Thursday, March 11, 2010

CK8G - Greens Island NA-182

It's now official: I'll be on from Greens Island NA-182 from April 15-20, 2010.

Located at 69 22' 36" N 125 25' 35" W in the southwest corner of the Amundsen Gulf, Greens Island qualifies for the Inuvik Region (East) IOTA Group, as confirmed by IOTA Manager G3KMA. The community of Paulatuk, NWT is a scant 15 miles to the east and from there the island is easily accessible by boat in the summer or snowmobile in the winter. While a summer operation would be far easier, more comfortable, and (probably) cheaper, I wanted to go in April to take advantage of the better spring time propagation. The operating plan for the trip will be similar to my other operations. I'm expecting around-the-clock propagation on 20m so I will concentrate on Europe during their sunrise and sunset, North America during their sunset, and Asia right after their sunrise. This should allow me to work a good balance between all the areas and still get a few hours sleep every night. To insure strong signals in both directions I will again be bringing my TH3JRS yagi and FL2100B amplifier.

Luckily, I am very familiar with the area and do not anticipate any problems actually making the operation happen. In fact, I will likely have an opportunity to travel to Paulatuk on business sometime in the next few weeks which will allow me to make all the final arrangements and maybe even allow for a scouting trip out to the island.

I waited for quite a long time to make an announcement as I was still trying to come up with a plan that included bringing a CW operator along but in the end it was just too difficult and expensive. Air travel costs in the Arctic are astronomical and bringing a second op would have tripled or quadrupled the costs of the operation. Even though Greens Island is only 250 miles from my house, the cost of airfare and air freight for myself and my equipment to get to Paulatuk and back is more than flying economy class from Toronto to Paris! Once you add in the cost of renting a snowmobile, generator, and provisions, this whole operation rapidly turns into a very expensive proposition.

A
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Thanks in advance for your support and I will post any new developments right here.

73
John - VE8EV



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Will you be working any CW?

VE1RSM/Bob

Anonymous said...

I worked CK8KG today from Sacramento Calif. with a 10 over9 signal from Green's Island. There was a good pillup of others calling him. Great to make this rare contact.
I an using an IC 735 to a KLM KT34XA beam up at 55 feet.
Thanks much
Ken Whitsett
K6AOQ

Ian Morriosn said...

Thanks for the rare one. Using an IC746 Pro to a 5 element beam at 15 meters. 10/9 signal into eastern Ontario.

de ve3ep
Ian