More than just DX News

N5J Jarvis Island

N5J Team will be active from Jarvis Island, IOTA OC - 081, 7 - 19 August 2024.
Team on Island - AA7JV, N1DG, HA7RY, KN4EEI, KO8SCA.
Recent DX Spots N5J
N5J Log search N5J Remote operators CW:
W1VE, CT1BOH, CT1ILT, KL9A, N6MJ, KL2A, K5GO/ZF9CW, M0DXR, KL7SB, JE1CKA, JN1THL, SM6LRR, F6AKK, E77DX, CE3CT, VE5MX, ZL3CW, HA2NA.
They will operate on 160 - 6m, CW, SSB, FT8.
DXCC Country - Jarvis and Palmyra.

N5J Jarvis Island News 4 August 2024

The Magnet, with the N5J team and three USFWS scientists on board, got under way at 0500 AM from American Samoa for Jarvis island. The time required to cover the distance of 1050 Nautical Miles (1940 km) depends on the boat-speed that we are able to maintian. Currently we are cruising at 15 knots (27 kmph) in light winds and moderate seas (waves of 3 to 5 feet). According to the forecast this favorable weather should continue for the next three days. Although we are likely to encounter some opposing currents, we expect to arrive at Jarvis the morning of August 6. If for some reason we need to slow down, we will time our arrival for the morning of the 7th.
AA7JV/N5J Team.

N5J Jarvis Island News 9 May 2024

Joe, W8GEX and I have been working with Don, N1DG, to get the league to recognize Jarvis Island as a new and separate DXCC Entity. There is ample justification for it. Don has presented to the DX committee and so far the reception has been lukewarm at best. We felt that a "grass roots" approach could be effective.

Below is text that you can copy and paste into an email and send off to your Director, the Section manager, the President of the ARRL, Rick Roderick (K5UR) and the DXAC Chairman, K2CS.

If you feel so compelled, please send this off right away.

N5J Jarvis Island News 21 April 2024

Press Release nr. 4
Jarvis Island N5J DXpedition
April 21, 2024

Since the Dateline DX Association announced plans for activating Jarvis Island this summer many have asked if we could arrange with IOTA and POTA program organizers to secure approval of our DXpedition.

Jarvis is one of the rarest of the IOTA counters, having been off the air for 34 years. It is needed by 82% of IOTA program participants.

Because of the requirements set by the permit of the USFWS, while the stations and antennas and power are all set up on Jarvis Island, the local operators must conduct the DXpedition from the MV Magnet which will still be in the Jarvis Island National Wildlife Refuge just offshore.

Both the IOTA and POTA programs have agreed to recognize QSOs made by the local operators but will not allow QSOs made by internet remote operators to count. Therefore QSOs made by AA7JV, HA7RY, N1DG, KO8SCA and KN4EEI will count for the awards. Daily uploads by the N5J team to clublog will identify the operators. Additionally at the beginning of each operator shift the team will endeavor to post on the cluster the callsign of the operator so chasers have some real time notice. At this time all phone operations are expected to be by the at Island team as well giving that mode 100% IOTA/POTA certaintly.

In addition to the five operators mentioned above, there is an experienced team of 24 operators from 8 countries operating up to 6 stations around the clock ensuring DXers around the globe have ample opportunity to add an ATNO or band fill to their DXCC totals.
N5J Team.

N5J Jarvis Island News 17 April 2024

The Dateline DX Association is pleased to announce that due to the increasing interest in our DXpedition to this rare DXCC entity we are adding another local operator to our team.

Please welcome KO8SCA, Adrian Ciuperca, to our at-island team. A well known and experienced DXpeditioner, Adrian works as an IT consultant, a much needed component to any remote operation. He is a newly inducted member of the CQ DX Hall of Fame and a YASME award of Excellence winner.

Adrian is a keen DXer with DXCC 318, 9BDXCC, IOTA, as well as being a passionate contester. He competed in WRTC 2018 in Wittenberg, Germany as well as at the 2023 edition of WRTC in Bologna, Italy.

Adrian has taken part in over 30 DXpeditions to destinations including W8S Swains Island, 3Y0J Bouvet Island, J2, Z6, OJ0, VP2V, PJ2, PJ4, A5, ZK3, V8, TX0M/TX0A, 6O, 9M0, FJ, FM, J3, J8, VK9C, VK9X, VP5, VP9, and Z2. Recently he has been a guest operator at 4U1UN and HV0A

His preferred operating mode is CW, but he is also active in SSB and digital modes. Adrian is a member of several amateur radio DX and contesting clubs, namely, NCDXF, INDEXA (board director), YCCC, FOC, CWOPS, LIDXA, Order of Boiled Owls of New York, LICWC, NYCDXA, WECA, Araucária DX Group, RRC.

George, AA7JV, and Don, N1DG, for the N5J team.

