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Antarctica
5 March 2014 | by Last night I had another encounter with Antarctica, namely a QSO with RI1ANC, stationed at the Russian Vostok base. Previous contacts with the land way down under were on 20 meters, but Alex had a nice signal on 12 meters in CW. He didn’t have many takers, so an QSO was easy. Unfortunately it was only a quick exchange, just like the ones with 8J1RL and RI1ANT.
VK0JJJ – Craig, in the Australian Antarctic base of Mawson – doesn’t want any of that and I had the great fortune to have a couple of very lenghty QSOs with him. Olivia was the mode we used, which is especially suited for rag chew QSOs. If you want to catch him try Olivia 32/1000 on one of the 20 meter Olivia channels (14106.5 kHz, then 1 kHz up for the next channel). Even if he is in QSO with another radio amateur it is still fun to read along. When not behind the radio I follow his blog, where you can read interesting things like how they grow vegetables on Antarctica and how they get their supply of water. Fascinating stuff and heartily recommended to visit. He is going back home early May this year, so catch him while you can.
3 Responses to “Antarctica”
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Hans, to complete your collection, try Holger DP0GVN, who is on the air on 20m JT65 in the GMT evening hours every day from the German antarctic station. Propagation for shortwave is going to get worse down there but still is great now.
73 Jan
@Jan: Only JH65? That would be a pity, because I don’t do JT65. If you read my comments on other people’s posts you might detect that I have some strong opinions on machine modes like JT. They also do PSK31, so I’ll give that a try. Thanks for the tip.
Hans, his antenna setup is a bit on the meager side but with a good beam SSB should be doable.
Might want to try to catch him via email for a sked. As funny as it is, they have eMail in the antarctic. It might be available through his QRZ page. Oh, and he is planning EME once the polar night starts.
73 Jan