I’m betting it’s SV/A Mount Athos
The buzz on many of the DX news sites is that the announcement of a big DXpedition to a very rare entity will be made sometime this coming week.
Which entity? KP1 Navassa? P5 North Korea? E3 Eritrea?
Four months ago (Nov 2013), a group of DXpeditioners – the ones who gave us 7O6T – made a trip to Mount Athos and met with Monk Apollo.
Photos from the trip are posted here on David K3LP’s website (scroll about 1/3 of the way down). K3LP was one of the ops at 7O6T.
If it is SV/A, they will be the North American equivalent to Europe’s Clipperton, geographically speaking; we were your wall, now perhaps you’ll be ours!
Many are thinking KP1 Navassa but I think this highly unlikely.
What I’m really waiting to learn is - how long from announcement to the actual operation? We’ll all know soon enough…
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Themocracy
I worked SY2A on 17 SSB when I just got my HF ticket. It was late 2000 and only my 79th QSO ever. There wasn’t even a pile up, which is good because I didn’t even had a real antenna either. My logging software said ‘Mount Athos’. Being a newbie to the game, I had to look up where and what it was (‘A mountain can be a country???’)and only then discovered the DXCC value and its rare status.
I sent $ and SASE and soon after I got a nice full color folded QSL card.
Too bad it was SSB. Last year I was chasing him on 40 CW but he went QRT. There was a big pile up and as a sign of times, it was a real EU mess.
So even if it’s in my backyard: I still need it and it ain’t gonna be easy. Too close for the higher bands, and too much too loud EU lids on the low bands.
I think we all work one very rare country as new DXers – too soon to realize the significance of it. I wonder how many new hams just worked Clipperton and now won’t hear them again for many years. Turkmenistan was like that for me.
Maybe it won’t be Mount Athos though. Ethiopia, Eritrea and others fit the ‘Rare’ category.
I would hate to see a major expedition wasted on an entity which IS already QRV once a month or so, at least lately. There are much better choices which are ONLY QRV when an expedition is there. Something in the top 10?????
QRV monthly to what effect? A mere handful of contacts.
John, a mere handful of contacts which have been SPOTTED. I would guess 8 of 10 are not spotted. We will never know. But, he IS QRV at least monthly…… usually more, and he IS workable, with some luck for timing. We all know he is pretty unpredictable as to sked. TOUGH? Yep…… WORKABLE? Sure, I did it. 73, Gene AF3Y
I’m betting on KP1. K4UEE/Allphin successfully navigated the bureacracy with the US Fish and Wildlife folks for KP5 in early 2009. See http://www.kp5.us/ . KP1 has been on their radar screen for some time now and after a successful/impressive operation to KP5, that team is probably the most likely to get authorization. And it has been nearly 20 yrs since last activated!
I’ll take either one, Guy – they’d both be ATNO’s to me…
I’m betting it’s either KP1, Kingman, or one of the VP8 islands.
73,
Jonathan W6GX
My luck, it probably is Kingman. That’s one rare entity I don’t need…!
My dear John, I’m happy to let you know that the entity you suspect is Mount Athos.
However I really doubt whether K3LP, Hrane and the rest will make it. In the past quite a few Greeks tried to get a licence the same way K3LP & co try (as far as I know SV2GWY tries to help them) but I’m afraid there will be no success, as usual.
Maybe you are already aware of the fact that Greece has changed its amateur radio legislation and besides dropping the 5WPM morse exam, now nobody needs any more any special license in order to operate from Athos with his own personal call (a special permission is required from the monks only in the case of a special call issue) and although this shows an open way, there’s always someone who is an obstacle to any perspective operators from the external world.
In the one and only one-man-land DXCC on this planet, there are strange rules applied; no operations from the outer world are practically allowed, however if a visitor can do CW, he’s most welcome to operate by using monk Apollo’s callsign since Apollo is unable to do any CW and all the CW operations are conducted by his supervision only and not by himself.
Anyway this conversation shouldn’t be made anyway, since Athos shouldn’t be a separate DXCC anyway; it doesn’t fulfill any of the currect DXCC criteria.
I actually hope you are right since I already have KP1. Mt. Athos has been a pain to get in the log because the monk is often on when I’m at work or just not enough of a signal to break through the EU/East Coast wall. So a concentrated operation over several days would be welcome!
John K7KB
I hope so too as Monk Apollo only operates phone when he is on at all. You’re one of the few in the world who have KP1 – congrats!
It’s disappointing that an American entity is off-limits to Americans. I’m sure DXpeditions to sensitive areas (KP5, K5K, etc.) have a stellar record regarding the environmental concerns so often cited.
That, as the reason so often given for denial, is wearing thin and I know of several who think it’s more likely a governmental “power trip” than concerns over flora and fauna.
I re-read the original post and have to confess that I skipped the date info AE5X posted (for the big expedition for the upcoming week) and assumed it was Mount Athos.
I have no clue what is going to be up the upcoming week. What I was referring to was that indeed K3LP, PSE and Hrane were at Greece and try to find a way a through Athos but this won’t happen this week, I guess it will take a few months, and I really doubt if it will ever happen.
The paradox is that if it will happen ARRL will probably recognize the operation but this DXCC itself shouldn’t be DXCC; it’s an obsolete DXCC and besides that there’s always an obstacle that prevents ANY operator to enjoy the amateur radio service from there with the exclusion of a single person who has full privileges.
Regardless of the nuances that constitute an ARRL-approved entity, the fact of your final comment should preclude SV/A from qualifying – unless DXpeditions/guest operations are allowed, thereby demonstrating that the entity is more democratic and less dictatorial regarding operation, the “Amateur Spirit”, etc.
Thanks for your comments, whoever you are! :-)
Let’s not forget that this place is there for one reason only and is considered one of the holiest of places in the Eastern Orthodox religion, similar to how Vatican City is to Catholics. My father, born in San Francisco of Greek immigrants, sought permission to broadcast from there in 1982 and was denied. With letters of recommendation from the priest at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in San Francisco, the Orthodox Archbishop of North America, the past mayors of this city, George Christopher and Art Agnos who were Greek Orthodox, and state senator Petris all stating he was a very active member in good standing with the church, city, and state, and wanted to come there to test communications if an emergency would ever arise, he was denied again. One of his lifetime dreams was to broadcast from there so he just went on a hope and a prayer (literally). With the help of a distant cousin and local hams he had never met before, he just showed up and was able to gain an audience with the commission of priests who reviewed the letters, listened to why he wanted to broadcast, and what the importance of it was. He was finally granted permission but for a very limited time and he had to attend church with the monks, eat with them, and rest at the same time and could only broadcast a few hours each day. He broadcast from there in 1983 as W6LAS/SVA and here is what his card looked like.
http://hamgallery.com/qsl/country/MountAthos/w6las.jpg (with permission of host site)
From what I see, this “need to broadcast from there” attitude assumes this is just like anywhere else in the world, but it is not. I hope this is reviewed closely because my fear is that this place might get used just to log one on the books or send a card, that violates the principals for which Mt. Athos is there. It is a holy place and should be respected for that, and anyone applying for permission to go and broadcast needs to treat the place and its monks with respect and attend services eat and rest there to perhaps learn from this place as my father did.
Philip Derdevanis (W6LAS is no longer silent key. I now have my fathers call sign)