Life's too short for QRP! (WSPR chatter 4)

Last edited: 06.05.2018

Latest news 06.05.2018 - DJ0HO/MM has been confirmed as being located on the German icebreaker and research vessel RV Polarstern! See the addendum below!

I like the challenge of WSPRíng with 200 mW with my QRP Labs U3S. But sometimes you really want to be spotted by that special station, and after trying for a while you start to realize that 200 mW just ain't going to cut it, at least not without some extraordinary propagation conditions helping out.

Such was the case for me with DJ0HO/MM. This station the past two months or so had been making WSPR spots from the area around the Antarctic Peninsula and the South Shetland Islands (see also my blog entry of April 7). I really wanted to be spotted by this station, but my 200 mW WSPR sgnals just everytime failed to excite some electrons in the station's antenna.
So, giving the popular ham radio phrase "Life's too short for QRP" new meaning, I gave the U3S some rest and decided to do some WSPRing on the 20m band with my Yaesu FT991 instead, using no less than a massive 5 Watts of power, yes, 5000 mW! :-) In WSPR, and compared to the 200 mW I normally use, this was like going from QRP to high power QRO operations! :-) And it really showed; I got way more spots, much better SNR reports, and while I was at it I was spotted by stations in Japan, India and New Zealand to boot, countries I haven't been able to reach yet with my 200 mW signals (see also my WSPR DXCC list). But most importantly, I was finally also spotted by DJ0HO/MM!

The first spot for PA7MDJ from DJ0HO/MM appeared on April 29th from grid GC29ma, just north of the mysterious, remote, and desolate Elephant Island. Elephant Island is an ice-covered mountainous island, it's part of the South Shetland Islands, but lies in its extreme outer reaches. The island was named for the many elephant seals spotted on its shores by the early explorers. Elephant Island is most famous for having been the refuge of Sir Ernest Shackleton and his men marooned there after the loss of their ship in the Weddel Sea during the Endurance Expedition in 1915.
A second spot appeared two days later from grid GC39al. The antenna I used during both spots was a sloping dipole for the 20m band.

Elephant Island. Photo by Terry Allan (source).

DJ0HO/MM near Elephant Island hearing PA7MDJ on April 29th, 2018

Raising the power from 200 mW to 5 W is not automatically a guarantee that your signals will be picked up, and the fact that I was spotted by DJ0HO/MM only twice shows that it was still no easy feat.

DJ0HO does not have a qrz.com account, and it surprises me that almost no information can be found on either DJ0HO or the WSPR operations of DJ0HO/MM. The only thing I've been able to find is that the callsign belongs to a Dr. Walter Jörg Hofmann, the owner / skipper of a sailing yacht. I initially thought the WSPR monitoring was done from this sailing yacht. But the past few days on the map of wsprnet.org  I noticed that, after having spent many weeks in the Antarctic, DJ0HO/MM was moving up north, and at some point had reached the southern tip of South America and was sailing just east of Tierra del Fuego. I'm no expert at maritime navigation, but the speed at which DJ0HO/MM had managed to sail from Elephant Island to Tierra del Fuego made me suspect that this could not be a sailing yacht. At the time of writing the last spot in the wsprnet.org database from DJ0HO/MM was made on May 4th from grid FD66it.

I started to suspect that DJ0HO/MM was operated from a bigger ship, maybe a research vessel. In that case the most likely candidate would be the German research and supply vessel RV Polarstern. I checked the ship's 2018 schedule and learned that from March 17th to May 6th the ship was on a biological oceanographic research cruise (PS112) in the area "WESTERN ANTARCTIC PENINSULA SCOTIA SEA". The cruise would end on May 6th in Punta Arenas, Chile, which would have the ship sailing along the coast of Tierra del Fuego just prior to it! This schedule corresponds VERY closely to the movements I've seen for DJ0HO/MM!

The RV Polarstern (source)

The Polarstern 2018 schedule (source)

I thus can do none else than strongly suspect that DJ0HO/MM was located on board of the RV Polarstern! If somebody can confirm this, please contact me.

In other WSPR news; I've also been receiving some High Altitude Balloon WSPR flights including SA6BSS (BSS #?) over Greenland and VE3KCL (U3B-15) near Northern Africa. Also the hospital ship USNS Mercy (see also my blog entry of April 27)  is still active, and I've been receiving its WSPR signals again, this time from Sri Lanka.

WSPR balloon SA6BSS over Greenland heard by PA7MDJ

Addendum 06.05.2018
DJ0HO/MM indeed is the RV Polarstern! For some reason I'd missed it, but earlier Felix Riess DL5XL had already replied to my blog entry of April 7th with the following information:

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Jörg, DJ0HO, is an electronics engineer on board the German icebreaker "Polarstern" (not exactly a "sailing yacht"). More information about the ship can be found here: https://www.awi.de/en/expedition/ships/polarstern.html - He uses a Red Pitaya STEMLab 125-14 with an active receiving antenna to monitor up to eight WSPR frequencies simultaneously and regularly uploads reception results to wsprnet.org through the vessel's satellite link. DJ0HO will be on board until the ship returns to its home port of Bremerhaven, Germany, in June 2018.
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Thanks for the input, Felix! I appreciate it very much!



See also:

https://www.awi.de/en/expedition/ships/polarstern.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_Island
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Trans-Antarctic_Expedition

WSPR chatter

Last edited: 10.7.2018

Inspired by fellow ham, WSPR enthusiast and blogger PE4BAS, I've decided to compile my own personal WSPR DXCC list also, i.e. a list of DXCC countries where my 200 mW WSPR signals were spotted. I started WSPRing (on and off, not continuously) with my QRP Labs U3S in the late winter of 2017, and so far have reached a total of 63 countries with it. My WSPR DXCC list can be found here, and can be accessed at all times from the "Pages" section in the bar to the right.

