The uninhabited island of Bouvet in the far south Atlantic Ocean holds a special place in my heart. As I've blogged over the past few years, Bouvet (like Burundi), has been a bit of a frustration. One of only a handful of DXCC entities that I still need for my DXCC Honor Roll award, the remote Norwegian territory of Bouvetøya is extremely remote, difficult to access, and almost exactly on the other side of the world from me. An attempt to mount a large DXpedition with a ship and helicopters in 2018 was a bust when the ship had engine problems and had to leave before the team was able to land on the island. The fact that I would have missed it anyway due to my winter vacation was actually some comfort but the end result was the same: no 3Y0/B in the log.
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| This place is far, far away from anywhere, especially me!! |
5 years later, in 2023, another group had a go. This time they were going to get ashore on a tiny beach with rubber boats. That one was also a flop as the beach was too rough to land all the heavy equipment. They did manage to string up some marginal antennas and make a few contacts but despite my best efforts I never heard them at all from up here.
Undeterred, the same team (led by Ken LA7GIA and Adrian KO8SCA) regrouped for another attempt planned for February 2026. Costing an eye-watering $1.675 million USD (all raised by donations from the operators, ham radio clubs and institutions, and individual hams like me), this time they brought a helicopter to get onto the island.
The 3Y0K expedition was planned to travel from South Africa by ship, land on the island by helicopter, and establish two camps at Cape Fie on the southeastern edge of the island (in the end they only set up one large camp). With generators, high-power amplifiers, and gain antennas, they would run multiple stations around the clock to offer this top ten most wanted DXCC entity to all the deserving DXers around the world, hopefully including me!
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| Famed DXpeditioners Ken LA7GIA and Adrian KO8SCA feature prominently in most of my recent DXCC All-Time-New-Ones |
Like most years, I had a vacation planned for the whole month of February. Eager to avoid another near-miss like in 2018, I tracked their preparations carefully and made plans to repair my (again) broken antenna rotator and install whatever automation was required to operate my station remotely if necessary. Remote operation over the internet would have only required some screen sharing software and a couple of relays to switch the main DC and the 240V AC
for the amplifier. Repairing the rotator turned out to be the difficult part. To fix the rotator would require getting practically up to the top of the tower to repair what I hoped was just a broken wire. Worst case I would just loosen the mast clamps and manually turn the antenna towards Bouvet! January was a very busy month this year and much colder than average. When we had a short "warm spell" (a couple of days around -12C) I decided that I had to do it. I've only ever climbed my 80-foot tower twice before. Halfway up in 2017 to disconnect the crane when it was first erected and almost to the top in 2022 to fix the same problem as now, an issue with the remote rotator capacitor. Despite my previous career in the early 00's which involved lots of rigging and tower work, the older I got the less I cared to be dangling in the air off of a radio tower. I've never had a fear of falling off, only of the tower deciding to fall down while I was attached to it!
Nevertheless, I brought my fall arrest gear home from work one afternoon, gathered my parts and wrenches, and started up the "big stick". Halfway up I stopped to catch my breath. Looking down, 40 feet is a long way to the ground. I looked up at the rotator, still 30 feet away. Big mistake! My resolve evaporated in an instant and I reversed course and climbed back down. In that moment it just was not happening. I don't like asking for favours but I knew someone with a Genie lift big enough to get me up to where I needed to be. A couple of days after my tower climbing fail I went to see my former (20 years ago!) employer. Once the small talk was out of the way I gently inquired about his lift. Turns out it had eaten a pump and was firmly out of commission with metal filings all through the hydraulics. Now what?
With life still going full throttle prior to our February trip, I was keeping tabs on the 3Y0K team. I reached out to one of the team members I knew and, while there were no guarantees, he estimated they would be finishing the operation a day or two before I got home. Then I found out about their ship. By this time (last week of January) they were supposed to be on the island in only two weeks. Their ship, however, had just completed some major repair work and was still dockside in the Canary Islands. Some quick math told me their original schedule was rubbish and, barring some kind of calamity, I was almost certain to catch at least the tail end of the operation when I returned home at the beginning of March. I tried to push the thoughts of Bouvet out of my mind and headed off for some sun and fun in the tropics.
I didn't have much luck with not thinking about Bouvet and I followed the operation from poolside and airport lounges as I tracked the ship slowly making its way to Cape Town to pick up the team and then heading off into the south Atlantic. By the time I got back home they had only just arrived at the island and set up the camp. I was lucky with the timing but I still had to fix my antenna rotator. With the signals from 3Y0K already filling the airwaves, I summoned the necessary gumption and headed up the tower. I resolved not to look up or down this time and just counted the 24 steps up to the rotator. Fortunately, the repair was easy and the entire operation from bottom to top and back only took about 30 minutes. With at least a full week remaining in the 3Y0K operation I was ready to go!
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What makes a DXer 'Deserving'? THIS kind of foolishness! |
I really wasn't too sure what to expect for propagation. Long haul paths like Inuvik to Bouvet Island are always sketchy at this point in the solar cycle with strong geomagnetic activity affecting HF signals at high latitudes like ours. To make matters worse, the 3Y0K camp had a somewhat poor shot towards North America with a large mountain in the way. Interestingly though, my signal path to Bouvet skirted along the Arctic coast for the first 4500km and the remaining 3/4 of the way was all open ocean. I felt I had a good chance of making at least one contact on 20m, always the best band from up here, but I needn't have worried. On the same day I fixed the rotator they were very workable that evening on 40m FT8 and I easily put them in my log for country #328! Once the first contact was made I had hoped to get them at least on CW mode and maybe a couple of other bands. I listened every morning and every evening for the rest of the week but despite excellent conditions on 20m they were never operating there while I was on. I took an extended lunch hour one afternoon and came home to check the bands. They were quite strong on 17m FT8 and I quickly worked them for my second band. As soon as I headed back to work they finally came up on 20m. I had left my radio on and watched the 20m spots from home being reported so after an hour I decided to bail and just come home early. As luck would have it, they switched bands as soon as I left my office and when I got back they were already gone. That night I floundered around in a huge pileup on 20m CW for a few hours but never got through and the day after that the bands tanked and they were gone. Camp and antenna teardown began shortly afterwards and soon it was all over.
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| I certainly can't complain about only two contacts, I was thrilled to finally be able to work Bouvet. Only 16% of their over
100,000 contacts were with North American stations and I know there were
plenty of hams that weren't able to work them at all. |
The same team of operators is planning to go to Peter I Island next year (2027) which would be another new one for me. Like Bouvet it is also a Norwegian remote territory in the far, far south but Peter I is almost straight south of me which is always a good thing for radio propagation. Fingers crossed for that one!
73 and Good DX!
John VE8EV
