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Almost Secret Mission to Mt Athos SV/A

Greetings from Skiathos, Greece. (Zulu + 3 Hrs) I know this is not what many of you think of this as a traditional DXpedition but it has taken me similar costs and planning to try to pull this off. XYL and I are on board the Sea Dream 1 a small cruising Yacht in the Agean Sea heading towards Istanbul. Tomorrow September 08, we will be sailing by Mt Athos SV/A a particularly rare DX location because the only licensed ham is Monk Apollo who is limited on the number of days a year he can speak. Mt Athos is a celibate religious principality where women are not allowed and landing is only permitted for men with permits reserved for adherents to the local religious practice. Needless to say I do not qualify for a permit and Monk Apollo jealously guards his ham exclusivity so they never authorize third party ham operations To add to the difficulty the yacht captain refuses to land on Mt Athos because he would be fined and lose his transit permits. However if you are willing to throw enough money at a problem there is invariably a solution. I have engaged a Zodiac (large rubber boat) to rendezvous with the yacht to take me and my equipment (Ipad, Bluetooth headset, 4G Wifi Hotspot, MacBook Air, external Wifi Hotspot antenna) as close as possible to Mt Athos. It will be remote country #26 for me via my Flex SDR radios. I hope to actually put a foot or two onshore while making a QSO albeit everyone locally seems to be rather afraid of the religious authorities. However a few extra €$ seems to have mitigated those fears somewhat. The Zodiac Rendezvous is supposed to be at 0500Z 09/08/15. I should be ashore around 0515 bit could be delayed by weather for hopefully 5-15 minutes or as long as the Zodiac owners are comfortable that they won't be hit with a big fines (I get to pay any fines) I plan to use 14.195 BUT the the Over the Horizon Radar blazing away, I may move up 10-20Khz. I will be remoting to my station KY6LA in La Jolla, CA somewhere around 0500-1000z...to my Flex 6700. I will be using one or two of several different Remote Apps....Parallels Access for IPad, K6TU remote for iPad, and Don Agro's MacBook App for Flex. .. Amazing how many remote options there are for the Flex now without the need for any extra equipment at home. What could go wrong? 1. Weather may not cooperate. It's supposed to be windy and raining tomorrow and we are in a small tropical storm right now. The captain already told us we will be at Mt Athos at 0500z instead of 0700z as planned 2. The Zodiac could miss the rendezvous - very possible especially with the weather and the change of schedule. 3. The local authorities could be waiting for us to prevent a landing - unlikely (Free KY6LA fund for Bail soon) 4. The wifi hotspot could be out of range of a 3G or 4G signal. (Most likely) albeit I have had very good results with the outside gain antenna. Or the 3G connection could be just too slow or unrealizable. 5. A myriad of technical glitches either at my end or in La Jolla...not likely as it worked 100% from Skiathos today. 6. 20M propagation from La Jola will ****. probably great to VK at that time. So please listen for me and hope I make it I need at least 1 Q from Mt Athos to make it from Country #26
4
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Comments
Thanks for your approval. Hope to work you tomorrow
Cheers Howard, and be safe - not sure if the local constable would grant you the same civil rights as back in the homeland. I hope to stay up and listen for you - do not want you to go to all that and not get a new country count for your remote ops.
I have started a bail fund at the Bank of Athens. Credit cards, PayPal, and bitcoin are accepted. I am told that we can only withdraw $65 per day, so it may be a while before Howard and his XYL are re-united.
I just returned from the Vietnam border with China. Great internet connection at my small mountain hotel room in Sapa, an outpost of the previous French occupation. I then traveled to Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. Everywhere I went I had much faster internet connections than I have here on San Juan Island, Washington.
I sincerely hope this isn't a trend ... working the world via the internet. Yawn ...
W7NGA dan
San Juan Island, Wa.
Cheers
But Howard is on a quest and so I will listen for him and see if he can get a contact from me or someone else so he can check off another country to his list. If he can get off the boat without Customs dragging him away. It seems pretty risky and being able to buy your way out might not work. But I hope he stays safe. Doubt if there is any 4G internet in the internment camps . . Let alone a place to set a laptop !
Cheers
sorry your target for admiration is very much mis-guided
but cements what impresssion I already had
Nothing is this is anywhere near heroic - its foolhardy and without thought of the consequences
Simon ZL4PLM
And even better that you used internet, because the bands are D E A D here,
because of major storm...