For each month I download the complete WSPR database CSV file from wsprnet.org and import it in Excel to analyze my WSPR spots. The CSV files are too large to be used directly in Excel though, so I first break them up with the use of a little program called CSV Splitter from Polderij IT which can be downloaded for free. If you need some help with this I'll be glad to help out.

So what else is out there on the WSPR front and HOT to report on?

Well, the Canada C3 icebreaker expedition ship Polar Prince after a succesful circumnavigation of North America has returned in its home port of Lunenburg in Nova Scotia on Canada's east coast. During the voyage from Canada's east to west coast via the Arctic, the ship could be tracked by its onboard HF WSPR beacon with the callsign CG3EXP. Later on, after the C3 expedition had successfully ended, the ship's WSPR beacon continued transmitting with the callsign VE0EXP, and the ship could be followed on its voyage back home, down the Pacific Ocean, through the Panama Canal, and up the Atlantic Ocean.
I've done several blog entries about the C3 expedition, the Polar Prince, and its WSPR beacon, and you might be interested in reading them; just follow the "Canada C3 Expedition" link under "Tags" in the bar to the right.
I've been able to catch the WSPR beacon of the Polar Prince on the 40m band on many occasions, from its voyage up Canada's east coast as well as for a large part of its leg through the Arctic. During the leg through the western part of the Arctic and down Canada's west coast I was unable to receive the 200 mW beacon, as were most of the other European WSPR monitoring stations.
But I had set my goal to catching the Polar Prince at least one more time, on its way back while doing the Panama Canal transit from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean! And I succeeded!
With my homebrew magnetic loop on 40m I catched the Polar Prince while it was west of Middle America, while it was waiting to enter the Panama Canal, and inside the canal itself! I caught the Polar Prince in grid locator FJ09dc in the early UTC morning of December 28th, 2017. This grid put the Polar Prince inside the Panama Canal close to the city of Gamboa. Below you'll find a photo of the canal at Gamboa. Gamboa originally was built to house the Canal Zone personnel and their families during Canal construction.
The Polar Prince WSPR beacon since the start of the C3 Expedition in June of 2017 has been on the air uninterrupted! Well almost, as during a port visit of the ship in Halifax early on in the C3 expedition, a visitor had been fiddling with the buttons of the QRP Labs U3S WSPR beacon and failed to return the U3S to its correct settings. This was soon resolved though. Another interruption occurred on the ship's return home. On January 4th, 2018 the Polar Prince suddenly dissapeared from the WSPR radar. The ship was crossing a severe storm in the Bermuda Triangle (!) when the signal got lost. Antenna damage was the suspected culprit. Later it seemed the U3S had fallen of its shelf, resulting in the power chord being unplugged and the VE0EXP beacon going off the air! But, as mentioned before, the VE0EXP beacon transmissions resumed, and can still be heard from the ship's homeport in Lunenburg, and hopefully we might be able to track again on the WSPR HF subbands the icebreaker on one of its next voyages.

Grid locator FJ09dc

The town of Gamboa and the Panama Canal (source)

PA7MDJ hearing VE0EXP Polar Prince during its Panama Canal transit

In the early morning of April 6th,2018 on the 30m band I finally also managed for the first time to be spotted by GM0HCQ/MM aboard the Royal Research Ship James Clark Ross in the South Atlantic. Last summer I was already spotted by the James Clark Ross on its Arctic voyage (read about it in the blog entry here). This time the James Clark Ross was located in the South Atlantic very close to the island of St. Helena. It's currently returning home to England from its tour of duty in the Antarctic. I had hoped to be spotted by GM0HCQ/MM earlier in the Antarctic season from Antarctic waters, or more recently from the highly fascinating and utterly remote Tristan da Cunha Island, but that unfortunately seemed to be out of reach for my 200 mW WSPR beacon and mag loop setup.

GM0HCQ/MM hearing PA7MDJ

GM0HCQ/MM hearing PA7MDJ at 0130 UTC. I was right on the edge there with -30 dB. This is a period of 24 hours; in that period I was the only PA-land station heard; not bad for a homebrew indoor magnetic loop!

The James Clark Ross in Antarctic waters (source)

James Clark Ross Radio Officer Mike Gloistein GM0HCQ keeps an online daily log on his website on http://www.gm0hcq.com/index.htm. The April 6 St. Helena update can be found there also (including photos).

The photo below is taken from the GM0HCQ daily update of April 6th and shows St. Helena appearing ahead of the JCR.

In other news, a new kid on the block is DJ0HO/MM (no qrz.com registration) which the last couple of weeks has been making spots on the HF WSPR bands from the area near the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica. I haven't been able to find any information for this WSPR monitoring station other than that the callsign belongs to a Dr. Walter Jörg Hofmann which seems to be the owner / skipper of a sailing yacht. So most likely DJ0HO/MM is located on this yacht. It's quite late in the season for a sailing yacht to be in Antarctic waters (remember, it's autumn there right now, and the Austral winter starts on June 21st), and I wonder if  Dr. Walter Jörg Hoffman is planning on doing an Antarctic winter over. I haven't been spotted yet aboard the yacht, and although it's going to be difficult or maybe even impossible, in the true ham spirit I won't give up and will keep on trying

Addendum
DJ0HO/MM is the German icebreaker and polar research vesssel Polarstern. For more information see my blog entry here.


