I’ve been collecting my thoughts on the 3Y0J dxpedition, and have finally gotten somewhere that I think is a useful contribution to the discussion about the event. I do recognize that this is widely belated – the event ended a ~month ago – but I haven’t gotten around to writing much these days (and I’ve never been accused of being smart or timely). I also recognize that there is much controversy in the amateur radio community about this, and much ink has already been spilled on it; I’m going to try and avoid treading ground that has already been covered by others. My main point – and I recognize this is usually a refuge of bad analysis, so bear with me – is that we must return to first principles to properly assess this dxpedition.
Before I get too deep into the weeds there, I must explain to my non-amateur radio readership (“readership”, lol) just what exactly I’m talking about: what is 3Y0J and a “dxpedition”?
What are Dxpeditions?
(if you know what a dxpedition is, you can skip to the next section, “the trip to Bouvet”)
In nearly all radio communications – commercial, amateur, military, marine, etc. – each station gets a call sign, which is a unique identifier for that specific station. These call signs are generally some combination of letters and numbers, typically in the Latin alphabet; some countries assign purely domestic stations call signs in the local script, and occasionally local language words are used as a call sign. As a station can be anything (a broadcaster, an aircraft, etc) these call signs are an easy and fast way to identify who is transmitting. These call signs are generally assigned and regulated by a government agency (in the US, the FCC).
For transmissions with international reach, a set of rules formulated by the ITU (International Telecommunications Union, an agency of the United Nations) requires call signs and governs their use. Each country is assigned a prefix – a combination of Latin letters and/or numbers – that they must start their international call signs with, to indicate for foreign receivers where the station is located. For instance, the US is assigned the prefixes K, N, W, and AA-thru-AL. Thus, any station with international reach, including an amateur station, is assigned a call sign starting with one of those letters. The US is actually one of the few countries that assigns callsigns with prefixes to all licensed stations (by longstanding custom).
There are obvious and myriad exceptions (mostly military), but the basic idea is every station has a unique callsign [domestically or internationally]. Now, most countries assign their callsigns by following a set pattern on a first-come, first-serve basis; this is generally alphabetically, geographically, or a hybrid thereof. For instance, I hold the amateur license (and associated call sign) KD2SOG, which follows the FCC’s standard pattern. Canada is somewhat similar, and has assigned specific blocks of prefixes to their provinces & territories for amateur use, and then follows a set alphanumeric pattern within those blocks. I’ll acknowledge that in nearly all countries, vanity call signs are available (and are commonly used by US broadcast stations), but this is just a top-level overview.
Now, many countries have territories outside the main body of the country (for a variety of reasons). The US, for example, has not just Alaska & Hawaii, but many “minor outlying islands“, etc. Most countries – including the US – assign a separate block of callsigns specifically to these outlying territories. For example, while Denmark is assigned prefixes from OU-thru-OZ, it reserves the prefix OX for use of their territory Greenland. The enforcement of how strongly these are kept away from the country’s mainland does vary; for instance, Alaska is assigned the (sub-)prefixes KL, NL, WL, and AL for amateur radio use (to facilitate identification of an Alaskan station), but enforcement is weak and many mainland amateurs have a nominally Alaskan call sign.
Most specialty call signs, however, are fairly strictly controlled. Additionally, many of these territories & areas are fairly uninhabited, or even restricted zones. For instance, Navassa Island, holding call sign prefix KP1, is an uninhabited minor outlying island of the US in the Caribbean and requires a special environmental reserve permit to enter (which is rarely granted). As these codes remain assigned and active, but are rarely used, an amateur radio hobby of “dxpeditions” cropped up: mounting a trip to one of these places to get to use one of the codes (and allow others to receive transmissions from that code). The ARRL (American Radio Relay League, the amateur radio US community’s association) maintains a list of the distinct “entities” recognized as having a unique & active call sign prefix: there are currently 340 (well more than the 193 UN members).
The name dxpedition comes from “DX“, an amateur shorthand for the practice & hobby of receiving distant stations, and “expedition” due to the remoteness of many of these places (there is often an element of survival and planning involved). This is related to the hobby of communicating with all the subdivisions within a country, such as all 50 US states or 13 Canadian provinces & territories. Indeed, many dxpeditions are mounted to remote areas within a country proper that don’t have a separate special code; for instance, the Canadian territory of Nunavut, while assigned a regular Canadian prefix and not considered a separate entity by the ARRL, has less than 2 dozen licensed amateurs, is rarely heard on the air, and is extremely remote (as a result, it is often targeted for dxpeditions).
