JX5O – the midnight sun DXpedition to Jan Mayen Island

Jan Mayen Island has always been a place I would pay attention to because of its remoteness, interesting history and heritage. It’s been like thinking of a place that used to be a set for a good movie’s or book’s location. Back in 2009, when I started DXpeditioning, I was thinking of visiting the island for a couple of reasons: not only from a DXer’s perspective, but also to make my and friends’ dreams coming true.

The JX-land is not an easy place to go to. However it’s not that far from the European continent, there are very few available ways of transportation to reach the island. We had to exclude any flights from Norway (all flights are restricted for military purposes only) and to charter a sailboat to get there.

The first plan assumed we would activate the island in 2010, but all cruises have been fully booked well ahead and we had to postpone the DXpedition for 2011. Although all team members were quite disappointed with that situation, there was a big advantage of that decision: more time for planning!

Meanwhile there was sufficient time to plan the team to activate the island. Although my plan assumed to have at least 3-4 very experienced operators, I always wanted to undertake projects open to newcomers or operators who had never a chance to participate in DXpeditions before. The reason is simple. If DXpeditions are being focused at operators who have been to a number of expeditions only, and closed for newcomers – how can we attract new DXpeditioners in the future and to let the hobby, tradition and adventures develop and live on?...

Since there was a long gap between the first team have been announced, a couple of team members had to resign due to personal problems or their work duties. The final JX5O team consisted of following members (random order):

• SV2KBS/LA7VPA – Vicky (ex ZL8X, VP8YLG, VK9LA, XRØY)
• HB9ASZ - Bernhard (ex FT5XO, VP8THU, VP8GEO, ZL8R)
• NI1L – Leszek (ex XRØY)
• SM0MDG – Björn (ex JW, OY, OJØ, OHØ, 5X, CU2, CT9, OY, DU IOTA trip, MSØINT)
• SQ9C – Tom (experienced contester)
• SQ9DIE – Pete (ex VK9LA)
• TF3ZA – Jón (experienced contester)
• Ania – Chilid.pl/RTTY operator
• and myself: SQ8X – Stan (team leader, ex XRØY, VK9LA, K5D Off-Island Team member)

The licensing process was a series of progressive changes to our ticket. At first we intended to activate the island under Vicky’s Norwegian callsign, transformed according to regulations to LX7VPA. Then Ringsjoen Contest Club (LA5O) offered the to use of their club callsign transformed to JX5O, which made running pileups much easier and comfortable, of course! The licensing process at the Norwegian Post and Telecommunication office itself was a real pleasure. Short and fast replies, quick decisions and simple rules – that’s what I have to say about the NPT.
I’ve been searching for a proper boat charter company to negotiate our plans and needs. My final choice was the Borea Adventures company based in Ísafjörður, Northwest Iceland. The company run by two very experienced tour operators and expeditioners (Sigurður “Siggi” Jónsson and Rúnar Óli Karlsson) offers a number of off-bitten-trail trips including Greenland, Iceland, and Jan Mayen Island. They are also one of 2 companies in the world licensed to land at the island.

Since we chartered the sailboat as a group, we had a chance to change the regular itinerary to better suit our needs. A few extra days at the island have been added and also some special arrangements regarding provisions and our camping site. And that wasn’t an easy part of the plan at all. Jan Mayen Island is a strict nature reserve since November 2010 when the King of Norway – His Majesty Harald V announced a special protection program concerning nature conservation at a number of Norwegian territories, including the JX-land. No wonder – the island is really unique at every aspect: the nature, its location, climate, natural and historical heritage and so on. The island is also an important location for a NATO radio-controlled navigation system called Loran and a crucial place for a new satellite positioning system in Europe called Galileo. In addition, Jan Mayen Island has been the very first place in the world where the first automatic meteo station has been installed which was capable to transmit data on airwaves.

While planning the DXpedition, I had to take into consideration 3 important factors that would affect our DXpedition. The first and the most important one: weather conditions and security procedures. The island lies beyond the Arctic circle and is surrounded by the Gulf Stream. That means that local weather conditions are usually very unstable and may change within a few hours dramatically. And we experienced a glimpse of what they may be…

The 2nd factor was also a very important one: how to reduce cost of transportation and cost of additional items/equipment to be purchased. We had ca. 700kg of equipment to transport to Jan Mayen. Sending that to Iceland via sea cargo appeared to be more expensive that taking a loaded 4x4 car from Poland and to go to Iceland via ferry! So we did so. Our 2 team members – Pete SQ9DIE and his YL Ania decided to take their Landrover and to take the ferry from Denmark. They said after then: what an adventure!
And the last, but not least – the 3rd factor was the propagation forecast vs. our landing and operating site. The only place that the island commissioner allowed us to land is situated at Gammelmetten – an abandoned former meteo station settlement located at Northwestern side at the island. The location underneath the world famous stratovolcano Beerenberg (2277m asl) appeared to be a challenge both for our landing procedure and a place to operate from.

