Complete books are written on social media about this expedition.
A success ? a total failure ? something in between ?
I don't know. I worked them only once, just like FT8WW, VK0IR, 3Y0X, VK0MM and other special ones in that region.
My english is not good enough to write down my remarks, it would be too much black/white while the real story is grey.
But I have questions, many questions :
1. Funds received from corporate and private sponsors arrived at about 800.000 US$. Well done ! The goal was 12 HP stations on the air, several weeks on the island and achieving 150.000-200.000 QSO.
How high would sponsoring have been if they had communicated that this could be limited to two 100W stations with simple wire antennas ? Was story-telling part of the marketing strategy ?
2. What if the vessel - or a similar one - used by the VK0IR/3Y0X team was used ? Helicopter in stead of a zodiac ? A real boat in stead of a sailing ship. What if the VK0IR or 3Y0X team went to Bouvet ? 3Y0X made almost 87.000 QSO on all bands. Was this a lucky shot or the result of a perfect planning and better choices ?
3. What's going on with pirates and QRM makers ? With only 100W on the island, almost every station in the world was able to disturb. What if 1500 W was used ? Did the ham community change so quickly and so badly ?
4. 3Y0J communicated their poor setup and conditions and asked for working them only once to give a chance to as much hams as possible.
184 QSO were made by Belgian amateurs. ON7** made 8 QSOs !! I can't understand this. Why should one make a contact on 15m SSB+CW+data and on 17m SSB+CW+data ? Not one award gives points for so many combinations. I only see one reason as an anwer to that question : a selfish operator.
5. Is it needed to count an unhabitated rock somewhere at the end of the world as a DXCC entity ?
6. Many hams are complaining they could't work Bouvet. Can you expect to work such a most-wanted expedition with a 3 element and some power ? This is an important question for my own station ? Is my setup sufficient to work every dxpedition ?
But, suppose I had a 5 element 20m monoband antenna in stead of my 3 el Steppir. Not one contact was made on 20m with ON-stations. In this case it was much better to have many smaller antennas in stead of one big one.
7. Does FT8 comply with big expeditions on remote locations without internet time-control ? Is there a standard for F/H in WSJT, MSHV and JTDX ?
Multi-channel DXing in FT8 costs several dB on transmitting side. If only 100W can be used on a wire, isn't more logic to use the basic FT8 modus ?
8. Am I the only one that classifies the TN8K Congo expedition as THE expedition of 2023 ?
