Tales from a Serial Sniper: ZD9- Gough Island

OnAllBands is thrilled to feature articles from noted author and amateur radio DXing legend Bob Locher, W9KNI. Bob will be sharing his favorite DXing memories along with insights on what it took to capture the rarest of the rare.

“I have always been a DX chaser,” he told OnAllBands. “I am not a contester of the usual type—working 200 Q’s an hour has no attraction for me. I am instead the kind that lays in the weeds, always listening, always tuning—and for me, a 30-second exchange after three months of stalking can be a very satisfying conclusion.”

We know you’ll enjoy articles from his “Tales from a Serial Sniper” series as much as we do at OnAllBands.

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The DXCC country list shows ZD9 as being assigned to Tristan da Cunha and Gough islands. These islands, in the far southeast Atlantic Ocean, have always been considered rare DXCC entities. There has been sporadic operation by native islanders on Tristan da Cunha, but it has been always infrequent and not normally available to DXers.

There has never been a large-scale DXpedition from there, mainly due to very limited accommodations on the ship serving the island. Every few years, a solo DXer would manage to get transport and operate for a few weeks, but even with such operation, the island is considered very rare.

Gough Island is also part of the ZD9 DXCC grouping. The island is uninhabited, save for a weather station operated by the government of South Africa. A small crew, typically around six people, maintain the weather station. The island, of volcanic origin, is roughly rectangular, about eight miles long and three miles wide. Most of the island is covered by rugged mountains, rising to near three thousand feet. The central spine of the island runs roughly northwest to southeast. The weather station is sited at the southeast end of the island, facing toward South Africa, which also features the only flat area of the island.

A ZD9, while not new for me for my overall DXCC, would be an extremely attractive addition for my DX Marathon entry for the year. Then, even as I do now, I always carefully checked DX Bulletins and news sources for reports of rare DX. Reports started filtering through from South African stations of an operator from the weather station on Gough Island, operating on a fixed frequency on 20 meters SSB. His name was Graham, and his call sign ZD9BJ. Further research provided me with an email address.

I sent him an email, asking about his operation, in hopes of perhaps getting a schedule. I received a fairly prompt response, with some information. The radio he was using was a channelized 100-watt commercial transceiver, which had a single frequency available on 20 meters SSB—14.183 MHz. The antenna was a simple antenna, optimized for traffic to South Africa. He wrote that he had never heard nor worked a North American station from there. He did give me the times he was usually on working hams in South Africa.

The hunt was on! Armed with that information, I began watching that frequency every evening when 20 meters was open to South Africa at his suggested times. Fortunately, we had a path to southern Africa during those times, so I figured that could work.

After several weeks of drawing blanks, one evening (local time) I got luckier. I heard a fairly strong South African station rag-chewing on the designated frequency. At first he did not use a call sign, but he was complaining about the weather in Pretoria, so I had a pretty good idea I was in the right ballpark. He turned it over to the other station. I could hear nothing. I waited. He came back on and began to end the contact, stating his need to get breakfast and then on to work. After another brief exchange, he signed clearly, “ZD9BJ, from ZS6KJ, clear and closing down.” Hah! The game was afoot!

But I could not hear a whisper of the ZD9. Another South African called the ZD9 and made a contact. I absolutely could not hear a trace of any signal whatsoever from the ZD9, not even in my imagination! The band should have been open to Gough Island—of that I was confident.

The total lack of a received signal bothered me. I was sure I should have at least been able to detect something if not good copy, but there was nothing.

A day or so later, I thought to check out Gough Island in Wikipedia. I found a rather comprehensive article about the island, compete with a map showing terrain and the site of the South African weather station compound. I was able to quickly to determine the problem. The weather station was on the southeast corner of the island.

A range of mountains runs down the spine of the island, one end virtually anchored by the weather station, and running straight and true on the path to North America, with a three- thousand-foot peak in the center, rising from the perimeter of the weather station. An impenetrable eight-mile-long granite curtain. No wonder signals could not be heard in North America. I was seriously disheartened.

That night, I was lying in bed mentally bemoaning my fate, when suddenly I got an inspiration. What about long path? Ye-s-s-s. That could work! We have reliable long path openings in our morning hours to South Africa—why not to Gough Island? And instead of my signals having to traverse a mountain range, they would be coming through the back door, over the water.

So, what is “long path”? It is the long way around the Earth. As an example: If you were in Chicago going to London, your flight would take you across the North Atlantic to get there. But you could go the other way, across the Pacific Ocean, then over the Indian Ocean, on across east Africa, then eastern Europe and into London. Obviously, the distance is much farther, but it would get you there. The radio equivalent to that is “long path.” Most of the time, we use “short path” for radio communication. Sometimes that path will not work for a variety of reasons, but long path will work. With directional antennas, we can try either path for best results.

In the morning, I had a look at the great circle map in the shack. While the long path distance to Gough from my station was about 16,000 miles, it was virtually all over saltwater. Saltwater paths are especially reliable—the attenuation of signals traversing them is much reduced compared to signals going over large bodies of land.

Excited again about the renewed hope of a contact, I sent Graham another email, telling him I thought we had a much better chance of a contact during his evening—the time for my morning long path opening. Graham had not struck me as being a regular HF operator, so I gave him the time both in UTC (Universal Coordinated Time) and Pretoria time.

Later that morning I received a response from him. My suggestion was not a normal operating time for him, but he would have a go at it the following day—my next morning. I had trouble getting to sleep that night, eager for the attempt of the next morning.

Dawn came, and I arose full of hope. Thirty minutes ahead of the scheduled time, all was set to go. Antenna pointed for the long path. Amplifier tuned and peaked. Headset on and comfortable. Coffee cup at hand. Pencil at the ready. I began to tune the band. Signals were coming in, and though it was a bit early for the path to be open I heard a fairly strong South African station. Things were looking up.