Topband: RI1ANF

[Jeff Woods]

Here's an interesting story:

In the early 90's, I worked as a ship-board radio officer.  At one of the training conferences, I met a fellow RO who also worked at the McMurdo Antarctic base when he wasn't on ships.  During one of our (many and frequent) conversations after hours at the hotel bar, he mentioned an odd propagation mode at 5 kHz which only seemed to be present from pole-to-pole.  The physics of this propagation are still unclear to me, but the salient point is that he also described the antenna.  


It was a simple dipole, cut for resonance, and strung for miles along the icecap.  Ice is a good insulator, and the ice cap is thick enough to give a "ground mounted" dipole reasonable height even at VLF.  

At 160m, a dipole on the ice would act as though it were essentially in free-space.

Feel free to fact check me on this.  I was young.  We were sailors.  And we were drinking.  :-)  But it does bode well for helping Herb get his Antarctic merit badge some day.


-Jeff  W0ODS





>________________________________
> From: Herb Schoenbohm <herbs at vitelcom.net>
>To: Gary at ka1j.com 
>Cc: Topband at contesting.com 
>Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2012 3:55 PM
>Subject: Re: Topband: RI1ANF
> 
>You have me excited for a moment as I need Antarctica on 160. I have 
>already worked South Orkney, South Shetland, Falklands, Bouvet and Peter 
>I on TB but for some reason Antarctica has just not been there for me 
>even though there are always active hams there.  Maybe I worked some 
>other operation there years ago but never entered the call as a new 
>one....but there must be some operation on TB from Antarctica....like I 
>mean just tie some insulated wire on a snow cat and lay it on the snow. 
>Drive north for a half a mile.....and put in a 600 ohm non inductive 
>resistor and drive another 135 feet for a Beverage self termination 
>without a ground connection and you should be able to hear everything 
>that comes on the band from NA during the long periods of darkness when 
>they go into real winter.
>
>Herb Schoenbohm, KV4FZ
>
>
>
>
>5/31/2012 12:18 PM, Gary Smith wrote:
>> Thanks to some off list replies My logging program (which means me as
>> well) is apparently incorrect and this is a south shetland Q. Though
>> I liked the idea of it being Antarctica as my father as a young ham
>> made contact with Byrds expedition. However, I also need South
>> Shetlands on TB so I'm still most happy.
>>
>> Thank you for the correction!
>>
>> Gary
>> KA1J
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> What a surprise to hear Antarctica last night. Apparently the band
>>> has some nice unexpected gems to be found on it here in Connecticut.
>>>
>>> Gary
>>> KA1J
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
>>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
>
>_______________________________________________
>UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
>
>
>