2006 - Dominican Republic - HA7TM/HI9
My wife and I decided to try a holiday in the Caribbean. While browsing amateur radio sites I found an advert from a German couple offering a rental QTH where the guest only needed to bring a transceiver and a computer. I contacted them; they arranged the amateur radio licence and the transfer as well. We had the QTH to ourselves and stayed on a self-catering basis. I rented a motorcycle for trips into town to buy supplies.
I knew there was no antenna for 160 m, so I brought one with me. Unfortunately the FD4 at the QTH was also very poor on 80 m.
During the final five days I rebuilt the 160 m dipole into another antenna, which gave me a usable setup on 80 m as well. During the holiday I made close to 8,000 QSOs with a modest 100 W. I worked many Hungarian stations too — many thanks to everyone for the contacts.
We returned to the Dominican Republic in 2016, but this time amateur radio was not the purpose of the trip; we wanted to explore the country. The development over those ten years was remarkable. In 2006 there was no motorway; by 2016 a good-quality road ran across the country. We had a wonderful second visit even without operating and saw in the New Year there, saying goodbye to 2015.