Like many DXers, I’ve been keeping a close eye on activity from Bouvet Island. The pile-ups for 3Y0K have been immense, so getting through with modest power and a simple wire antenna (58ft of wire fed with a 9:1 unun with one elevated counterpoise wire of about 15ft) was always going to require a bit of patience—and more than a bit of luck!
The breakthrough came on the 15m band after several days of trying and failing to get through.
First came a CW contact at 08:12 UTC on March 10th. I had been monitoring the Reverse Beacon Network (RBN) when I noticed that 3Y0K had moved to the 15m band. I moved quickly and called just 700Hz up from their transmit frequency. Amazingly, they came back to me on my second call. Bouvet Island was in the log with just 80w output power into a simple wire antenna.
Later in the morning I managed to work them again, this time on FT8 at 10:34 UTC, confirming the path was still open. In matter of fact, I have only heard them at all on 15m which seems to suggest my antenna favours, and works well on, this band.
Bouvet is one of the rarest places on earth in amateur radio terms, so getting it in the log—especially on both CW and FT8—was a particularly satisfying moment.