See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamboa,_Panama

Antarctic WSPR beacon / receiver soon to be operational

Last edited: 15.01.2018

This is the latest exciting news about the dedicated WSPR beacon / receiver to be set up at the Neumayer III station on Antarctica. For more information, see also my blog entry of July 29th, 2017.

From the DARC Facebook page, published on January 11th, 2018.

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Die Hardware für die geplante WSPR-Funkbake in der Antarktis als gemeinsames Projekt von Technischer Universität München, Hochschule Bremen und dem DARC e.V. befindet sich zur Zeit auf dem Weg ins ewige Eis. Die Installation besteht aus einem Bakensender für die Bänder 160m bis 6m mit einer Ausgangsleistung von 5 Watt sowie einem WSPR-Multiband-Empfänger auf Basis eines Red Pitaya, der simultan alle Bänder von 160m bis 15m beobachtet und bis zu 700 Empfangsberichte stündlich in das WSPR-Net einspeisen kann. Die Inbetriebnahme des Systems an der deutschen Forschungsstation "Neumayer III" ist noch für den Januar 2018 geplant.
---

Addendum 15.01.2018
Felix Riess DL5XL reports on wsprnet.org that testing of the RX setup has begun today (January 15th, 2018). The beacon callsign is DP0GVN and the first RX spots have already found their way to the wsprnet.org database! They're not using the final antenna setup yet and there might be extended off times while they're working on the system.

According to info on fellow blogger PE4BAS' blogsite (http://pe4bas.blogspot.com) for TX they will be using a Procom vertical antenna at the main building. For RX they will use two loops, one of 170 m and one of 20 m size, located at the chemistry laboratory 3 km away from the main building. The planned up time of the beacon will be one complete 11 year solar cycle!

Addendum #2 15.01.2108
Wow, the DP0GVN beacon is already doing an excellent job! I started WSPRing on 20m around 18:50 UTC and in an hours time I've already been spotted in Antarctica three times! I'm using my 200 mW U3S transmitter and a sloper EFHW wire antenna.

And this is what it looked like at Neumayer III Station around the time I was spotted (from the Neumayer III webcam):

Christmas Caroling via HF from Antarctica Set for December 23

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It's very short notice, but I wanted to share this recently discovered news item from the ARRL, giving my fellow Antarctica enthusiasts the opportunity to tune in to some very special, festive signals from "The Great White Continent" this Christmas Season! Thanks to my friend Alan Gale G4TMV for notifying me!

From http://www.arrl.org/news

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12/21/2017

Each year, the “residents” of McMurdo Station, Antarctica, celebrate Christmas by singing and sharing Christmas Carols via HF — using a non-Amateur Radio frequency just above 40 meters — for those at remote Antarctic field camps. They’ll be doing it again in 2017, on Saturday, December 23, at 2300 UTC.

“Multiple stations are involved, each with different equipment,” explained Nathaniel Frissell, W2NAF, an assistant research professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology who has been part of the chorus in the past. “McMurdo Station and South Pole Station probably have the most powerful equipment. Field camps and remote stations could be calling in with systems that put out as little as 20 W.”

Frissell said McMurdo Station would serve as a net control of sorts to coordinate the various broadcasts, which will include a small choir and vibraphonist John Piper at McMurdo. Other camps and South Pole Station each will have a chance to chime in.

“This year, we are asking ham radio operators around the world to listen in and e-mail short-wave listening reports telling us how far away the carols are heard,” Frissell said. “Last time I did this, almost all of the positive QSL reports were from South Pole Station.”

The broadcast will take place on December 23 on 7995 kHz USB at 2300 UTC, which will be Christmas Eve in some parts of the world. Frissell requests reports via e-mail. For a Christmas in Antarctica SWL QSL card, send an SASE to his home address. A YouTube recording offers a sample of last year’s transmission.

A graduate of Virginia Tech, Frissell started HamSCI, Ham Radio Science Investigation, which sponsored the Solar Eclipse QSO Party this past year. At NJIT, he works in the Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research.
---

More 40m fun!

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In my blog of March 4th I already wrote about how I'm continued to be surprised by the DX I'm able to work on the 40m band with low power (100 watts or less) and a simple loaded EFHW sloper wire antenna; the US East Coast, the Caribbean, South America, Middle America, Africa, Australia, and even Antarctica, they're all in the log. Don't be discouraged when you have only modest equipment and antennas to your disposal. Combined with some luck and perseverance it will work for you! I know, because it does for me!
Especially the Caribbean is an easy target, and the past year or so the 40m band has been a good provider to me of quite some ATNOs from Africa as well. Now that the higher bands are in bad shape, 40m has become my primary DX band!

Looking at the success I had last winter / spring on 40m QSOing several Russian Antarctic bases in CW and various stations in the southern part of the African continent in both CW and digital modes, I guess for extreme DX, roughly taken, the path from my QTH going down south across the African continent to Antarctica is a very good one for me.
This again was proved the last couple of months when I managed to contact again several stations in the Antarctic region. Last September on 40m in JT65 I managed to work the Polish Antarctic Station Arctowski HF0ARC on King George Island, South Shetland Islands, IOTA AN-010 (more about this QSO in my Sept. 14 blog). Then early October on 40m CW I managed to work FT5XT/MM on a fishing trawler off the Kerguelen Islands (see separate "QSL card in the Spotlight" section below). And very recently on 40m CW I finally also succeeded in making a QSO with the Russian Antarctic Station Bellingshausen RI1ANO, also on King George Island. After a long time and many attempts in JT65, FT8, and CW on both 40m and several other bands I finally managed to put this station in the log.

