fr/g, glorioso islands. jean-michel, f6aja, editor of les nouvelles dx,
informed opdx on monday last week that after many years of effort, the
permission has finally been received and an operation to glorioso
(glorieuses) islands will take place, probably early may (possibly
between may 5-9th) for some weeks. at the moment, operators mentioned
are pascal/f5ptm, freddy/f5iro, stephane/f6kin, david/f8crs, yves-michel/
f5pru and possibly 3 others. the team plans to have 3 or 4 stations on
the air. they are currently looking for sponsors, and if you would like
to help, please contact didier, f5ogl. presently, glorioso is ranked 4th
in "dx magazine's 2007 most wanted countries world-wide" in the mixed
modes (eu 7th, asia 9th and na 4th). there is no web page currently
available for this operation, but details from the 2005/2006 planned
operation web page (which did not take place) states:
"the glorioso archipelago consists of two coral islands: grande
glorieuse (3 km in its larger diameter) where the human installations
are, and ile du lys (circular island, 600 metres in diameter) which is
desert. the archipelago also includes two rock islets - roches vertes
and l'ile aux crabes - as well as a sand bank more or less above water
at high tide. at the east and northeast of grande glorieuse are a series
of dunes reaching a maximum elevation of 12 m. the islands and rocks are
surrounded by a reef and a lagoon which is drained dry at low tide. the
glorioso islands are situated 220km northwest of diego suarez (mada-
gascar).
the island became french territory in 1930. around 1912, a french came
from the comoros and planted a fine coconut palm plantation there.
exploited until 1958 by people from the seychelles, it is currently
abandoned. there are also filaos. fauna consists exclusively of a rather
large colony of terns.
the meteorological service of the french colony in madagascar installed
on the island a rather primitive weather station in 1955 which was
opened only during the hurricane season from october to april. since
1960 the the station is open all year round. the importance of this
station is clear. it predicts cyclones for the north madagascar and
comoros area. it ensures safe navigation on the madagascar-djibouti-
madagascar and kenya-mauritius-kenya air and maritime routes. (from
minister for the french overseas web site)"
added note: jean-michel, f6aja, provides dxers with an interesting web
page that (probably) has the most complete qsl collection (28 different
qsl) from glorioso. take a look at:
http://lesnouvellesdx.fr/galerie/galerie2.php?page=topten&pfx=frghe still needs some cards for his collection: fr5es/g, fr5hg/g and fr5kh/g.
