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
73 & 44! Vit, RN3ANT
RFF coordinator
