Bouvet Island DXPedition on their way

The 3Y0I team left Capetown, South Africa yesterday (you can follow their progress across the ocean - here: https://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0tARRAqk3ftzEN8piDb2UOWqGrnOX349o )

This DXpedition team have said that if they have time they will activate the SOTA summit 3Y/BV-001 Olavtoppen on the island.

There is a chance that the DXPedition may stay 4 weeks on Bouvet rather than the originally planned 2 weeks. I suspect that a SOTA activation would only occur should the longer stay be decided upon.

Weā€™ve just had the highest SOTA Summit (in Argentina) activated, it would be great to have the (perhaps) hardest to get to SOTA summit, also activated. Weā€™ll have to wait and see.

73 Ed.

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Thereā€™s plenty of competition for that title in the South Atlantic!

Well, thatā€™s just about the rarest DX there is! If they do the summit, Iā€™ll be absolutely amazed. Iā€™m not sure I have a very good chance to make the contact, but I suppose weā€™ll see!

But the other really remote islands donā€™t have registered SOTA summits on them do they?

In any case - when I suggested this to the team over a year ago, they were positive ablot it gbeing a possibility, but it would be a low priority compared to everything else.

73 Ed.

You have obviously not tried parking for Long Knoll G/SC-007 yet.

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GW/MW-032 Upper Park?

Note for MT: As anyone tried to develop a North Korean Association please? Its ranked #1 most wanted for DXCC. Bouvet is #2.

If the 3Y summit is activated I donā€™t rate my chances of a chaser QSO likelyā€¦ unless they use FT8. Big 20m monobander and linear required!

73 Phil

One point however is that the time of year and location will favour contact back into Europ over the Americas. Thatā€™s relevant to the main stations - the portable SOTA set-up, who knows - as far as I know, no FT8 on the portable station, only SSB & CW.

They still have a long, long way to go!

It looks like theyā€™re being kept busy while en-route:

I had in mind the South Georgia and South Shetland regions of VP8:

3Y Olavtoppen ā‡’ Cape Town ~ 2,550 km

VP8/SS-001 Mount Belinda ā‡’ Port Stanley ~ 2,120 km

VP8/SG-001 Mount Paget ā‡’ Port Stanley ~ 1,455 km

So yes, 3Y is a bit more remote. But to get up Mount Paget you probably want to be either in the SAS or a nature film unit.

Surely the hardest SOTA summits to get to and climb especially as both of them require getting to by boat and then needing full rock climbing gear are them 2 sea stacks in the St Kilda Islands which are part of the Scottish Islands.

Jimmy M0HGY

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Ok, Iā€™d like to nominate also the Brazilian island covered in snakes, PY2/IL-030, Ilha Queimada Grande - so deadly public access is banned

Or if you prefer, how about CT3/ID-001, Deserta Grande with its deadly spiders - also off limits

And in both cases you get only a solitary point (well actually none, because weā€™d annul it [posthumously?] for breaking access rules!)

Iā€™d nominate the peaks that are on military bombing ranges as the most difficult to get.

Mickle Fell G/NP-002 is a UK military training area. Itā€™s been activated many times.

Itā€™s been discussed jokingly with the HL association manager (Jason HL4ZFA) but the lack of a local amateur as AM, and the relative suspicion inherent in tapping out CW on a summit in P5 would render it unlikely in the short term :wink:

(unless you count the semi-regular queries about folks signing /P5 when theyā€™re portable in VK5, in which case, weā€™ve had plenty of those)

I see access is only available to the Brazilian navy. Lucky them!! I must have a chat with my companyā€™s ā€˜Rewards and Benefitsā€™ team to see what they can offer to match such privileges
:pleading_face:

Hang on! Islands with deadly spiders and deadly snakes on them banned from public access?

HELLO! Australia? OK not ā€œcoveredā€ with deadly snakes and spiders but theyā€™re there.

73 Ed.

Iā€™ve seen quoted up to 5 per mĀ² !

The only summit I saw a snake yet was in G/LD. Saw none in VK. :cry:

How long can we keep this up? Itā€™s going to be a while yet before they reach 3Y.

Go on then, Iā€™ll bite:

Someoneā€™s thought about itā€¦

Good VHF take-off, apparently :wink:

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Too True,
still a long way to go!