DCI - Torre Villa Notari di Latte

In the afternoon of the 20th of January, together with Carlo I1OCQ, we worked a new reference, for DCI Award, located at Latte; that was the second time we operated from this village.
Both towers were discovered by Carlo last March during the FAI day; I have asked relevant code to the DCI Award Manager.
The Tower Villa Notari di Latte, DCI-IM143 (this is the code of the last Tower) is located in the Latte flat area, not far from the sea; it has been built during the XVI century to defend against pirates.
We have to remember that Muslim boats were the real dominators of our costs for almost 30 years.
Pirates terrorized local population because, after landing, they captured undefended people to ask later on a money ransom otherwise they sold as slaves.
Negotiations to agree to a ransom were difficult and took long time; who has the money could make free the relatives, who has not it had to borrow it from merchants which placed hypothecs on the prisoners properties.
Things improved after Lepanto battle, year 1571, which faced the immense Turkey fleet against the Christian one with the victory, although hard, of the last one.
We placed our antenna near the sea in an open area. Immediately after the switch on of the radio we faced a huge pile-up that allow us, in one and half hour, to overcome 100 QSO's, limit to get the operation valid.
Poor weather conditions with strong wind and some drops of rain suggested us to dismantle the station and return home.
We received strong signals from OM located in the south of Italy while the Piemonte and Lombardia's ones were difficult to copy as usual.
We detected an high participation of Czech and Slovakia OM which tried to speak Italian too, that was not usual 20 years ago.
I have noticed increased numbers on IW licences in 7 Mhz as hunters and activators.
I have to say that Carlo I1OCQ faced domestic and foreigners OM in a very professional way.

Working conditions: ICOM 706, tuner, car battery 50 A, vertical antenna 5 m. long.

To the next new one.

Gianni i1uwf

Italian version