VKØEK Heard Island 2016
This 14-person DXpedition to one of the most challenging entities on the
DXCC list made planning and execution even more of a challenge with a multi-
disciplinary focus that included studies of the local plants and animals.
Robert W. Schmieder, KK6EK,
and the VKØEK Team
Out of all the DXCC entities, Heard Island
is arguably the most difficult destination to
activate. Its ferocious weather, its distance
from civilization (almost 2500 miles across
the Southern Ocean), the formidable effort
of obtaining a permit, the near-impossibility
of finding appropriate vessel transportation,
the effort of raising the necessary project
financing, the requirement for Public
Liability Insurance, the need to spend more
than 3 years of planning to put together a
safe and effective team with all the tools and
requirements in place — all of these factors
and more combine to make Heard Island
such a difficult destination. It’s no wonder
that activations take place there only about
every 20 years.
In May 2012, I announced plans to organize
and lead an expedition to Heard Island.
Despite my having been one the organizers of the previous DXpedition, VKØIR, in
1997, planning this operation would prove
to be much harder than I imagined.
The Vision
My strategy included the following: (1) A
multi-disciplinary project, including radio,
science, and information technology;
(2) Completely open planning; (3) Exten sive outreach via social media; (4) Significant commercial sponsorship; and (5) The
highest ethical standards, including legal
and fiscal soundness, and risk management.
Transport of the equipment between the beach and the campsite, using the ATV.
[Robert Schmieder, KK6EK, photo]
organization, Cordell Expeditions. Rich
Holoch, KY6R, enthusiastically agreed to
be the co-organizer of the project. His creative contributions and extraordinary hard
work would be central to the realization of
the project.
Planning
One of the biggest challenges was finding
transportation to Heard Island. For various
reasons, three vessels that had made precontractual agreements with us failed to
keep their commitments, so in mid-2015
I contacted Nigel Jolly, owner-operator of
the Braveheart, who agreed to do the trip.
In retrospect, it was the best of all possible
developments.
For fundraising, we contacted all the major
DX foundations and clubs. We obtained
the support of more than 100 organizations
and more than 5000 individuals. HDT
Global provided AirBeams (military-grade
tents that erect by inflation in about 15
My first realization was that the radio community alone could not raise the finances
for such an expedition. My solution was to
combine the radio operation with two other
activities: field science and advanced communications technology. None of the three
activities alone could muster sufficient
support for such an ambitious project, but
together they could.
The project would be organized with the
standards I had developed and practiced
over the past 35 years under my nonprofit
Reprinted with permission from October 2016 QST ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio
The 2016 Cordell Expeditions campsite, with Big Ben — Heard Island’s active volcano — in the
background. The summit is 9000 feet high. [Robert Schmieder, KK6EK, photo]
®
www.arrl.org
Inside the operations tent, with radio at right, Internet communications at far left, and the galley
at near left. [Robert Schmieder, KK6EK, photo]
minutes), Inmarsat provided four BGAN
satellite terminals and unlimited air time,
and Disc-O-Bed provided high-quality
bunks. Foundations and clubs contributed
about $80,000, individuals about $100,000,
corporations about $40,000, and the team
about $280,000. Thus, the total cost was
roughly a half-million dollars.
Obtaining the permit was a major effort. A
lot has changed since 1997: Heard Island
has been added to the World Heritage List,
a major Australian scientific expedition in
2000 – 2003 highlighted the fragile and
rapidly changing environment, and the
Australian government had reduced support
for Antarctic operations. I made two trips
to the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD)
in Tasmania to negotiate the permit, and I
wrote hundreds of pages of detailed descriptions of, and justification for, the project.
The equipment included major contributions from Elecraft, DX Engineering, Array
Solutions, Spiderbeam, and many other
companies. Some equipment and supplies
were provided by Cordell Expeditions. The
cargo was shipped in one 20-foot container
to Cape Town, South Africa, where it was
delivered to a warehouse on the dock near
the Braveheart.
The Expedition
The team of 14 men converged on Cape
Town the first week of March 2016, and
spent most of their time cleaning and
repacking the gear. The permit from the
AAD required that the cargo be exhaustively cleaned and inspected, and the vessel
be inspected for rats and possible infestation by insects, seeds, spores, and fungus.
Anticipating the need for a vehicle to move
the cargo on the island, I purchased an allterrain vehicle (ATV) and it was loaded
aboard the vessel.
We sailed from Cape Town aboard the
Braveheart on March 10, 2016. The voyage
was long, but we were very active on the
radio, and we deployed a series of scientific
buoys provided by The National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration and the
Woods Hole Oceanographic In stitution.
After a 12-day voyage, we arrived at Heard
Island and were greeted with the extraordinary sight of Big Ben, the 9000-foot live
volcano that dominates the island. We made
a quick reconnaissance trip to the planned
site for our camp, near the ruins of the 1947
Australian research station (ANARE), but
we found it to be unsatisfactory for our
AirBeam tents.
Early the next day, the team found a perfect
campsite: a 20 × 60-foot flat area about
a quarter mile from the beach. Within an
hour, the ATV began delivering our gear,
and by mid-morning the tents were up.
Several four-square vertical array antennas
were erected on flat ground in front of the
camp, and several Yagi antennas were put
on the elevated rocks around the camp.
Within 15 hours of landing, we activated
VKØEK. To our great surprise, we heard
not a single SSB station, a pattern that was
to be frustratingly common during our
entire stay. CW it was, then, and thereafter.
Within 48 hours of landing, we had six operational stations.
The BGAN satellite terminals provided
direct access to the Internet. This meant that
we could use our special software, DXA, to
provide real-time online confirmation of
QSOs. Once each minute it uploaded the
log updates, and anyone with a browser
anywhere in the world could get confirmation of his or her QSO within 2 minutes
of making it. Almost always there were
10,000 people watching DXA at any given
time. We also used the BGANs for e-mail,
Skype interviews, and for personal and expedition business.
By the third day we fell into a routine:
Table 1
Mode and Frequency Distribution
of Contacts
MHz CW RTTY SSB QSOs %
1.8 3225 0 13 3238 4.3
3.5 5902 0 0 5902 7.9
7 8956 1279 1562 11797 15.7
10 9898 933 0 10831 14.4
14 5774 0 3238 9012 12.0
18 7047 0 2957 10004 13.3
21 7643 1183 4498 13324 17.8
24 5015 0 2342 7357 9.8
28 2419 1 1149 3569 4.8
Total 55879 3396 15759 75034
QST® – Devoted entirely to Amateur Radio www.arrl.org Reprinted with permission from October 2016 QST
Table 2
Continent/frequency Distribution of Contacts
MHz AF AS EU NA OC SA UNK
1.8 24 483 2376 293 56 6 0
3.5 50 922 3410 1383 104 31 2
7 132 1789 6420 3205 167 81 3
10 63 1488 4807 4165 211 94 3
14 207 2160 3268 2680 628 68 1
18 153 3508 4842 952 383 153 13
21 206 3315 7789 1344 353 316 1
24 98 2285 4308 475 112 76 3
28 48 1126 2277 82 29 6 1
CW 456 12221 30626 10901 1097 554 24
RTTY 36 663 1389 1182 81 54 1
SSB 489 4192 7482 2496 875 223 2
QSOs 981 17076 39497 14579 2043 831 27
%
1.3 22.8 52.6 19.4 2.7 1.1 0.0
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