[SMCARA] Fun stuff on HF last night

[Clarke, Tom AIR4.0P NATOPS]

Yeah, Jason, this HF stuff can be fun!

Yesterday, as I was eating my lunch at K3NAL (100 watts to a vertical) on base, I was tuning across what sounded like a seriously dead 17 meter band.  However, I stumbled across a station calling CQ,  very weak.  I managed to work him, he was 5x8 and I received a 5x3.  It was Svein, JW0JKA on Bear Island (EU-027) a couple of hundred miles north of the North Cape of Norway. Essentially uninhabited by man, except for a weather station.  Talk about lonely, he said he was looking forward to going to Spitsbergen for a break!  Look it up! Not a "garden spot" either. Svein is LA9JKA and also spends time at the weather station on Jan Mayen Island (JX9) a couple of hundred miles north of Iceland.

I have flown over Bear Island (Svalburg) and Spitsbergen in the P-3, but didn't see much other than a couple of polar bears on Bear Island.  When I was stationed in Iceland (TF), we would make regular runs to Jan Mayen to drop mail and critical spare parts.  We did not land there, as it has a gravel runway and the P-3 isn't certified for that; we just made a low pass and kicked the package out the main entrance door aft.  After the winter weather was over, a Norwegian C-130 would land there to bring cargo and passengers.

I spotted him on 64 and Larry, N3JTN managed to snag him also.

Fun times!
73 Tom/W4OKW

-----Original Message-----
From: SMCARA [mailto:smcara-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of jbr13 at md.metrocast.net
Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2015 10:11 AM
To: Smcara
Subject: [SMCARA] Fun stuff on HF last night


I didn't have much of a chance this passed weekend to try to work the Ham Nation special event stations, but I managed to pick up three of them on sunday.  On two of those I heard Larry N3JTN work the station as well.  Then Monday's thunderstorms kept me off the bands mostly.  So last night I was at it again. I was just trying to get my 4th out of the six station, so I could get a certificate. I worked two more of the stations to get over what I needed for the certificate, and only one away from the Clean Sweep Certificate.  So the last special station I needed what W0H, and he was working by the numbers. He started with the Zero call area, and I was thinking, it won't be long to get through the ones and twos.  The he goes to nines, and eights, oh lord I am going to be here a while. Finally he gets to the three call area, and tries to take a list of three call signs.  He starts his list with N3JTN, and works him.  Way to go Larry!  Then before he can continue his list, he has to take a quick minute to do something with his dog.  He is back in about a half a minute, and starts a list again.  He picks up myself followed by none other than Mike KB3ZWM.  I was pretty cool to hear him work three of us in that huge pile up, all from so close together.  Then he moved to another callsign region.

Nice job, to Larry and Mike, you guys sounded very good!


Jason Rearick
N3YUG
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