N5J Jarvis Island News 8 April 2024

KH5 - Palmyra and Jarvis Islands
It is 84 days to our departure for Jarvis Island from American Samoa. We are busy building and testing equipment. In addition to the RIB-s, a lot of our gear is built by us, specifically designed for remote operation where reliability is key.
We have finalized the station configuration. We will have six stations on the island. Four of the station are set up to be remotely operated and two will be locally operated, although we do have the flexibility to operated any station locally (from the boat) or remotely via Starlnk and the Internet
N5J Team.

Jarvis Island

Jarvis is an island in the central Pacific Ocean. The status of Jarvis Island is an unincorporated unorganized territory of the United States (formally not part of the United States, but a possession of the United States).

General information about Jarvis Island


Jarvis Island is located 2,200 kilometers south of Hawaii, and 375 kilometers southwest of Christmas Island, which belongs to Kiribati.
Jarvis Island belongs to the Line Islands. Jarvis Island is uninhabited. The island is home to the abandoned village of Millersville.
It has a total area of 4.45 km². Jarvis is a sandy coral island. The coastline is 8 kilometres long. The maximum height is 7 metres. There are no natural water sources. Growing: low shrubbery, stilted plants, sparse grass cover. Various species of seabirds nest.

N5J Jarvis Island

Discovery and development of the island


Jarvis Island was discovered by the British in 1821.
From 1858 to 1879 it was under the control of the United States.
In 1889 Jarvis Island came under the control of Great Britain, which did not develop it.

In 1935, Jarvis Island came under US control again. There has been no economic activity on Jarvis Island to date. There are external anchorages for marine vessels on the island, as well as two mooring sites for large boats.
Jarvis Island is administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, which manages the island under the National Wildlife Refuge Program.

N5J Jarvis Island DX News

N5J. Where is Jarvis Island located. Map.

N5J Jarvis Island. Sunrise 12-11-2024 at 16:28 GMT sunset at 04:39 GMT
N5J Jarvis Island comments forum

Your comments are important to us!

