Icom Powers 3Y0K: Ham Radio’s Most Ambitious DXpedition to Remote Bouvet Island (Part 1)

Coming to you from the twenty twenty five Hamvention in Xenia, Ohio at the Greene County Fairgrounds for ICON Radios in Action, amateur style. We have here Adrian and Bob. You guys are about to do something pretty fun, aren't you? Fun, exciting and amazing. It's basically going to be the expedition to the most remote uninhabited place on Earth called Bouvet Island. Trip of a lifetime. Trip of a lifetime. But this is your second time to go, right? Yes. This time it's gonna be even bigger. We're gonna attempt to get there using an icebreaker, and we'll be landing on Bouvet Island by helicopter. Oh, wow. And so that is an adventure in itself. And why Bouvet? Well, amateur radio is an exciting hobby. It's a career for many of us. It was a a pivoting point in my life because that, allowed me to have a good job. Wait a minute. Woah. Woah. Hold on. You said career for us. I'm the only one that's working here. You guys get to operate and play. That's and that's not what you do for your But that feels unrelated. I work in IT and technology. And a lot of stuff that I do for work, I also do in this hobby. And I love traveling, and the expeditioning is one way to get to places that are rarely touched by humans, such as Bouvet. One interesting fact, actually, is more people have flown into space than have set foot on this island. What's taken you this one? I think the adventure. I've always wanted to go on a de expedition to a big one. And going to Bouvet and, as Adrian said, being part of a handful of people that have set foot on the island and giving out a top ten, making a bunch of all time new ones using ICOM radios and all the other supplies that are being donated is going to be both challenging and invigorating. Now, I know you live in the Chicagoland area. You live in New York. So you guys have got a little bit of cold weather training. Bob, have you ever jumped into Lake Michigan for New Year's Eve? I have not done that because they didn't have enough beer there. Okay. But you guys are going to experience what kind of climates? And this is summertime down there, right? Absolutely. In the Southern Hemisphere, February is the middle of the summer, which means that the water temperature is going to be just above the freezing point and that's the peak of the summer. Last trip we actually took a course and training in ice climbing And as a matter of fact, the team met in Oslo a couple of weeks ago to start the final LEGO preparations, is the container that has the food, the supply, the generators, the equipment and everything that's needed to survive in this very harsh environment. Hopefully we'll be there for about three weeks on the island. Once every five to seven days we'll have about ten minutes of sunshine. And that's what we're praying for is low winds and storm periods that either bypass us completely or come right in the middle of the expedition. Because obviously with the higher winds that can happen during a storm there, they'll reach fifty to seventy five miles an hour, and that'll equate to waves that are really high and winds that make it tough to put up and sustain antennas in tents. We've experimented quite a bit at the previous trip and we know what works and what doesn't. The antennas will be very light and sturdy using aircraft quality aluminum. And one interesting fact though is the way we get the weather. Information comes to the boat and the boat stays in touch with us using the ICON satellite radios which we used the last trip and all along the trip we're able to stay in touch with our main quarters in New York and also in Oslo, each having these ICON satellite radios. And that allowed us to stay in touch with the world, of HEM radio or otherwise, and also in touch with the boat. Remember, the boat cannot be stationary because the wind Right. Never stops. And so regular VHF does not always work. You're actually gonna be using three different ICOM divisional radios. Yes. You're going to be using the SAT radios or SAT 100s from the network division. Correct. You're going to be using ICOM Marine VHF. Yeah, the name of ones. Maybe some Marine single sideband along the way. Which we're going to have sixteen ICON radios, an all out ICON display of radio power. Believe it or not, we will have two separate camps and each camp will have ICOM seven thousand six hundred ten radios and also ICOM seven thousand three hundred. All the QSOs that we're going to be making will be coming out of ICOM radios. That is excellent news. Now is it going to be a CW tent versus a sideband tent? Well, the tents are arranged in such a way. So basically every radio can do every mode possible, but depending on the propagation, we might decide, okay, this camp now focuses on Europe and this one in North America, or might say, okay, this one is now doing SSB and the other one CW or FTA. So basically we're going to adjust on the fly depending on the propagation. But the idea is that all the radios can do everything and all the cams can do everything, but depending on the current conditions and the weather, we can decide what will be done at that particular moment. It sounds like there's some incredible logistics that you guys have thought through on this to go ahead. So I heard single sideband. K. CW. K. FTA. Correct. We also are gonna have satellite for the first time in satellite radio, and we're gonna attempt other modes and bands depending against on the weather. That's where we have to work around it and not against it, as we learned last time. Excellent. Wow. That sounds like it's gonna be an incredible adventure. I appreciate you taking ICOM along with you. You know, the helicopter can take almost one ton of equipment at a time. And in a two hour window, where the good weather window that we encounter quite often on Bouvet, a helicopter can make four or five trips, which means that we're going to be all out there. Krasi, K1, Limazulu and his radio team will be in charge of the design of the radio equipment. And as you know, he's in love with the ICON radios at his super station they are made. And that was a key thing, the super station K1LZ, I mean, understands how to get multi multi's goals. Absolutely. So, you know, just mentioning his name and the fact that we're going to be twenty four operators on the islands, that basically should suggest a really significant number of We're pretty serious about it. We're going to be doing really big. Remember, this is going to be the biggest de expedition ever, especially because it's a huge budget. And obviously, that's related to the fact that we hired an icebreaker to get to Bouvet. This time, the trip is gonna be just about seven days. To make all this happen, you guys also get support from the Immigration UF community. Absolutely. So those that are watching this, if they want to help, they want to contribute, how do they do that? Well, it's very simple. Remember the cosign of the d expedition is three Yankee zero kilo and our website is 3YankeeZeroKilo dot com and the website has a lot of interesting information, has pictures, details of what's going to happen and most importantly for us it will give you the ability to everyone to support this project to make it successful, to help make it successful. So there you all have heard it. Support this great effort. It's not something that is inexpensive. You know, it's a major undertaking, but we are gonna be doing our best to get on the air and give everyone that needs it a new one from Beauvais. But more importantly, the budget is so the operators arrive there and arrive back home in the most efficient, most safe way possible. Yeah, that's great. You know, the reason these expeditions take two or three years of logistics and complex setup is because you have to think of all the details, think about backup plans to keep the team safe and bring them back home successfully and with good results. Thank you guys for stopping by at the twenty twenty five Hamvention in Xenia, Ohio. I greatly appreciate what you guys do for the hobby. This is a very exciting d expedition that a lot of people, this will be another new one for them in a logbook. Thanks for your support, May. Thank you, ICON, for being a major sponsor for this incredible undertaking that will be going to the history books.