Russian Antarctic Station Bellingshausen, South Shetland Islands (from the RI1ANO qrz.com page)

Operator Alexandr (UA1OJL) at RI1ANO (from the RI1ANO qrz.com page)

On several nights while running JT65 on 40m I was also spotted by the Japanese Antarctic Station Syowa 8J1RL. Unfortunately 8J1RL at the time seemed to be monitoring only, as I saw no signal of the station at my side (or other stations trying to contact the Japanese Antarctic base), and thus no QSO could be made.

PA7MDJ spotted by 8J1RL on 40m. Screenshot from PSKREPORTER.

Syowa Station, Antarctica under the rays of the Aurora australis (from the 8J1RL qrz.com page)

Syowa Station, Antarctica (from the 8J1RL qrz.com page)

During the CQ Worldwide CW contest on November 26 around 15:00 UTC the 40m band once again surprised me when I managed to work K6AR in grid DM13ib near San Diego, California. It left me absolutely astonished, to say the least. Ok, I had worked Antarctica and other distant parts of the world on many occasions, but with my equipment on 40m I'd always considered the path to the US West Coast to be a very difficult or even an impossible one! I've made some contacts over the years, but also on the higher bands California always has been a very difficult area to reach for me.
One would expect a greyline contact here, but strictly seen it wasn't; K6AR had just come out of the grey line zone though, and I was about to go into it. The screenshot below from DX Atlas shows the great circle path completely in daylight. It might also have been a long path contact but I don't believe so.

Short path between PA7MDJ and K6AR on 26 Nov 2017 14:53 UTC

LotW QSL

The good 40m path south to Antarctica looks very promising for me for the upcoming 3Y0Z Bouvet Island DXpedition planned for early 2018. Looking at the path to Bouvet Island, I should have no problems catching their CW signals on the 40m band. I expect the pile-ups for this DXpedition to be HUGE and to be lasting until the very last second of the operation, so I'm not expecting to work them, but I'm hoping to at least hear them, so that I can send in an SWL report. Since I've got my ham licence, I usually don't send SWL reports anymore, but for Bouvet Island I'm going to make an exception and return to my roots and to how it all started: being an SWL! From this special DXpedition and special location I just need to have that QSL card momento! If not for a 2-way QSO then for an SWL report!

I've been deeply fascinated by the elusive "Bouvetøya", as the uninhabited, subantarctic Norwegian dependency is officially called, for a long time. In the 1990s I read about the mysterious Bouvet Island in the book "Het ijspaleis" (The Ice Palace) by Boudewijn Büch (1948-2002). Büch is one of my favourite Dutch writers, not for his fictional novels, but for his non-fiction series of island books. As far as I know the books were never translated, but for every island enthusiast that's able to read Dutch, the series of books is a must-read. I can without doubt say that the origin of many of my fascinations with certain islands and places on this earth derives from reading one of Büch's books. "Het ijspaleis" is largely dedicated to Bouvet. Although he never visited the island, Büch was an authority on Bouvet and therefore unique in the Netherlands and maybe even the World. Reading "Het ijspaleis" makes you realize how remote and elusive the island really is, not only on the ham bands, but also in many other ways.

The island series books by Boudewijn Büch, from the PA7MDJ library. On the right "Het ijspaleis: eilanden, derde deel" from 1993.

For those interested in 40m DX, Oene Spanjer PA3CWN is an avid 40m DXer, and his propagation observations for this particular band as laid out on his qrz.com page are very interesting, and they are recommended reading for every serious 40m DXer!

You can read more of my 40m contemplations in the March 4 blog entry linked to at the top of this page. More on FT5XT/MM in a separate section below


See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudewijn_B%C3%BCch
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudewijn_B%C3%BCch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellingshausen_Station
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Showa_Station_(Antarctica) 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouvet_Island

QSL card in the Spotlight: FT5XT/MM near Kerguelen Islands

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QSL card from FT5XT/MM for a 40m CW QSO with PA7MDJ on 8 Oct 2017 0115 UTC.

FT5XT/MM is operated by Frenchman Gildas Ballanec F4HQZ (ex-TU5KG). Gildas is the captain of a fishing vessel which each year sails in the FT5 area for a period of about three months. He's active as FT5XT/MM from the ship when he sails within the vicinity of the Kerguelen Islands, and as FT5WQ/MM within the vicinity of the Crozet Islands. As most of you will know, /MM stands for Maritime Mobile and is added to an amateur radio callsign to indicate the station is located aboard a ship at sea.
Sporadically Gildas goes ashore on one of the islands (for instance when the ship needs refueling) and will be active from there with the callsigns FT5XT (on Kerguelen) and FT5WQ (on Crozet) without the /MM suffix added. Both Kerguelen and Crozet are part of the Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises or TAAF and both form a separate DXCC entity. In case of Gildas' operations, of course they will only count as such when he operates from the islands and not when he's operating /MM from the ship at sea.
In previous years Gildas sailed on the fishing trawler "Ile de la Réunion", and I assume this year is no different. The "Ile de la Réunion" is shown on the QSL card and on his TU5KG qrz.com page. The "Radio Officers" website in an October 9th, 2017 news item also reports Gildas is aboard the F/V "Ile de la Réunion".

For more info on this QSO, see also my "More 40m fun!" blog entry above.

Kerguelen Islands (source)

The "Ile de la Réunion" (source)

Map showing the location of Kerguelen and Crozet (source)

QSO confirmed in Clublog

See also:

https://dx-world.net/ft5xt-kerguelen-island/
https://dxnews.com/ft5xt_kerguelen-islands/
https://www.trafficlist.net/fv-ile-de-la-reunion-ft5xtmm/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerguelen_Islands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Southern_and_Antarctic_Lands
http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:751477/mmsi:635225000/imo:9246970/vessel:ILE_DE_LA_REUNION

Polish Antarctic Station Arctowski

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Beautiful picture from the HF0ARC qrz.com page.

