Our goals

Jan Mayen island is not placed at the top of the 100 Most Wanted DXCC list, but it's still very wanted in some areas and modes - especially West Coast of the USA, Japan, Oceania, Africa. In addition, there are still many European hams seeking JX on other modes than SSB.

After a deep analysis of specific areas vs. modes, we decided to focus on CW and RTTY as our primary modes during JX5O. When time and conditions permit, we will appear on SSB + BPSK63 (we wish we tested that mode agn as it's been a big surprise how great it performed vs. pileup QRM at XR0Y!).

Since our path towards Africa (where, according to feedback we received, it is still very wanted) will be a bit more difficult due to island's terrain, we will try to test long path conditions if short path fails.

First day of our activity will be used to check openings toward different areas as conditions we find at the island may be a big surprise due to polar day period 24/7.

The biggest threat we must face while at Jan Mayen is auroral activity. Since the island is in range of often Au oval's activity, any increase of A/K indexes may result in deep RF blackouts. Please keep that in mind if our signals disappear from bands suddenly. Another issue we must be aware of are weather conditions. Jan Mayen lays in the Arctic, and even though we will be there in middle of polar summer, we may experience very harsh weather conditions with low temperatures, intensive fogs and strong winds. Temperatures barely above +5°C/+41°F with very high humidity level will be a threat you any of RF or electricity installations at JX5O. In addition, simple tasks, like drying clothings will be very difficult, not to mention - almost impossible.See weather stats from 2010 (source: http://eklima.met.no/):

After gathering information from ex JX operators, we have decided to drop 160 and 80m activity at JX5O - broad light of polar day 24/7 will make those bands unusable for long distance contacts.

We will have no Internet access at the island so we will not be able to check any of your comments posted in clusters, nor emails. However we will be listening to our pilots' notes on the air very carefully and will try to pass our news to the world. Well, this is gonna be sort of come back to good, old school ham radio - we'll be focused on radio contacts, not Internet ones  ;-)