The team gathered in the capital city of Iceland - Reykjavík on July 2, 2011. We stayed in a place away from the city’s centre that had enough backyard space to test our equipment before departing for Jan Mayen. We had sufficient time to erect our Hexbeams and a few verticals and to make a number of test QSOs from Iceland. We also purchased 2 big camping tents which would be used for our operating shelters at the island. Two days later we left for the North of Iceland – little fishermen’s village called Dalvík, where our sailboat would await the team to depart for Jan Mayen.

We found our sailboat “Aurora” moored in Dalvík harbor. It’s a 60 foot sloop sailboat built by Colvic Craft in the UK in 1996. She was designed by David Pedrick for the Clipper Round the World race and has been raced around the world four times. Even though she’s not small and has enough cargo space for oceanic passages, the crew of the boat looked at amount of our gear with a mix of apprehension and amusement. Loading all the equipment took approx. 4 hours and we were ready to depart. Calm waters in Dalvík’s fjord looked inviting. The boat was sailing in the light breeze from towards the open sea in the north. The sea was much less inviting outside of the fjord with gale force winds and high waves. The heavy weather lasted for almost 16 hours and was a real challenge for everybody. Two of our team members got sea-sick really bad. They spent more than 12 hours on their berths and their symptoms disappeared only after the sea calmed down. The rest of the team was quite resistant to 5m tall waves crashing against “Aurora”. And some of team members were even enjoying their time feeling like inside a space capsule thrown with enormous gravity loads and swells. Once the storm disappeared, there was a total calm with no wind and no waves. The rest of the passage had to be done on engine power. In the middle of our way to Jan Mayen we experienced a phenomenon called “oily glows”. It’s a beautiful state of sea when there is totally no wind and water’s movements are so little that the water surface floats almost still. Then sunlight reflections and sky glitters form amazing, colorful patters around you as far as you can see. Experiencing the phenomenon at midnight sun was really something. In addition, we have seen dolphins and humpbacks playing around, too. What a sight! Another surprising thing we have experienced was something that I could describe as a false horizon. The calm sea was “merging” and mixing with clouds and the line of horizons so confusingly that it was almost impossible to figure out where the sky or the sea ands and it felt like the sky touched the sea ca. 300m (0,1 miles) from us. It was quite claustrophobic and strange sight indeed.

On late July 5, 2011, after almost 3 days of sailing, we started to see the South westernmost tip of Jan Mayen. It appeared partially covered by foggy patches in total silence, very high humidity and mild light lit through a flat layer of clouds by mild midnight sun. We reached our landing site – a black, sandy beach next to Gammelmetten right after midnight July 6, and we decided to land right away as weather conditions were in favour of our plans. I think the landing (and then leaving the island) was the hardest part of the DXpedition. We were really tired with 3-days long sailing, sea-sickness and it was clear to everybody that nobody would sleep for next 24h+ at all. The boat’s crew used a zodiac to transport us to the island first. Each trip took approx. 15 minutes and each would transport 2 people and some amount of luggage. After getting all the operators to the shore several additional trips were required to get the rest of our equipment to the shore. I must to mention all the equipment was sealed with plastic in case of sea swells. Then we had to face another hard part of the plan: transportation of the equipment to the camping site located approx. 2km (1,5 miles) from the landing site. Since we were not allowed to use any vehicles at the island, we were forced to carry all items at very steep slopes leading to the site putting steps in a very unstable, slippery lava gravel.  I even don’t remember how many walks I did that night. But I remember so well those five, darn 30L canisters full of fuel I took up there on my back! While we were transporting our radio gear, our superb crew started to assemble our “bedroom” camp consisting of 5 expedition tents and one bigger tent used as a kitchen. Nobody wanted to go to sleep but putting at least 1-2 stations up and to let the world we landed safely and we put our transmissions on the air at last. It’s been so weird and at the same time incredibly wonderful feeling to see things happening after almost 2 years of planning.

As mentioned before, Gammelmetten is situated by volcano’s slopes covering a path towards Europe short path. This was something that used to bother us at the very beginning of our operation. But once we launched our stations we noticed that signals coming from EU were quite decent and we had no problems to work all countries across that continent. There were wonderful openings towards North America, even through that more difficult path affected by aurora’s zone to West Coast. Also Japan was coming through very smoothly. It was really interesting to see those openings lasting that long. But then, we also had a chance to experience the most frustrating and disturbing thing so well known to all operators living at higher latitudes: aurora activity. It is able to “turn off” conditions within 30-60 seconds causing all bands being flat dead. We were conscious of frustration at the other end while our responders were thinking we probably pulled the plug and went for coffee or something. But it was just like that feeling and being unable to do anything about bringing back the conditions until Mother Nature allowed so. In addition to aurora’s blackouts there were very annoying QRNs on lower bands. The lower the stronger. For instance operating 40m CW at those times was nearly impossible as all signals were merging together into a noisy, fluttering “pulp”. The most surprising QSOs were made into French Polynesia and St. Helena island were bands seemed to be dead but single, totally selective and unexpected openings occurred. In general the propagation pattern was following the sun. First days of the DXpedition provided definitely better scores as conditions were much better. There were at least 3 days affected by aurora very much. Unfortunately being at Jan Mayen during Arctic summer with 24/7 broad sunlight confirmed our predictions: 160 and 80m were flat dead.