In the evening of September 9th, 2017, I managed to make a JT65 QSO on 40m with HF0ARC. Amateur radio station HF0ARC is located at the Polish Antarctic Station Henryk Arctowski on King George Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica. It is operated by Sebastian Gleich SQ1SGB who is part of the current overwintering crew of the 41st Polish Antarctic Expedition (2016/2017) to Arctowski. Austral winter is coming to an end though, and at the end of October, Sebastian will be leaving the station and head back home for Poland. So I feel very lucky to have already managed to put HF0ARC in the log, as time will be running out soon.

I was running my Yaesu FT991 at 35 watts and used my sloper HyEndFed 10/20/40 wire antenna. I was surprised when I managed to make the contact already on the first attempt! An eQSL for the contact followed the next day. This contact definitely is one of the most special and memorable moments of my ham radio career!

Location of King George Island in the South Shetland Islands (source)

HF0ARC replaces the old Arctowski callsign HF0POL. The old HF0POL call was associated with Arctowski Station up until March 2016, and had been in use at the station since the late 1970s. In 2015, the Polish licensing regulations changed, making it possible to have the HF0 prefix issued to any Polish ham operating from Poland as well. Previously, the HF0 prefix was assigned exclusively to Polish hams operating from the South Shetland Islands. HF0POL is now in use by ham SP9GMK for ham operations from Poland, and is not associated with Arctowski Station anymore.

Polish Antarctic Station Henryk Arctowski was established in February 1977. On the beaches near the station numerous whale bones can be found, remains from the time when the site was used by whalers to process whales killed nearby. Nearby the station are various colonies of three different types of penguins. The station is named for Henryk Arctowski (1871-1958) who as a meteorologist accompanied the 1897-1899 "Belgica" expedition, the first expedition to overwinter in Antarctica. According to Wikipedia, Arctowski proposed the original notion of a wind chill factor, arguing that wind could be as damaging to human flesh as cold in harsh climates.

The South Shetland Islands are IOTA AN-010.

Arctowski Station (source)

Penguins n front of Arctowski Station (source)

Whale bones at Arctowski. Photographer T. Janecki (source)

Winter at Arctowski. Photographer T. Janecki (source)

Arctowski Station. Photographer T. Janecki (source)

eQSL to PA7MDJ from HF0ARC

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henryk_Arctowski_Polish_Antarctic_Station
http://www.arctowski.pl/ 
http://www.waponline.it/hfoarc-henryk-arctowski-station-wap-pol-o1-on-air/
http://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/hf0-is-not-only-shetland-island-any-more.522100/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henryk_Arctowski
https://dx-world.net/hf0arc-south-shetland-islands/

RRS James Clark Ross / British Antarctic Survey

Last edited: 15.08.2017

The Royal Research Ship James Clark Ross at Vernadsky Base, Antarctica. (source)

This is the RRS James Clark Ross, a research and supply vessel operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). The Radio Officer of the JCR is amateur radio operator Mike Gloistein GM0HCQ. The ship mostly can be found in Antarctic waters, doing research cruises and supplying the bases of the British Antarctic Survey. But during the Austral winter (i.e. summer in the northern hemisphere), the ship turns its bow to the North, and also does research cruises in the Arctic.

Mike regularly is active from the ship as GM0HCQ/MM, mainly in CW but sometimes also in digital modes. In the autumn of 2014, then still with my novice callsign, I managed to work Mike aboard the JCR on 20m in PSK31 when it was close to the Azores and heading south for the Antarctic. It resulted in the wonderful QSL card shown below.

QSL card for PD7MDJ from the RRS James Clark Ross.

During the Arctic cruise this year, Mike also had a WSPR receiver running, 24/7 and with spots being uploaded real-time to wsprnet.org with the reporter callsign GM0HCQ/MM. But only on 30m, which made reception of my WSPR beacons sent with the QRP Labs Ultimate3S (see also my blog about the U3S kit here) impossible. With the U3S I'm only active on 20 and 40m with a HyEndFed 10/20/40 wire antenna. I am active on 30m with the HyEndFed in other modes and with other transceivers, but then I'll let the transceiver's internal antenna tuner make a match (with my transceiver's internal tuner I actually get the HyEndFed 10/20/40 tuned on all HF bands except 80 and 160m). But for the U3S I don't have any kind of tuner. And besides, I also didn't have a 30m Low Pass Filter for the U3S.

Then a couple of weeks ago at the QRP Labs booth at HAM RADIO 2017 in Friedrichshafen I bought the U3S 30m LPF kit. I also recently got my hands on a HF-P1 portable vertical antenna (which I'm planning on using during SOTA or WWFF activations). The HF-P1 can be used on all HF bands from 80 to 10m by adjusting the antenna's sliding loading coil. So I recently started experimenting with the U3S sending WSPR beacons on 30m through the HF-P1. It worked nicely, I was being heard all over Europe and crossed the Atlantic to North America a couple of times, but there were still no spots from GM0HCQ/MM. The HF-P1 being light-weight, self-supporting, and quickly assembled, and therefore very suitable for a portable setup, with its short length, loading coil, and minimalistic radials however never will be more than a very compromised antenna.
I therefore took up the plan to make a 30m Inverted-V dipole. I took apart my homebrew 15m dipole, to use its centre and end isolators, and cut new lengths of wire for the 30m band. Minus 5%, as that's what they say the length should be for an Inverted-V with a 90º apex angle. I thought the antenna would fit in my garden, but I was wrong. The restricted space forced the Inverted-V to take a funny, and not so perfect V shape (see the illustration below).

