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ZL9A Antipodes Islands

Cezar VE3LYC, Craig VK5CE, Stan SQ8X, Bob KD1CT will be active from Antipodes Islands (IOTA OC-286) 7 - 11 January 2016 as ZL9A.
They will operate on 40 - 10m CW, SSB.
QSL direct/bureau via VE3LYC. Detailed information to be available in due course.
DXCC Country - New Zealand Subantarctic Islands.
News ZL9A 10 January 2016 20.01 UTC

Received from Stan 10-01-2016 20:01 UTC

We are qrt, sea calmed down a bit we will try to leave on 2-3 hours from now.

The log has been uploaded to ClubLog :

8,650 QSOs logged between 2016-01-06 23:49Z and 2016-01-10 17:10Z


News ZL9A 10 January 2016

Received from Stan 10-01-2016 11:00 UTC

Waves are so huge that our captain decided to postpone departure for tomorrow evening (Monday night ZL time), if sea wont settle down will wait another 1 day. Some waves crashing against shoreline are like 30-50 meters, yes meters, high!!! Our QTH is sprayed with salt water, Amazing!!! Huge crashing fountains against cliffs they are enormous! When waves crash against cliffs water strikes up producing huge fountains reaching far inside shoreline, enormous power and low freq deep sound produced.

News ZL9A 8 January 2016

Due to bad wx forecats we must leave on our Sunday evening (Sunday 0:00 – 01:00 UTC).

The team is experiencing heavy winds which collapsed one of the verticals. This has been fixed and they are running with both stations again.

Please note that contacts with remotely controlled stations will NOT be accepted.


News ZL9A 6 January 2016
Message received 06-01-2016 18:37 UTC Waiting for landing in 2 hours, around 20:30 UTC. So the earlier activity was a pirate!
News ZL9A 5 January 2016

All ok, high sea swell making Evohe bouncing left right 45-60 deg each side, difficult to walk across the yacht. Everybody in good spirits and healthy. We sail with engine on and 1 sail, good food on board and really nice crew

ETA is January 7th noon LT.



Information from Cezar, VE3LYC:

First DXpedition to Antipodes Islands (ZL9A), OC-286 New!

Department of Conservation of New Zealand has issued for the first time landing and operating permits for the activation of Antipodes Is. (ZL9), OC-286 New. The team includes Cezar (VE3LYC), Craig (VK5CE), Stan (SQ8X), and Bob (KD1CT), who will attempt to operate between January 7 and 11, 2016. The team will assist in the mouse eradication program on Antipodes, and support other critical research activities there. Details will be made available soon on the expedition website.

DXCC is expected to announce later this week a re-naming of the existing ZL9 entity ‘Auckland & Campbell Is.’ to also include other New Zealand Sub-Antarctic Islands. ZL9 ranks #37 on the current ClubLog DXCC Most Wanted List. The team will operate CW and SSB on all bands from 10 to 40 m, running two stations around the clock.

Given the large cost of this project, in excess of $50,000, the operators call upon the DX and IOTA communities to consider assisting them financially in order to offset some of their travel expenses. Donations can be sent by paypal to ve3lyc@hotmail.com, and all donors will be acknowledged on the expedition website.

News 9 December 2015

ZL9A should be on the air four weeks from now. Here is a brief update on our preparations:

The Team is pleased to announce that Johan (PA3EXX) joined us as our Pilot Station. Any inquiries, suggestions, and comments during the island operations should be forwarded to him. Johan will summarize and communicate them to us. Please do not post any requests on the DX clusters, since they will not be taken into consideration.

  1. We are working to provide you on the expedition website with the possibility of tracking the position of our boat in real time, during its voyage to and back from Antipodes.
  2. It is our intention to offer an on-line log, to be uploaded daily at Club Log. Any questions regarding possible errors or omissions should be addressed to Cezar (ve3lyc@hotmail.com), only after the end of the expedition.
  3. We have selected the services of Alfio (IT9EJW) for the design and printing of the QSL cards. QSL requests can be made to Cezar (VE3LYC). We strongly encourage DXers to use On-line QSL Request Service (OQRS) from Club Log for both their direct and bureau demands. Direct OQRS requests will be answered first.

73,

Cezar, VE3LYC

ZL9A Antipodes Islands Sea Lion Scampering .

Sea Lion Scampering on Coastal Cliff Face Remote Antipodes Islands. Author - ngaire hart (lawson).

ZL9A Antipodes Islands DX News Parakeet.Antipodes Islands. Parakeet. Author - Kimberley Collins.

