Hi all,
I am planning to do some activations in Svalbard over the course of next couple of days.
Will be posting details of the daily plan in this topic before departing for each hike. I am still doing some analysis and planning.
Gear
Yaesu FT857
Buddipole
ICOM ID-51(for local comms / safety purposes)
Bands
20m/40m (with focus on 20m)
The conditions here are fairly good at the moment, little wind and temperatures relatively high, poor visibility.
I will share a tracking link for my garmin inreach, so you guys can see the progress live.
Will aim for 14300kHz / 7100kHz, please spot if/when you can hear me.
We are turning back for now and will come back tomorrow or monday on a snowmobile, it is possible to get through a lot of the snow, and part of the valley this way it seems. This will be a lot quicker and safer.
We are back in town. What a day! Unfortunately only one activation (MS-013), we were about 30m veritcal from activation zone of MS-028, but decided to return from the ridge… zero vis and steep ridge is apparently not fitting the typical couples holiday
I will post more details later.
I’m really sorry I couldn’t pick up all the stations from the noise, I could hear few more stations but couldn’t get the whole callsign.
We will most likely be active again in the following week.
We did about 100km on snowmobiles and on foot in 12h yesterday, posting some pictures below.
Svalbard is SOTA activators paradise… while researching options for climbing one peak, you see an easy ascend for another!
The weather was great, very warm and no wind, unfortunately for the most of the afternoon the visibility above 800m was zero, so navigation was a bit difficult. It was in fact so bad on the approaches to both MS-013 and MS-028, that I had to throw snowballs in various directions just to see if the terrain is going up or down or if there is a drop of the ridge
But now that we have tracked MS-028 almost all the way up, I may go back there and finish it some time this week
Bit sad that condition were not optimal during your activation, my friend tried to chase you from the south of Norway, but no copy, normally I would expect good signals from Svalbard. I am back to Norway and also will try to chase you on the next summits.
Karl Bayfjellet JM/MS-017 can be tough to activate, because it lays in snowmobile restricted area, are you going to take a ski tour where?
Welcome to Svalbard and congrats on the activation of a new summit But “Svalbard is SOTA activators paradise” … wouldn’t exactly say that… You are lucky that the weather is mild at the moment and the base of the summits are now accessible by snowmobiles. 90% of the year most of the summits are inaccessible due to freezing temperatures, avalanche danger, darkness, whiteout, steepness and the need for boat transport to the starting points of most summits in summertime. Not to mention polarbear danger and the need for a guide with polarbear protection if you’re not a local. And very often bad propagation… = No activation on Svalbard is easy, just saying
I was trying to reach out through Peter to get in touch with you, to see if you want to collaborate couldn’t find contact details via qrz.
Weather is the deciding factor in all mountain activity, everywhere. But of course I understand and appreciate Svalabard weather uniqueness.
Of course it is not a coincidence that I am active here now, and not in jan/feb
True, but just for the benefit of others - it is sufficient to prove firearm proficiency with the governor of Svalbard office, and with that it’s straightforward to get a local firearm permit (if you don’t own a EU one already), and rent a weapon. The cost of the permit is around 20EUR, rifle rental is 35EUR per day.
Yes, I have learned that after my initial planning, will probably skip that one.
I will do some ski touring too, but not with radio gear
Out again today, no specific plans just yet, we will see what the conditions are.
With the propagation in the past few days I am considering FT8 for activations!
Haven’t done that before in SOTA…
But “Svalbard is SOTA activators paradise” … wouldn’t exactly say that… You are lucky that the weather is mild at the moment and the base of the summits are now accessible by snowmobiles. 90% of the year most of the summits are inaccessible due to freezing temperatures, avalanche danger, darkness, whiteout, steepness and the need for boat transport to the starting points of most summits in summertime. Not to mention polarbear danger and the need for a guide with polarbear protection if you’re not a local. And very often bad propagation… = No activation on Svalbard is easy, just saying 