[ADXA] Latest from Bouvet 2000z

[w5zn at w5zn.org]

3Y0J Bouvet Island 2023 Update:

Interview with 3Y0J Team Co-Leader Ken LA7GIA.

"Everything is OK in the camp. The guys are good. We have a few antennas 
up. Running some pileups and preparing for the storm which will arrive 
in a few hours and last until Thursday. The boat will pull away from the 
island a bit. The antennas and camp are being secured. The winds are 
expected to be 60 knots. 19 members will stay in the camp during the 
storm. They will try to run two bands this evening and tomorrow. They 
will take down one antenna. They will run 30m and 17m using the Spider 
Pole on 17 and the aluminum DX Engineering antenna on 30m.

The operation has proved to be extremely difficult. The most extreme 
expedition I've been to. Setting up the camp has been a lot of work.

We will focus on CW and phone but there will be FT8. We have just 
discussed this today. We are running low power, only 100w. We have no 
amplifiers. We have three antennas set up. We are considering setting up 
20m as well. So we will have 30, 20, 17, 15.

The beach landings were accomplished by holding onto a line attached to 
a buoy and floating 15 meters to the beach in our survival suits. This 
is quite extreme. We float in all the equipment as well. Then carry the 
equipment 800 feet up to the camp. We have videos of this. We spent a 
few days to set up the antennas and tent then prepared for the storm 
that is coming.

Everybody is in good shape. It's quite hard to stay here. A lot of wind, 
but today was a quiet, nice, and sunny day . This will change, and there 
will be a lot of rain. The day we arrived was a lot of wind and rain. 
Activating Bouvet is not like activating an island in the Caribbean. It 
is really windy, cold, and exhausting to bring equipment up here. It's a 
different DXpedition than we thought we should do. It's a challenge, but 
we hope we can stay on the island for some more days.

Regarding dupes, please only call us if you hear us. We have very good 
receive here on Bouvais Island. We do not have any facility to upload 
the log on the island. We are saving on fuel and connection for this. 
When we get back to the vessel, we will likely upload. We don't know 
when the first upload will be. Going to Marama is very time consuming 
project because of the procedure involved. (Ken describes it.) The first 
upload may be in the weekend. Again, if you don't hear us, don't call 
us.

Nothing more to report. Hopefully people understand the complexity of 
this operation. Hopefully we will be able to stay another 7 to 10 days. 
We are working on plans for how to continue the operation despite the 
difficult weather conditions here at Bouvet."

73,
Steve N2AJ
Media Officer & NA East Coast Pilot
3Y0J Bouvet Island 2023 DXpedition
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