issue with me being there (thankfully).

The bands were still horrible, and although I managed contacts to the UK and around Europe, contacts with Australia were not possible. Although my location was close to an electricity sub-station, I am glad to say that I did not have any noise from it, just the bands were bad, and the reports I received were weak compared to usual.

16/4/2025 – POTA CY-0005 Petra Tou Romiou, CY-0049 Ranti Forest & BOTA-37815 Aphroditie’s Rock Beach.

The radio conditions across the bands had improved a little, but this was a combined “trip-out” with my wife; it was not early enough for any long path contacts into Australia. I did get a couple of contacts back into the UK as well as several from around Europe. The best contact was probably with Dave G4AKC, who was actually driving between locations in the UK, so a real “mobile” contact.

16/4/2025 – POTA CY-0114 – Tombs of the Kings.

This activation did not manage the needed number of contacts to qualify the park, but as I was starting to feel the effects of a cold/flu bug, this would turn out to be my last activation of the holiday. The planned HEMA and SOTA activations planned for the following days were no longer possible, as I had to concentrate on getting better before the flight home. I’m happy to have Mike 2E0YYY/P in this log, but conditions were still not great, and getting the needed 10 contacts for POTA was not possible. This turned out to be my last activation on Cyprus, although I had hoped for more.

Photos:

Five locations : POTA CY-0113 & CY-0067, POTA CY-0115, POTA CY-0078, POTA CY-0005 & CY-0049 with BOTA-37815, POTA CY-0114