This, finally leads me to 3Y0J and the recent dexpedition to Bouvet.
The Trip to Bouvet
Bouvet island is the most remote island in the the world. It lies in the South Atlantic about ~1100 miles from the nearest land (in Antarctica) and ~1600 miles from South Africa. It is administered by Norway as a nature preserve; access is nominally somewhat restricted, although in reality the island’s remoteness is the far bigger barrier. Bouvet is extremely rarely visited: more humans have been to space than to Bouvet. The last [known] humans to step foot on the island did so in 2012, when a group of climbers from New Zealand finally scaled the dormant volcano at the island’s center; as the climbing team was only 5 people, this means more folks have walked on the moon (12) than on the summit of Bouvet.
The prior dxpedition to Bouvet occurred over New Years 2007-2008, and Bouvet is the second-rarest confirmed contact on the ARRL’s list (after North Korea), making it a highly-desired contact for amateurs. Norway is assigned several international radio prefixes, including 3Y; Norway assigns the 3Y prefix to their outlying territories, plus a random number and letter for each dxpedition to their outer lands. The call sign 3Y0J was assigned to the Feb 2023 dxpedition, and after many months of planning and weeks of travel, they reached Bouvet on Feb 6. The weather on the island in February is a typical high of 40° F, with frequent rainfall; it was substantially worse during this trip, with frequent storms and heavy winds.
The 3Y0J dexpedition was unable to use Zodiac boats to carry their equipment to shore, eventually donning arctic survival suits and jumping into the water to carry equipment ~100meters to shore. They were eventually forced to pack up and leave several days later (14 Feb) due to a coming severe storm, and have returned safely to South Africa (at time of writing). A full summary of their experiences on the island is available here (their website is available here, and Facebook page here). The event cost ~$750,000 USD (funded by donations & grants), had a goal of 200,000 contacts, and left after ~7,000 contacts.
This dxpedition, and some actions around it (which I will get into), has sparked some controversy in the amateur radio community. In particular, the limited number of contacts made has been a notable point of contention. That is what I’d like to discuss now: how do we measure the success (or failure) of a dxpedition? As I said at the beginning, we must return to first principles, and that’s what I’d like to get into now.
First Principles
I’m gonna bend the definition of first principles a little and use the term to mean “basic propositions” which is not wholly what that term actually means; I’m engaging in some rhetoric here, not rigorous philosophical or scientific inquiry, so please lend me some rope. There are really just two first principles that I’d like to lay out, and I’ll illustrate them with two questions: what is the point of amateur radio, and what makes an experiment a success or failure.
On the first point, what is the point of amateur radio, we must ask ourselves: Why do we do this? Sure, it’s a cool hobby (being able to chat with people all around the world), but is that really it? Is that what thousands hours of time and in expense go towards? Do governments grant us licenses and spectrum (which many corporations would love to use themselves) just so less than a million people [in the US] can have a neat hobby? A variety of factors, including the breadth of amateur radio groups performing community service, technologies developed by radio amateurs, and laws governing amateurs, illustrates that it’s not just a hobby: the point of amateur radio is to benefit society & the public.
This is best summarized [to me at least] by the words “to advance the art and science of radio”; everything else that comes after is fringe benefits from engaging in that single (and noble!) goal. Those words are written into the charters & bylaws of dozens of amateur radio clubs & organizations (including the ARRL), and it is the best definition of why amateurs engage in this hobby. Advancing the art & science of radio takes many forms, including developing new technologies, honing one’s own skills (not just as a radio operator, but in related fields), community service, preparedness, educating others etc.; all the “fun stuff” is just a dividend that we amateurs get for furthering those goals to the benefit of society writ large.
Thus, the point of amateur radio is to benefit society by advancing the art & science of radio. Lets hold that point in mind while we move to the second point: what makes an experiment a success?
A simple metric for success might be “proving your experiment’s hypothesis true”, but there are many famous experiments that failed to prove their hypothesis. For example, the Michaelson-Morley experiment attempted to prove the existence of an “aether”, and demonstrated instead it didn’t exist. Indeed, the failure of that experiment eventually led to a breakthrough: Einstein formulating the theory of relativity, as a better explanation for the observed reality. Success or failure in the nominal goal of any experiment (that is, verifying a hypothesis) is far less important than the actual goal of adding to human knowledge.
