Message-ID: <4FBEAD9F.2050007@iup.uni-heidelberg.de>
Date: Thu, 24 May 2012 23:52:31 +0200
From: =?ISO-8859-15?Q?Stefan_Sch=E4fer?= <Stefan.Schaefer@iup.uni-heidelberg.de>
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To: rsgb_lf_group@blacksheep.org
CC: "YV7MAE Maritn A. Echazarreta D." <yv7mae@gmail.com>
Subject: LF: LF amateur radio in the Antarctica??
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LF!

After beeing visible in South America some have asked me what i'm 
planning next. 6 continents are "worked" now from here (one-way, TX) 
which is titled as a WAC by R7NT (ex. RU6LA). He updated his LF history 
page at http://136.73.ru/h_history/index.htm
Now, which challenge next?
The Antarctica does not count as a continent which can be worked it 
seems. No one is living there permanently... Anyway! There is a German 
research base which is permanently in operated by the 
Alfred-Wegner-Institut in Bremerhafen, http://www.awi.de/en/home/

The research base is the Neumayer3 Station, 
http://www.awi.de/en/infrastructure/stations/neumayer_station/

The locator seems to be IB59UI87 , 
http://no.nonsense.ee/qthmap/?qth=IB59UI87 , just 13433 km distant from 
here :-) In this time of the year the common dark time from EU is 9 
hours which sounds quite good. However the path passes a high QRN region 
in AF, see 
http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/6000/6679/global_lightning_lrg.jpg
Probably 2 hops will be in Africa but the rest is across salt water!

What do the experts say, will this be realistic? (also regarding the 
south-auroral-oval)

At least i decided to start a request to the institute and asked for a 
contact to the radio operator of the base. From the uni-heidelberg 
adress this seems to be an easy task and so it took not even 2 days 
until i got an answer from the radio operator of the base. An antarctic 
email, this was the first exciting point for me! Of course the radio 
operator is a ham too, Lars/DL1LLL. They operate a amateur radio club 
station from there, DP0GVN. See some pictures from there at 
http://www.dl1lll.de/  Excellent location i find. And i assume it is 
most likely that there is no QRM from the neighbours :-)

As expected, he is not only the radio operator but also the IT expert 
and electrician. They operate a webcam from there so probably the 
intenet is no problem! I was surprised. They seem to have a satelite 
flatrate :-)
How long will it take until we have a LF grabber in the Antarktica? :-)

As expected they have a well sorted electronic lab and Lars seem to have 
a good electronic knowledge so it will be no problem to build a preamp 
or a active antenna or whatever. They have 2 HF TRX which hopefully 
operate down to 137 kHz. It is a TS-480 and a FT-450. Does someone has 
some experience with this RX' on LF?

So far they are quite fixed to HF but i'll see what i can do. :-)

That may be also a good message for the few LF stations in Argentinia 
which is in "only" 5000 km from there...

73, Stefan/DK7FC