This is a “republish” of a post I made in January, 2016. Why is it relative now? Well, with possible activation(s) of Bouvet over the next few years, it shows the “longpath” for all of North America is probably your best (and possibly only) chance to log Bouvet. With mountain ranges from 1,300′ to over 2,300′ blocking all of North America on the short path from Camp Fie on Bouvet (see AE5X map below), you may wish to start making preparations to tool up your station for the longpath over Asia. And here is my relevant story of working Kerguelen in the South Atlantic – over the longpath…
I guess my parents were right – “sometimes doing your homework pays off”.
Over the last few days I’ve noticed that Nicolas FT4XU on Kerguelen Island has a rhythm. He usually starts off on or around 14.130 simplex, then when the pile-up forms he receives split up 5 – 10. After a while operating on 14.130, he’s been immediately going to 14.330. So when I heard him over the longpath on 14.130 this morning, I went and readied the gear for a run on 14.330 just in case he did what he had been doing in the past. I’d have loved to work him on “nice and quiet” 14.130, but that portion of the band is out of our US Extra Class privileges. So I waited. And I waited a little more. Then damnit, he just vanished!
But I had already set the VFO’s to RX on 14.330 and TX on 14.335 so I checked there, and in the midst of some heavy QRM both above and below from the net geezers, there he was!
50 watts, a shoulder high dipole out in the middle of absolute nowhere from Kerguelen Island over the longpath into Colorado. All Time New One #329 for me – Ham Radio awesomeness!
N0UN working FT4XU Longpath UP 5 on 20 Meters
QSL FT4XU via F1ULQ direct.
Paper log only, no online log check offered.
Added (08/21): FT4XU on Club Log (391 QSO’s Total – I’m a lucky guy!)
Map courtesy of John Harper, AE5X. Read AE5X Longpath Blog Post here. Click map below to enlarge
Congratulations and good operating!