Crude sketch of the "Funny V" antenna as I like to call the newly installed Inverted-V for 30m. Would love to see its radiation pattern in for instance the EZNEC antenna software. If somebody could help me with that, please contact me.

After a few minor trimming cuts on both legs of the Inverted-V, I managed to get a perfect VSWR for it! I quickly connected the U3S and started beaconing on 30m. And lo and behold, the antenna works like a charm! Spots from all over Europe, many more and with much better SNR reports than with the HF-P1. At night I crossed the Atlantic many times to North America and also into Puerto Rico. And most importantly, this time my 200 mW beacons were finally also spotted aboard the James Clark Ross! The JCR had just finished this year's Arctic research cruise and was lying "all fast alongside Pier 22" in Tromsø in Arctic Norway before commencing its voyage back to England. I wanted to be spotted by the JCR before it would depart from the Arctic, and I'm glad I succeeded. I wish though that I had the U3S running on 30m sooner, to see if it would have reached the ship when it was still much further north at Svalbard. I could have used one of my other transceivers and a PC with WSPR software (the U3S is a stand-alone WSPR transmitter), but there's no fun in WSPRing at 5 watts, and I like the challenge of the U3S putting out only about 200 mW.

GM0HCQ/MM hearing PA7MDJ

Me and my radio history with Mike Gloistein and the RRS James Clark Ross actually goes back a long time. Before I obtained my radio amateur licence in 2012, in the 1980s and 1990s I was already a passionate shortwave listener, specializing in monitoring utility radio stations, and in those years one of my favorite frequencies to tune in to was 9.106 MHz. On this frequency around 2330 UTC I could regularly receive the SSB signals of the bases and ships of the British Antarctic Survey. The ships were the RRS John Biscoe and the RRS Bransfield, and later also the James Clark Ross which in 1991 replaced the John Biscoe. The ships every night would send SYNOP coded weather observations to one of the bases. I also managed to receive the JCR, and the reception report letter I sent to the Radio Officer of the JCR in 1995 resulted in a nice big and thick envelope arriving in my mailbox from the Falkland Islands! It contained amongst other things various brochures and information leaflets about the British Antarctic Survey and the JCR, my returned and filled-out PFC (prepared form card) QSL, and a personal letter from the JCR Radio Officer, being Mike Gloistein GM0HCQ!

PFC QSL from the RRS James Clark Ross for SWL reception of the ship with official radio traffic on 9.106 MHz in 1995.

PFC QSL from the British Antarctic Survey base Faraday for SWL reception of the base with official radio traffic on 9.106 MHz in 1992. The QSL was mailed to me directly from Faraday (see postmark). In 1996 Faraday Base was sold for a symbolic one pound to Ukraine and was renamed Vernadsky Base. This is one of my most prized SWL QSLs.

The following BAS bases and ships were active on 9.106 MHz:

• Bird Island (callsign ZBH22)
• Signy Island (callsign ZHF33)
• Faraday (callsign ZHF44)
• Rothera (callsign ZHF45)
• Halley (callsign VSD)
• RRS Johny Biscoe (callsign ZDLB)
• RRS Bransfield (callsign ZDLG)
• RRS James Clark Ross (callsign ZDLP)

For more information and photos of the JCR, check out Mike Gloistein's excellent website at www.gm0hcq.com!


Addendum 11.08.2017
Mike Gloistein informed me in an e-mail exchange that during this year's Arctic cruise whilst the RRS James Clark Ross was north of about 77º latitude, the WSPR spots weren't uploaded to the WSPR database real-time due to lack of communications satellite. All reception details of this period were stored and were uploaded manually once communication was restored.
Mike tells me that the WSPR setup aboard the JCR is using one of the commercial receivers which isn't really designed for such weak signals, but nevertheless seems to work fairly well.
The WSPR receiver will be switched off soon when the JCR is back in England and Mike leaves the ship around August 15th.
Mike also informs me that all being well the WSPR receiver will be up and running again from late October for six weeks whilst Mike is back on board the JCR for the first section of the Antarctic season.

I'm looking forward to see if I can get my WSPR signals aboard the JCR coming autumn while it's cruising the seas of the southern hemisphere. In the mean time, whilst the JCR is getting more south on the way back from its Arctic voyage, the reception of my WSPR beacons aboard the ship is getting more common (see screenshot below).

Addendum 15.08.2017
Gavin Taylor GM0GAV informed me that it was him who replied with the QSL from Faraday. Gavin was at Faraday as a comms man from 1990 to 1993. Gavin nowadays is also very active in SOTA, and upon checking my log, I found out that not too long ago I've worked him on 40m CW on the summit of SOTA GM/ES-044.


See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RRS_James_Clark_Ross
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Antarctic_Survey
https://www.bas.ac.uk/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernadsky_Research_Base
https://www.bas.ac.uk/about/about-bas/our-history/british-research-stations-and-refuges/faraday-f/

Dedicated WSPR beacon / receiver to be set up on Antarctica

Last edited:

From the DARC Facebook page, published on July 5th, 2017.