ZL9A Antipodes Islands Tourist attractions spot You want a Kiss?You want a Kiss? New Zealand Fur Seal Display of Affection Antipodes Islands. Author - ngaire hart (lawson).

Antipodes Islands ZL9A Announce

ZL9A. Where are Antipodes Islands located. Map.

ZL9A Antipodes Islands. Sunrise 04-19-2024 at 18:51 GMT sunset at 05:16 GMT
ZL9A Antipodes Islands comments forum

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3 Comments

100%
Rating: 5 of 5
Sylwester
  • Callsign: SP2FAP
  • 2016-01-06 01:34:22
Fine!
100%
Rating: 5 of 5
Cezar
  • Callsign: VE3LYC
  • 2015-12-01 11:39:01
Team Antipodes would like to thank all of you who have already joined our project and provided us with invaluable financial support. The list of donors can be viewed on the expedition website. Since our project was approved by the Department of Conservation of NZ as a partnership, we have been working very hard to prepare all the logistics and build in the necessary contingencies for the very difficult tasks ahead. In the following I would like to share with you briefly some of the aspects involved: - The team will meet in Invercargill on Jan 2 and spend the evening/night treating all their clothing, boots, sleeping bags, backpacks, etc. with an antibacterial and disinfectant approved by DoC for quarantine. - A comprehensive quarantine is scheduled on Jan 3, which will additional include a careful spraying and treatment of all equipment (which we must bring and carry in waterproof pelican cases). - All food provisions must be purchased from a specially approved DoC quarantine depot to comply with their regulations. - Following the quarantine, we will rent a van and drive to Dunedin on Jan 4, where we will board the boat. - It will take 3 days to sail to the Antipodes. Landing is only possible in cold, southerly winds. There are only two landing spots, both of them involving wet landing, one more dangerous than the other. - Unless the sea conditions are perfect, landing can only be done away from the vertical cliffs on top of which the research hut is located, and will involve more than a couple of miles of steep hiking through boulders and slippery terrain. - All equipment, personal effects and provisions will have to be carried out by our backs. It will take several trips back and forth to finish this work. - We expect rainy, misty and foggy weather, with temperatures of 13-14C, hopefully with some sunny breaks. Same time last year, the DoC team was hit after landing by a strong hailstorm while the temperature plummeted to 3C. - Please keep in mind that delays can occur at any step of this project! We regret to inform that we have already incurred additional expenses as a result of higher cost of plane tickets over the holidays, baggage surcharges, and quarantine requirements. Any delays will obviously lead to yet additional costs. Over the last few days we received several messages in which IOTA chasers expressed doubts that they will be able to make it through, either because of the propagation path (western EU), the anticipated pile-ups (ZL9 being a relatively rare DXCC), etc. While we cannot possibly guarantee that we will be able to log every single station which will be calling us, we wish to assure the IOTA chasers that our operators are familiar with the IOTA community, and that we will do every possible effort to provide it with a satisfactory service world-wide. Meanwhile, as we continue to look for financial support from the amateur radio community, we will have to divide our attention to satisfy the needs and expectations of all groups and individuals who will step in and support this project. We would like to use this opportunity to ask once again the IOTA chasers who haven’t yet committed to this project to come on board! We do need your help now, so please, please support our team at http://iotahunter.org/donate/! Thank you and best regards, Cezar, VE3LYC
100%
Rating: 5 of 5
Cezar
  • Callsign: VE3LYC
  • 2015-11-20 23:21:18
We received some very nice messages of support from different IOTA chasers, for which we are most grateful. Roger (G3KMA) summarized our work very nicely when he wrote "Hearty congratulations on getting the permission for this operation. It must have been a gargantuan effort.” Yes, it was indeed! Unfortunately, we also received a couple of unpleasant messages from operators who criticized us for requesting support from the community by overstating project costs, when - in their opinion - we will be guests of the DoC. I must underline that such opinions are completely uninformed, originating from people who didn’t document themselves before wasting someone else’s time. Please allow me to clearly state that neither our transportation nor any other expenses related to our project are covered by the DoC. It is actually the other way around: it is our team who offered transportation to the DoC team. Through us, this is the contribution of Amateur Radio community to their very important MDM project and other research activities they are undertaking. This is the very reason why we were successful in convincing DoC to approve this project. Our team is honored and proud of this partnership, and absolutely thrilled to collaborate with a group of extremely dedicated, top notch researchers into the wildlife of Sub-Antarctic Islands. Any donations will be used to offset a part of our very high travel costs. A Thank You to those of you who have already joined our team by supporting its efforts, and a Please Donate to those who still considering it. Thank you, Cezar, VE3LYC