We were quite fortunate that first 2 days that were busy to set up all stations were very calm and warm. Then weather conditions started to play tricks with us. There were snow falls followed by rain showers and wind exceeding 80km/h (50mph). Once the wind started to blow, we have been attacked by very powerful wind gusts reaching 100km/h (63mph) that started to collect volcanic pumice ash getting inside our tents, mouth, ears, eyes. And inside our equipment, too. Surprisingly, the ash was very resistant to humidity and was still very invasive even after rain falls.

The biggest problem occurred was that the wind started to tear our tents. Fortunately we were prepared for such cases and we secured the tents from further damages. Believe me – operating from inside the tents that were close to collapse was not easy because of loud winds roaring for long hours. Additionally, under such humid conditions with fogs and rain showers the wind chill was well below freezing making our hands and faces stiff and uncomfortable.

Our flexible shifts were a natural way to let those less resistant operators to such conditions to have some more rest while those more hardy ones were operating longer. The kitchen tent was a wonderful place for gathering for those operators heading to sleeping tents of going back to the radios. A mug of warm tea or a bowl of hot soup was a real treat then.

Observing all regulations, especially the local nature conservation guidelines was really critical for making the expedition a success and keeping the possibility for future amateur radio operations from the island open. And the strict regulations there are for a reason. For example: we’ve seen  snowmobile trails left in moss… 60 years ago. And they still remain there because vegetation at the island is so slow due to harsh climate and location. We kept our camp site clean, removed all litter on our return and we were not disturbing any birds living at the island. Maybe our awareness and good behavior paid off as we have been invited by the island commissioner to visit the Olonkin base located at the South-westernmost tip of the island. It was a big privilege for us as are not too many visitors to Jan Mayen were offered that chance. 2 days before our departure staff members came to take us to the base to visit it and to have a first hot shower in almost 2 weeks. We were surprised with the base officers’ hospitality and stories about the base they told. No wonder we enjoyed cozy rooms of the building – it was warm there. And even a bit too warm, I’d say, since human body starts to adapt to external weather conditions in such places very quickly. That was a very fine, sunny and warm day, the last calm day at the island. Weather forecast was not promising at all. Our Aurora crew decided to depart back for Iceland almost 1 day earlier than scheduled. Although we totally understand such circumstances, we wish we could stay at the island much longer. Our trip back to Iceland was much more peaceful and there was no storm that time. Since we were very exhausted, most of the team members spent the time under the deck sleeping and making short breaks for delicious meals served by our crew. We were also very lucky to see whales one more time. One of bigger humpbacks was following Aurora for a few minutes right UNDER the boat. That was a jaw-dropping experience indeed!
We would like to all the DX Foundations that or supported our project and for the generous donations without which it would definitely be hard to undertake the JX5O DXpedition. A full list od donors may be found at: http://janmayen2011.org/sponsors. I also wish to thank Per-Einar LA7DFA, Rag LA6FJA, LA5O Ringsjoen Contest Club, Borea Adventures, the Club Log and the Jan Mayen Island Commissioner for their great input and help to make JX5O possible. I also can’t omit fantastic help provided by our Icelandic team member – Jón TF3ZA, and his father – Erling TF3EE. Without their logistics and Icelandic know-how we would probably not be able to undertake the project that smoothly as we all did. Thank you!

P.S. The team donated a 6m beacon antenna to the Jan Mayen island Commissioner to re-activate the 6m beacon that died a few years ago. The antenna is now installed a few kilometer SW from Gammelmetten and operational since October 18, 2011 as JX7SIX and being heard across the world. The JX5O team also with to thank the Olonkin base’s staff at Jan Mayen Island for mounting the antenna.

JX7SIX DX cluster entries:

TF3ML          50079.0 JX7SIX       5/9            2328 04 Dec   Jan Mayen

OX3LX          50079.4 JX7SIX/B     559 <auE>?     2245 30 Nov   Jan Mayen

OZ1DJJ         50079.6 JX7SIX/B     599            2228 28 Nov   Jan Mayen

You may also view a You Tube recording of JX7SIX by OX3LX:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeVbxcDPNnQ

The JX5O Team & project leader
Stan Strzyżewski, SQ8X

More information and news archive of JX5O: http://janmayen2011.org/
Full JX5O stats are available at: http://www.clublog.org/charts/?c=JX5O#r