UPD.26.III.2020 A week ago Thomas informed that their trip to Barneo is postponed for at least one year. Due to the global pandemic of the coronavirus, the Russian scientific drift ice camp will not take place this year.
Sorry for bad news. Hope for next, 2021 season…
On April 14–17, during their trip to the North Pole, Martina DF3TS and Thomas DC8TM will be active on air from the “Barneo” drifting ice camp as RA/DF3TS/p and RA/DC8TM/p.
The future of the “Barneo” ice camp is unclear, and because of the catastrophically shrinking ice area in the Arctic Ocean, the possibility of establishing a QSO with any other drifting ice camp in the future is becoming increasingly doubtful. Thus, in a month there will be a unique chance to add on score the RFF-0176 — the “Severnyi Polyus” drifting ice polar station.
Martina and Thomas will be active SSB on the 40, 20 and 17 M bands with an emphasis on 20 m band, most likely around WWFF frequencies of 18.144, 14.244 and 7.144 kHz ±QRM, as well as FT8 on 40–30–20–17 M bands.
Yaesu FT-991 100 watt transceiver with LiFePO4 batteries and vertical dipoles antennas will be used.
A short (~30 min) activity is planned from the Pole itself by the special callsign DP0LE (not RFF-0176) during the raid to the geographic North Pole.
Martina and Thomas will arrive to Svalbard (Longyearbyen town and airport) on April 10 and, pending a flight to “Barneo”, it is very likely they will appear on air as JW/DF3TS and JW/DC8TM until April 13 — IOTA EU-026 and, perhaps, some Norwegian WWFF reference not far away the town (there are 7 LAFF references on Svalbard, 5 of which have never been activated before).
You can find out about this trip more detalied and precisely on the page of Thomas https://www.qrz.com/db/DC8TM
Photo: Martina and Thomas during their trip to VK-land