Rating
1 2 3 4 5

30 Comments

100%
Rating: 5 of 5
Lethal Injection
  • Callsign: SC0RN
  • 2024-08-19 16:20:07
The next Jarvis DXpedition (if there ever is one) should not cater to the lazy FT8 and other digital point-and-clickers who prefer to walk their dog or go to the pub while their computer does all the work. Where is the challenge in that? Why not then consider packet-based email as a legitimate mode of communication and for the exchange of QSLs as attachments? Think of all the postage saved, particularly since eQSLing hasn't been as widely embraced as one would have expected. In my opinion, Jarvis, Mellish, Desecheo, and other such "entities" not having an historical, indigenous population or permanent, perennial scientific and/or environmental research team or should be removed from DXCC unless and until their habitation status changes--which, of course, can occur. Incidentally, why was highly-populated Okinawa deleted from DXCC? It makes no sense. Who makes such decisions and why? Evidence has proven that such barren, "ghost" entities serve no purpose other than to generate bad operating behaviour by bad actors who probably should never have been handed a ham license in the first place. It would be more reasonable to create a non-DXCC, Special Uninhabited Island/Reef Certificate for those award-junkies out there who need their "fix". What percentage of hams even bother with awards, anyway? Just another piece of paper. Bragging rights? Brag to whom? To their indifferent, long-suffering wives or to their kids addicted to their smart phones and who don't even own an AM radio, much less care about HF "Elmers".
100%
Rating: 5 of 5
Dave
  • Callsign: W3FOX
  • 2024-08-15 22:28:39
100%
Rating: 5 of 5
George
  • Callsign: N5J
  • 2024-08-15 18:23:22
N5J Jarvis Island News We have been improving our 160 m set up every day. We have added more ground wires that connect the TX antenna base to the water and have built a very effective RX antenna. Now we can comfortable hear most callers. Last night we got on 160 first around 0530. There were a few NA, callers. Most had 100% QSB: going from 5 CPY to nothing in seconds. Got back on TB around 0830. Signals were much steadier with a slow but continuous stream of NA callers. TS noise started up around 0900 and got steadily stronger all night. (This noise comes from T storms in the Solomons, Papua and Indonesia, reaching us after their SS. It gets progressively worse as the night progresses. We are at the 1000 TB QSO mark. Given the fact the Aug is about the worst time of the year for 160, this is OK. There would be many more in the log if callers used better tactics: 1. Send your call twice. We need narrow filter settings because of the noise (we are on the Equator). Unless you are "tail-gating" it takes time for us to tune the RX to the caller's frequency. Often we only get the last few letters of the call ... and then wait. If we CQ again, another caller will jump in and the first caller will lose the Q. This happens a lot. If you are tail-gating -- calling on the last Q-s frequency -- once is enough! 2. There are callers who are not hearing us. We keep on replying with no result. Probably most people listening on our TX frq can hear this taking place. Sure, QSB and QRM will often make two or three attempts necessary. But there have been some to whom I have replied to dozens of times over many hours. They are just causing QRM and wasting their time as they will not make into the log by accident. 3. Insurance QSO-s are perfectly justified. But they make no sense the third, fourth -- and sometimes the sixth time. If we are not busy, a dupe call is welcome as it reassures us that the band is still open. But when there is a pile up, a third insurance Q just takes someone else's Q. 4. JA-s tend to have this habit (not all, TKS). It springs from good intentions, but... When calling they send their call only once. We often catch only part of it, just like in point 1. But once we reply with the correct call. they then come back sending their call three times. This gets us to the next point: 5. The ideal sequence is: CQ N5J UP -- N4xx N4xx --- N4xx 5NN -- 5NN TU -- TU. Sending the call ahead of the 5NN can create doubt under difficult RX conditions. Sending 5NN is really a confirmation that tells the operator that the callsign is correct. The TU further confirms that the QSO is good and can go into the log. Less is more! 6. For NA callers: JA callers have an all-water path to us and are often louder. They start coming in after 1000 Z, some with astonishingly strong signals. Plan you time accordingly: waiting for your SR-bump may not be worth it if it puts you in competition with stronger (and numerous) signals. 7. Actual signal reports are very welcome. (Even the 339 ones.) They help us adjust to the conditions. We will keep coming on around 0500 for a short time -- there is a tiny chance of working EU. And then come on again around 0830 ahead of NA SR. During the next few nights we will also work FT8 F/H. It seems that SuperFox, which has been very effective on other bands, it not as good under poor conditions on TB. Hence F/H. TKS for all the calls and GL, George, N5J
100%
Rating: 5 of 5
Rom
  • Callsign: sp2hmt
  • 2024-08-15 02:22:56
100%
Rating: 5 of 5
George
  • Callsign: N5J
  • 2024-08-15 00:01:06
We have been improving our 160 m set up every day. We have added more ground wires that connect the TX antenna base to the water and have built a very effective RX antenna. Now we can comfortable hear most callers. Last night we got on 160 first around 0530. There were a few NA, callers. Most had 100% QSB: going from 5 CPY to nothing in seconds. Got back on TB around 0830. Signals were much steadier with a slow but continuous stream of NA callers. TS noise started up around 0900 and got steadily stronger all night. (This noise comes from T storms in the Solomons, Papua and Indonesia, reaching us after their SS. It gets progressively worse as the night progresses. We are at the 1000 TB QSO mark. Given the fact the Aug is about the worst time of the year for 160, this is OK. There would be many more in the log if callers used better tactics: 1. Send your call twice. We need narrow filter settings because of the noise (we are on the Equator). Unless you are "tail-gating" it takes time for us to tune the RX to the caller's frequency. Often we only get the last few letters of the call ... and then wait. If we CQ again, another caller will jump in and the first caller will lose the Q. This happens a lot. If you are tail-gating -- calling on the last Q-s frequency -- once is enough! 2. There are callers who are not hearing us. We keep on replying with no result. Probably most people listening on our TX frq can hear this taking place. Sure, QSB and QRM will often make two or three attempts necessary. But there have been some to whom I have replied to dozens of times over many hours. They are just causing QRM and wasting their time as they will not make into the log by accident. 3. Insurance QSO-s are perfectly justified. But they make no sense the third, fourth -- and sometimes the sixth time. If we are not busy, a dupe call is welcome as it reassures us that the band is still open. But when there is a pile up, a third insurance Q just takes someone else's Q. 4. JA-s tend to have this habit (not all, TKS). It springs from good intentions, but... When calling they send their call only once. We often catch only part of it, just like in point 1. But once we reply with the correct call. they then come back sending their call three times. This gets us to the next point: 5. The ideal sequence is: CQ N5J UP -- N4xx N4xx --- N4xx 5NN -- 5NN TU -- TU. Sending the call ahead of the 5NN can create doubt under difficult RX conditions. Sending 5NN is really a confirmation that tells the operator that the callsign is correct. The TU further confirms that the QSO is good and can go into the log. Less is more! 6. For NA callers: JA callers have an all-water path to us and are often louder. They start coming in after 1000 Z, some with astonishingly strong signals. Plan you time accordingly: waiting for your SR-bump may not be worth it if it puts you in competition with stronger (and numerous) signals. 7. Actual signal reports are very welcome. (Even the 339 ones.) They help us adjust to the conditions. We will keep coming on around 0500 for a short time -- there is a tiny chance of working EU. And then come on again around 0830 ahead of NA SR. During the next few nights we will also work FT8 F/H. It seems that SuperFox, which has been very effective on other bands, it not as good under poor conditions on TB. Hence F/H. TKS for all the calls and GL, George, N5J
100%
Rating: 5 of 5
ToothAndNail
  • Callsign: FO0EY
  • 2024-08-14 16:42:37
20%
Rating: 1 of 5
Fred
  • Callsign: F0OEY
  • 2024-08-13 16:24:44
100%
Rating: 5 of 5
唐莙喻
  • Callsign: BG7RFF
  • 2024-08-13 14:09:37
20%
Rating: 1 of 5
Guido
  • Callsign: IK5ZAJ
  • 2024-08-09 09:27:28
100%
Rating: 5 of 5
George
  • Callsign: AA7JV
  • 2024-08-06 09:14:12
100%
Rating: 5 of 5