From in the beginning of 1994 on, we had nearly every day dreadful weather. Rain, rain and more rain. ON4QP, Pam, my xyl, found that she needed badly the sun after all those months of such bad weather. After a visit to the local travelagencie, here sun destination were the Balearic islands, Spain, and in particular the island of Mallorca.

There I was already very active with the Spanish islands awards DIE, diploma islas Espanol, DIEI, diploma islas Espanol interior, and Faro  ( lighthouses) awards, I agreed directly with here idea, under one condition, i.e. to take a transceiver, to make some

qso's. ( I had immediately an activation of a lighthouse in mind hi. ). All our preceded radioholiday's were made by car, witch was more easy to transport our radiogear and specialy the antenna's. The trip was allready for the coming week, so my first work was to convert our trusty 14avq vertical in some lighter and smaller version fitting in our largest suitcase. After the conversion, the trap was the only original peace that left. There was no problem with SWR and performance of our antenna, in fact it was the same antenna, we just changed the alluminum tubes with smaller and less heaviger ones and cutted it to fix in our suitcase. The tranceiver would be our TS120S this was the smallest HF rig we had in possession, the powersuply a PS30 is a little on the heavy weight site, I had to sacrify a little on other stuff to stay in our weight for the flight to Palma, with the prospect of sunny weather we had not to carry rain clothes and warm sweathers.

After a smooth flight we landed on Palma de Mallorca airport around 9am, douane clearance without problems and in a record time we stood outside the building with the sun allready shinning in full glory to wait our transport to the hotel.

We were acommodated not to far of the airport in the ' Baia de Palma' at Playa de Palma between the village of Can Pastilla and El Arenal. The room was on the fourth floor with a balcony and seaview. The first thing after unpacking was to install our vertical and test the tranceiver and yes all was working 100 %. Mallorca is good as EU-004 for IOTA and E-021 for the DIE award. With many radiotourist every year and also with a nice number of local hams the demand for eu-004 is not that overwhelming, hi.

The weather was great and after some day's of sunbathing on the beach we rented a car, installing the tranceiver on the rear seat and connecting the powerline to the a battery was done in a mum of time. The first trip would be a mixture of siteseeing and radio, even when your xyl is a ham you have to compromise, hi. From El Arenal we followed the road Cala Blava from here on we left the mass tourist area behind us and followed the rural small coastroad till we reached the Cap Blanc Lighthouse. After the photo session I put up the antenna beside the car and we were ready to bring ' Faro Cabo Blanco ' on the air. The lighthouse count also as E-0316 for the Spanish Lighthouse award. After some 10 minutes and with allready a few qso's in the log, suddendly we were surrended by the Spanish armee, we were on or close to one of there excercise grounds, and with that antenna we looked what suspicious we think. After some explanations in my best Spanish, hi, and by showing our papers that we were fully licensed radioamateurs all was ok, anyhow with the solders next to us we decided to go for a more relaxing place.

Once back on the main road we found very shortly a very nice botanic garden with lots of nice flowers and very big specimen of all kind of Cactus, this was the xyl place to be. After a while we reached the small city of Colonia San Jordi with a lot of small island in front all counting for the DIE award, one of these small island' Na Guardia' have also a small lighthouse on it, number is E-0315.5. from here on ther is no coastroad anymore so we had to make a feary great detour to reach Faro Cabo Salinas. The view over the blue Mediterean sea was splendid , after the pictures we set up the station again for some 55 qso's. Time had come to finish our first exursion of the island as we had to bring back the car before 8pm.

With Faro Cabo Salinas we visted the most Southern spot of Palmade Mallorca, so to be in equilibre we had to go for the Northern place, by consulting the map this his certerly ' Cabo Formantor ' with his lighthouse. After two days of rest, hi, I was trying to rent the same car, but no luck, after some search we found our way the connect the power line of our tranceiver to this carbattery. Via Llucmajor, Algaida, Sineu, Llubi, Sa Pobla we arivid in Pollenca at the entrance of the Formantor peninsula. Lighthouses are standing on very lonely places, very dificult to reach some time, but nearly allways with a fantatict view, this was certenly true for this one, all the way from Sant Viranc on and in particular from the crossing at Formentor Island to the top of the cap the view was overwelming. We had many stop at lookout points to schoot pictures and admire the surrounding, finally we reached the top, we had the lighthouse allready longtime in view when we were mounting the small bending road. We found a very nice parking place close to the lighthouse and after the photo's and some refressements we set up the station and activated E-0296 faro Formentor, all went smooth a little nice pile-up till suddendly we recivid bad modulation report, checking all buttons, Swr, no result the modulation keep bad, to our disulation we had to disrupt our transmission. After some more test no beter result something was wrong with the TS120S, no more activations of Lighthouses anymore on this trip, what a pitty. Via a detour over the Alcudia peninsula we had to opertunity two more lighthouses one near the harbour of ' Puerto Polenca' E-0298 and the other one on isla Alcanada with lighthouse E-0304. We were back just in time to deliver back our rented car. Even with our broken tranceiver this was a very beautifull day to remember.

Now that our radio activation for this trip was ended and that we had no longer to transport tranceiver and antanna we chose the public transport to visit the island. Wit a busstop just in front of our hotel the trip direction Palma the capital was very easy. To visit all the intrested place you have to spent more than one day. From the railway station in Palma one can take a very old steam train direction Port of Soller, via a boattrip a long the coast we arrivid at the well know ' Torrent de Pareis' via coach over the small montagne road from ' Puig Major ' Mallorca highest mountain we reached back Palma. The island of Malorca is a very nice pleace to visit, many intresting place to visit for, and a very intresting weather situations ( Sun ) compared with our rainy Belgium.