07.March 2026
The team is doing well on Bouvet, we are all in good spirit as we see the camp build up take place and operation is now going well.
We have all tents and antennas installed at this point. We have 4 Yagis installed, WIMO monobanders on 15 and 20 + two dual banders on 17/12 and today a 5 element monobander on 10m. We have 18m top loaded spiderpole on 160m, full-size on 40m using Spiderbeam poles. We run in band operation on 40,20,17,15,12 and 10 using our ICOM radios and ACOM amplifiers also supported by DX Engineering hardware.
We also have a FLEX Aurora 500W radio setup. We have 6 stations and amplifiers with 500W to 1 kW + power output, and we have enough fuel to run high power throughout the operation.
On Top Band you should look for us as we are QRV every night through our sunrise. Propagation on some bands is challenging, and they close earlier than expected. All yagis have excellent take off towards EU/Asia and also NA. Our camp is located at the upper area where we planned to setup a NA camp. There is no camp in the lower area due to the wildlife. Since we visited Bouvet last time the global warming has made the glacier recede, so the seals and penguins now occupy a large area of Cape Fie even as much as 3-400 meter uphill. In some ten years from now, this area might be out of reach for any expedition!
The weather at Bouvet is windy and cold and it is challenging to keep the antenna farm up. While we have reached our max setup, we see increased maintenance, things that must be fixed and repaired.
We had several days with high wind, snow and rather cold days. Setting up antennas in this weather has been challenging, but fun! Today is an exceptional day with no wind and blue sky, a truly very nice day at the island that also allowed us to take a hike and do some sightseeing.
Our logs will be uploaded once a day and you can check the log at M0OXO website. We expect to run another 7-9 days at full setup before we start planning how to gradually extract from the island.
73, 3YØK
more info: https://www.upstateham.com/2026/01/3yok-bouvet-dxpedition-local-connection.html
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