HAM in Antarctica

[coppercone2]

I think this is very interesting, radio use in harsh conditions may be of interest to you as well. This particular continent might be left better to the camera, at least for a long while.

[CJay]

I bet the noise floor is wonderful.

[RoGeorge]

IDK, with all the Aurora Borealis might get quite noisy.

Googled and indeed it's noisy.  After minute 1:30, there is a record of Aurora Borealis (radio) sounds.



Sounds creepy!   

[TheMG]

IDK, with all the Aurora Borealis might get quite noisy

Actually, in the southern hemisphere it would be the Aurora Australis. Borealis refers to the northern Aurora.

And yes indeed it does cause all sorts of weird and interesting effects on HF, not just the noise but can also introduce flutter to radio signals and affect propagation in all sorts of different ways. Can definitely make things quite challenging at times (where I live is right underneath the northern auroral circle).

[bob91343]

I have worked Antarctica several times.  Including what is purportedly the coldest place on earth, Vostok.

[coppercone2]

as a side note, I have been wondering a LONG time about the 'thermite charges' used to melt the snow in the thing movie. I saw thermite before and I thought holy, how much thermite would you need to melt all that ice, john carpenter must have made this up.

But I just saw a youtube video recently where someone poured molten aluminum into a hole drilled in the ice, and damn does it blow up. It looks like you can crater with thermite after all in the ice, maybe. I guess its a type of steam explosion. So it actually kind of looks like if you put a cad weld charge to drip into a drilled hole in the ice, it might make a sizable excavation.

[coppercone2]

Bob, did you do anything in Antarctica related to construction in the snow, tunneling, etc?

The difficulty increase in doing anything because of the weather and landscape is very interesting.. I bet thats what Mars must feel like

[bob91343]

I think you misunderstood.  I meant I have worked Antarctica on ham radio.  Many years ago, a US Navy station, and more recently a Russian scientific station.

[coppercone2]

Oh, yea, I misunderstood, I forgot its the de-facto term for communication with hams.

I wonder if I can pick up anything from there at least. That might be fun.

Do they have any beacons, sensors, or otherwise always on transmitters there that I can try to find, without having to run into someone actually trying to communicate on purpose?

Websdr southern most tip of africa maybe... or maybe the falklands.. but I suspect cape-town will be the easiest to actually find a modem/radio in.

Or maybe Tasmania.

Any clue what I can focus on?

[coppercone2]

http://www.arrl.org/news/permanent-wspr-beacon-in-antarctica-now-on-the-air

[bob91343]

I guess you found what you were looking for.  But as far as I know, that's probably the only thing going down there.  People tend to do their thing in the icy place in the months from maybe November to March, which is the closest thing to summer.

The Russian in Vostok said the temp there gets down to -70C.  Cold indeed.

There is a story about when my friend Gwen visited me and we tuned around, finding the guy working one station after another, high turnover to give as many contacts as possible.  I asked Gwen to call him, which she did, and he responded immediately, giving her a strong signal report.  She thanked him and said goodbye.  Not so fast, sister!  He was so thrilled to work a female that he wouldn't let her go.  He kept describing his situation.  She kept saying goodbye but he persisted.  Meanwhile the crowd had to wait for him to sign off with her.  I was chuckling seeing this, and it was a memorable experience.  I don't know if they exchanged cards or not.

[Bud]

Hams love to QSO with female ops and mobile stations 

[coppercone2]

has anyone had any luck finding any of the antarctic beacons etc?

I played with a few different web SDR.. I found something NEAR those frequencies but I don't know.. I would love if someone found something they can confirm. What is a reasonable maximum frequency offset from the written frequencies?

What should those beacons sound like? what demodulation mode should I try using on web SDR? I have very little experience actually using radio for communication. I see kiwi SDR even has a fax option lol

[bob91343]

The beasons I have heard on HF have all been CW.  They tend to be in the CW-only portion but well away from the low end of the band.  For instance, on 10m they are around 28200 kHz.  I believe there is a band plan of sorts that shows where they are.  Usually QRP, repeats callsign, grid square, sometimes QTH.

[Teledog]

At the right time...used to chat to Australia, from Kingston, Ontario, with a cheap 4W CB radio in the pickup truck.
Was called "skip"..interesting, weird, but fun!