OnAllBands is thrilled to feature articles from noted author and amateur radio DXing legend Bob Locher, W9KNI.
Today, Bob remembers building the Elecraft K2 kit when it was released and using it to make an eleventh-hour QSO with Chuck Brady, N4BQW (SK)—the sole operator on the historic 3Y0C activation of Bouvet Island 26 years ago. Bob also talks about the past use of DXpedition “lists” and their role in DXing.
Be sure to check out these other fine articles in Bob’s Serial Sniper series from OnAllBands:
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Bouvet Island has been much in the DX world news this year, thanks to the terrific operation by the 3Y0K team.
In 1999, I was residing in rural Sonoma County, California. I had a good setup and lived on a ridge. My station at the time was a KWM-380 transceiver, driving a Henry 3KA amplifier to 1,500 watts out, and a Skyhawk tri-bander 60 feet high.
Editor’s Note: The 20/15/10M Skyhawk Yagi has been sold exclusively through DX Engineering since 2014.
It was a fine DXing station, and I was becoming bored with it all. I loved working new countries, but at that point I had worked pretty much everything that was available, and the occasions to work new ones were very rare events.
So what to do?
I knew I had a problem and was kicking around several possibilities in my head. At a DX Club meeting in September, Eric Swartz, WA6HHQ, (co-founder of Elecraft) made a presentation of the new Elecraft K2 to the group. The radio was only offered as a kit. At $599 plus tax I could get a radio good for about 12 watts out on all the HF bands. For an additional $89 I could get the SSB module for the radio. I was fully prepared to be unimpressed, right up until I sat down and listened to it for perhaps five minutes. That was enough to make me realize this could be a serious piece of gear. I went home from the meeting in a thoughtful mood and placed my order a few days later.
Building & Operating the K2
I know what I’m doing with a soldering iron. In my younger days, having more time than money, I assembled Heathkits for myself and others. Summers in high school and college I worked in an electronics factory as an assembler and later as a technician. I built a KW amplifier from scratch. It had been years since I had undertaken any serious soldering project more than putting PL-259s onto coax. But I was game.
The kit arrived. It was very well organized and had a good assembly manual. It took me roughly 35 hours to build. Did it work the first time I applied power? Well… sort of. But there was no BFO, so I could not copy CW or SSB. A look at the circuit diagram gave me a suspicion. Sure enough, I had wired in a diode backward. Twenty minutes later, joy! It was working beautifully. It was putting out a maximum power of 12 watts. Now, the QRP police will pull you over for exceeding five watts output, but I didn’t care. For me, 12 watts was close enough.
I set it up on a table next to my main rig and started working with it. Hey, this was fun! I put the radio on 20 meters and almost immediately started working DX with my mighty 12 watts. I do have to say that having a Skyhawk at 60 feet was, in modern terms, a significant force multiplier. Anyhow, the little box I had built had all the tools I needed to be a CW DXer. Split operation was well integrated. CW output was exceptionally clean—no clicks. The receiver was very sensitive. It had wonderful AGC characteristics and good receive selectivity.
Almost immediately, I began running a country count for QSOs with the little box. I was having a ball—the DXing juices flowing again. After several weeks, I assembled and installed the SSB module. Let me be honest: SSB has never been my favorite mode. I love CW DXing and like to think I’m fairly competent at it. That said, within limitations, SSB operation with the K2 was very acceptable. But for sure, 12 watts on SSB is a lot less effective than 12 watts of CW.
OK, now that I have explained my QRP credentials, let’s fast forward to working Bouvet Island with my little box.
Bouvet Island, a small island in the far southeast Atlantic Ocean, is considered the world’s most remote island and has always been a rare country for DXers. The first significant DXpedition of modern times was the 3Y5X operation in late December 1989/early January 1990. It racked up 50,000 contacts on CW, SSB, and RTTY. But even with that many successful contacts, Bouvet remained in the top ten list of needed entities.
Norway had assigned the prefix 3Y to stations there, but of course, normally there were none. Ten years later, the DX Community was electrified when 3Y0C came on the air. By design, the activation was totally unannounced ahead of time. The sole operator was Chuck Brady, N4BQW. Chuck’s resume, both in life and in ham radio, was exceptional. Professionally, he was an MD. He was a naval captain, NASA astronaut, and well-regarded scientist. In his ham radio career, he had contacted students while on the space shuttle Columbia as part of the Shuttle Amateur Radio EXperiment program (SAREX).
After he completed his astronaut tour, he helped activate Kure Island, Palmyra, Kingman Reef, Midway Island, Wake Island, and Baker and Howland islands—all rare countries. Then, in December 2000, came the stunning announcement that he had begun operation as the solo ham operator from Bouvet Island, serving as a member of a Norwegian scientific expedition. (Sadly, I use the past tense in all of this because Chuck passed away in 2006.)
In spite of extremely difficult weather conditions—with winds topping 120 mph—and heroic efforts to keep antennas up, he was able to make 17,000 contacts, the bulk of them on SSB. Near the end of his operation, I was not in the…
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- Bob Locher, W9KNI, in his Dawn Patrol uniform. (Image/W9KNI)
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- 3Y5X QSL card (Image/DX Engineering)
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