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WSPR-Funkbake in der Antarktis

Die TU München, das Institut für Raumfahrttechnik, plant das Errichten und den Betrieb einer WSPR-Funkbake in der Antarktis. Das Projekt wird gemeinsam mit dem Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung, und der Hochschule Bremen als innovatives wissenschaftliches Projekt betreut. Die Projektleitung hat Prof. Dr. Ing. Ulrich Walter, DG1KIM, Ordinarius für Raumfahrttechnik an der TU München und ehemaliger D2-Astronaut.
Der DARC e.V. wird bei dem Projekt eingebunden. Erstmalig überhaupt soll eine permanente WSPR-Funkbake zum Studium der Ausbreitungsbedingungen in der Antarktis unter Einbeziehung der weltweit verteilten Funkamateure betrieben werden. Das Projekt ist auf Dauer eines Sonnenfleckenzyklus von etwa 11 Jahren angelegt und soll ab ca. November 2017 vor Ort beginnen.
Entsprechende Anträge an das Alfred-Wegener-Institut, zuständig für den Betrieb der Neumayer-III Forschungsstation auf dem Ekström-Schelfeis, wurden vor kurzem von dessen wissenschaftlichen Beirat offiziell genehmigt. Für die Entscheidung hat vor allem eine Rolle gespielt, dass mit sehr geringem finanziellen und logistischen Aufwand eine große Zahl von neuen wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnissen über die Ionosphäre in den Polargebieten zu erwarten ist.
Die Wellenausbreitung auf der Kurzwelle scheint gut erforscht, jedoch liegen weltweit noch immer keinerlei systematische Beobachtungsansätze aus den Pol-Regionen der Erde vor, besonders der Einfluss der Polarlichter ist nur bruchstückhaft bekannt. In diese Lücke stößt dieses mittlerweile auch international sehr beachtete wissenschaftliche Vorhaben. In enger Zusammenarbeit mit Prof. Michael Hartje, DK5HH, von der Hochschule Bremen und seinem Kollegen, Prof. Dr. Sören Peik, soll in Kürze ein WSPR-Bakensender und ein Breitband-SDR-Empfänger auf dem Südkontinent aufgebaut werden, welcher weltweite WSPR-Bakensignale der Funkamateure von 6 m bis 160 m simultan empfängt und diese per Internet zur Auswertung in die WSPR-Net-Datenbank einspeist.
Die Installation vor Ort und die Betreuung der ersten WSPR-Bake im ewigen Eis wird der technische Mitarbeiter der Station Felix Riess, DL5XL, übernehmen. Mit der Einbeziehung des DARC e.V. als Projektpartner wird deutlich, dass dem Amateurfunk nach wie vor eine bedeutende Rolle in der technisch-wissenschaftlichen Forschung zukommt. Als Ansprechpartner stehen die beiden oben genannten Professoren Dr. Ulrich Walter [1] und Dr. Michael Hartje [2] gerne zur Verfügung.
[1] walter@tum.de
[2] hartje@hs-bremen.de
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Antarctica (IOTA AN-016)

Last edited: 04.03.2017

Map of Antarctica (source)

As most of you probably know, or otherwise will have noticed while tuning around on the HF bands, we're currently getting close to the minimum of Solar Cycle 24. This means HF propagation isn't optimal, and especially the higher bands are in bad shape and will remain so for the coming years until solar activity picks up again to start the climb towards the peak of the new solar cycle. You may have noticed that the 10m band is dead most of the time, and that even the 20m band does not deliver DX anymore as easily as it did a couple of years ago. For the ham operator with just a wire antenna and low power, the challenge has been raised to an even higher level. It's in times like these that one starts to appreciate CW even more; I'm rarely able to work DX in phone these days.

But life's too short to mourn the lack of sunspots! Forget the higher bands! Just tune into the 40m band, do your thing, and you might be in for a pleasant surprise! Even with a simple wire antenna and low power. I know many hams underestimate the possibilities of 40. Don't!

I've always been surprised by the DX I'm able to work on the 40m band (in CW, digimodes, and even SSB) with my HyEndFed multiband (10/20/40m) wire antenna and 100 Watts or less. This antenna basically works as a so called Zepp antenna or end fed dipole. Electrically on 40 metres the HyEndFed 10/20/40 is a half wave length. Physically it's much shorter though (about 12 metres). The trick is in a trap / loading coil at a distance of 10 metres in the antenna wire which on the 40m band lengthens the antenna electrically. Since 12 metres of wire is pretty much the maximum I can fit in my small garden, for me the HyEndFed 10/20/40 is the ideal 40m antenna. An inverted V dipole would be great, but the limited space available would mean the apex angle will be too small.
I used to have the HyEndFed in vertical position, dangling from a 12 metre telescopic fibreglass pole. But this was only a semi-permanent setup, as, even though the pole was guyed, as soon as the winds picked up, the pole had to be taken down. I now have the HyEndFed in a permanent sloper position from about 9 metres height at one end to about 1.5 metres height at the other, partly close to my house, and partly close to the ground. Not an ideal situation, but at least now I can get on HF anytime and independent of weather conditions. And, as far as I can tell, and much to my surprise, it's working just as well as the vertical configuration. At least it seems to be; I'm not able to do side by side comparison, so there might be difference in performance after all. Whatever may be the case, with the sloper configuration I still work plenty of DX.

From my QTH in the Netherlands with the HyEndFed on 40m especially the Caribbean region is a relatively easy target. But also eastern North America and parts of South America are worked quite regularly, and recently I've also been quite succesful in getting my signals on the African continent, making CW QSOs with DXpeditions in countries like Ivory Coast and the Central African Republic. With JT65 I once managed to make a 40m QSO with VK-land. Despite all these succeses, I never could have dreamed of one day working Antarctica on 40 though. But recently I did!

On January 27th, 2017 around 21:47 UTC on 7.018 MHz I heard the CW signal of RI1ANR. He was working simplex. As soon as possible I started keying the familiar Morse rhythm of my callsign, and much to my surprise quite quickly I heard my call coming back; signal reports were exchanged, a TU and a 73 and the QSO was in the log! And I'm still in shock! I worked Antarctica on 40m!

