UPDATE @ 17:50Z – Mike and Bruce have made it to NA-159. They are not sure of the island name as the locals do not even have a name for it. But the GPS coordinates put them squarely in the NA-159 Chain. They are setting up tents now as well as antennas. Two stations will be on the air one on Phone, (Bruce) and Mike on CW. Mike will start out on 17 and Bruce on 20. They know the propagation forecasts and will move bands accordingly. They will be QRV around 18:30 or sooner. Please send me reports of any activity so I can call them on their Sat Phone. [Bruce N9BX]
AUGUST 26 – We have a new captain (Peter). He was originally the second guy. It is too late to get to NA-159 before sunset (2200 local). So we will stay another night in the hotel. Peter will pick us up at 6am tomorrow & we should be on our way by 7am. We expect the trip to take 4-5 hours. We will have another second crew member. Winds are supposed to diminish by tomorrow & wx forecast is good.
PS: we are still trying to make arrangements for a 24 hour or so operation from the hotel after we return from NA-159 (from Mon afternoon 8/29 to Tues afternoon 8/30). We would ask the IOTA Chasers to please not call us if you already have credit for NA-196. [Bruce N9BX, Pilot]
AUGUST 11 — After six months of phone communication w/ officials in Sanikiluaq (capital of Belcher Islands), we have found a boat & guide to take us to NA-159.
I’m sorry for this relatively late announcement, but we only received the contact info for our boat captain on Aug 5 & I only was able to make phone contact w/ him today & confirmed our charter.
We plan to operate from the same island as Martin, G3ZAY (NU2L/VE8). It is the most south west island in the King George Islands group. This island is un-named on most maps but we will have a GPS to establish that we are in the King George Islands group.
We arrive in Sanikiluaq on Aug 25 & plan to be on NA-159 & QRV on Aug 26-29.
We will have two stations & plan to be QRV during most of our awake hours. Based on recent operations from the north latitudes, we will favor CW & SSB on 30m, 20m & 17m. Our callsigns will be KD6WW/VY0 & K9AJ/VY0. We have not yet decided whether our callsigns will define the operator or be mode specific (we have done both on past DXpeditions).
I will have an Iridium sat phone & N9BX will be our contact/pilot guy.
There is the possibility of a brief operation from Sanikiluaq (NA-196) on Aug 29. We will not know whether this is possible until after we arrive.
We will have on-line logs & OQRS after the operation.
Like all DXpeditions to the far North regions, this will be a very expensive trip. We would welcome & appreciate support from the IOTA chaser community. You can use PayPal to K9AJ ([email protected]). Please be sure your call sign is listed in the memo box. If we don’t succeed in our project, all contributions will be refunded.