Contact with RI1ANR confirmed in LotW

RI1ANR is located at Novo Airbase, or Novo Runway, close to the Russian Novolazarevskaya Research Station in Queen Maud Land, East Antarctica. Novo Runway is a so called Blue Ice Runway where aircraft can land using wheels, i.e. their normal landing gear, instead of skis. During the austral summer there are regular flights from Cape Town to Novo Runway with the Ilyushin IL76 TD heavy-cargo aircraft. Novo Runway acts as a major Antarctic transport and logistics hub, and from there cargo and passengers are flown in to other parts of Antarctica and further inland.

Novo Blue Ice Runway (source)

Ilyushin 76 at Novo Runway (source)

Then on February 10th on 7.004 MHz around 01:15 UTC I again managed to work Antarctica. This time I worked RI1AND (op. Mikhail Fokin, RW1AI) at Novolazarevskaya Research Station itself. Again a simplex CW contact.

eQSL from RI1AND

Mikhail Fokin in the radio shack at Novolazarevskaya Station, Season 2016-2017 (source)

Mikhail Fokin at Novolazarevskaya Station, Season 2016-2017 (source)

Novolazarevskaya is a Russian base located at the Schirmacher Oasis in Queen Maud Land. It was opened in 1961 as part of the 6th Russian Antarctic Expedition. The population during summer is about 70. About 30 people winter over at the station. The inland ice sheet south of the station at a distance of 50 km already reaches a height of 1500 m.

Novolazarevskaya Station (source)

In the mean time recently on many nights I've also been hearing the 40m CW signals of LU4CJM/Z and LU1ZI from the Argentine Carlini Base on the South Shetland Islands, but unfortunately I have not been able to QSO them yet.

Then on February 17th I again put Antarctica in the log, again on 40m CW. I made a contact with KC4/N2TA which after some research I learned also is Mikhail Fokin at Novolazarevskaya using the callsign of the Brooklyn based Russian Speaking Radio Club International N2TA, with KC4 added for Antarctica. Fokin has been using this callsign before from Antarctica, for instance from Vostok Station in 2002, as shown by the QSL card below.

2002 QSL card from KC4/N2TA (source)

To me, Antarctica is the ultimate in DX. Historically, the isolated explorers, researchers, and base personell of The Great White Continent relied solely on radio communications and ham radio to stay in touch with eachother and with the outside world. I recommend reading this article in the Antarctic Sun about the "Madey Boys", two teenage brothers who with ham radio in the 1950s helped the US Navy men of "Operation Deep Freeze" in Antarctica stay in touch with their loved ones at home.
To me, working Antarctica is pure emotion! Already as an SWL in the 1980s and 1990s I especially enjoyed tuning in to signals coming from the Antarctic. I have particularly fond memories of listening to the ships and bases of the British Antarctic Survey on 9.106 MHz. I might get into that further in another blog entry.

The contacts on 40m weren't my first Antarctic QSOs. My first one was back in 2014 in JT65 on 10m with DP0GVN (op. Holger Bauer, DH1HB) at the German Neumayer Station III.
I had noticed this odd looking German callsign in my JT65 decodes, but hadn't payed much attention to it. At the time I was quite addicted to JT65, and while making contacts I kept track in near real time via Hamspots.net of where my signals were heard. At one point I noticed my signals had been picked up in Antarctica. And the station there that had spotted me was the one with the odd looking German callsign! A quick look on qrz.com taught me that the callsign belonged to the German Neumayer III Station. I quickly started attempts to make a QSO with DP0GVN, and I succeeded!

Screenshot of my JT65 contact with Neumayer Station

Neumayer Station III is located on the 200 m thick Ekström Ice Shelf, Queen Maud Land. The building is resting on hydraulic feet which during an annual lifting procedure lifts the building by about 80 to 100 cm to prevent it from sinking and eventually being buried in new snow.

QSL card from DP0GVN, Neumayer III Station

My second Antarctic contact was back in 2015 on 20m CW, also with Mikhail Fokin, the same operator whom I recently made a contact with on 40m. At the time Fokin was working out of the Russian Mirny Base with the callsign RI1ANT.

QSL card from RI1ANT, Mirny Base

Mirny Base is located in Queen Mary Land, East Antarctica. It was opened in 1956 by the 1st Russian Antarctic Expedition. The station hosts about 170 people in summer and 60 in winter. The average temperature is -11º C and on more than 200 days per year the wind is stronger than 15 m/sec.

Mirny Base (source)

Mikhail Fokin in the radio shack at Mirny Base, Season 2014-2015 (source)

Check out Mikhail Fokin's website at http://www.qsl.net/ua1ake/logs/.

Last but not least I'd like to mention the site of the Worldwide Antarctic Program at www.waponline.it. It's packed with information on 60 years of ham radio in Antarctica.

I will end this blog entry with the subject I started with: solar cycles. I can happily report that on December 20th, 2016 the first sunspot of Solar Cycle 25 was observed. This doesn't mean that cycle 24 and the minimum is over though. Usually solar cycles overlap up to 4 years. Read all about it here on the site of the Solar-Terrestrial Center of Excellence.

First sign of solar cycle 25 (source)

See also:

https://pa3hho.wordpress.com/end-fed-antennes/multiany-band-end-fed-english/
https://www.hyendcompany.nl/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novolazarevskaya_Station
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nowolasarewskaja-Station
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neumayer-Station_III
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirny_Station
http://www.leeabbamonte.com/antarctica/how-prince-harry-prevented-me-from-reaching-the-south-pole.html