Of course, an “experiment” is not just a set procedure in a laboratory, and this principle applies to many fields of endeavor beyond the scientific. Building human knowledge is a noble goal, and indeed is the point of many daily activities; significant improvements in sports, medicine, business, even cooking, have often been garnered by the daily incremental development of knowledge. Those increments may be large or small, but ultimately they’re working towards the same end: improving society and our understanding of the world around us. I’ll acknowledge that there is certainly bias towards experiments that succeed (failures are far less likely to be published…), but I believe the point about accumulating knowledge stands.
Applying principles to the Bouvet Dxpedition
So, now, we have two key principles: the point of amateur radio is to advance the art & science of radio, and the success of any endeavor must be judged on its contribution of human knowledge. Both principles are rooted in the idea of the betterment of society writ large. Applying them to the Bouvet Island 3Y0J dxpedition then leads me to one simple conclusion: it was a success. Not necessarily a rousing one, to be sure, but a success. 3Y0J benefited the art and science of radio (and the amateur radio community), contributed to broader human knowledge, and did so for the betterment of society; it must not be judged by the failure to meet their goal of 200,000 contacts. The gains in knowledge outweigh that frustration.
The 3Y0J team, through their experiences getting to and landing on the island, illustrated several key points which will benefit amateur radio, and I’d like to go over a few. Before I begin, I will say that many dxpeditions to Bouvet (and other places!) have returned home completely empty-handed, being unable to land on the island and setup radios at all. The simple fact the team did so, and returned home safely, is better than many others; we must not lose sight of the fact that this was an accomplishment. Now, to my points about the benefits for the art & science of radio and society.
Firstly, 3Y0J demonstrated the difficulty of landing on an [antarctic] island with inflatable Zodiac boats, and the only reason any success was had at all is the resilience of the crew; now future dxpeditions know [more about] the impracticability of the zodiac landing or a “rope to buoy” ferry system and may consider the alternative, a helicopter for significant additional expense, at Bouvet or otherwise. Additionally, the state of the glacier was not what the crew was expecting (after advice from the Norwegian government), and how the glaciers are shifting on Bouvet is essential for future landings there.
The landing was also complicated by the fact the Norwegian government, since 2005, will only grant permission to land at the relatively unusual location of Cape Fie instead of Nyrøysa (where the automated weather station is). As this was the first [as far as I can determine] dxpedition to land and stay overnight on Cape Fie (the 2007-08 3Y0E dxpedition was at Nyrøysa as part of a scientific team there), the team garnered essential knowledge about future landings & camps on Cape Fie: someone has to do it first and find what works and doesn’t. Their difficulties inform future trips to Bouvet’s Cape Fie, and indeed other inhospitable islands.
Secondly, the limiting factor that fuel for generators is for many dxpeditions (from what I understand, most of the ~600kg landed on the island was gasoline) is also notable; future dxpeditions, again at Bouvet or otherwise, may choose alternative power sources such as solar. I actually want to emphasize this point a bit, as recent gains in economies of scale have made solar panels, inverters, and lithium batteries price competitive with fossil generators: a 100-watt solar panel is around $90 now, whereas a 1000-watt Honda gasoline generator is around $1000. While solar will also require inverters and batteries, perhaps another $1000, the fuel savings for a multi-day dxpedition quickly tips the scale in favor of solar, with the added benefit of less weight to haul onto land.
Thirdly, much of the planning was, unfortunately, unrealistic. Ferrying equipment, some of which weighed hundreds of pounds (e.g 3x ~150kg diesel generators?!), in an inflatable Zodiac was always going to be, at best, quite difficult. Perhaps a reassessment of both how these events are planned is in order; something quite clearly is broken if nobody (be it the Norwegian government, grant teams, etc.) said “this is an unrealistic idea and shouldn’t go forward.” I am not in a position to speculate on what that may look like (I do not have such expertise). In that vein, alternative & backup plans are also warranted (from what I understand, many decisions here were made on-the-fly); reacting to conditions is appropriate, but there should be a pre-formulated plan to do so.
Fourthly, the importance of FT8 (for non-amateur readers, a digital radio mode that communicates via encoded text) was decidedly shown during this event. It is an incredibly popular mode now, possibly more so than anything besides voice. I appreciate that it remains unpopular in some quarters, but given both its ease of making contacts en masse and its meteoric rise in popularity, it [in my opinion] should be prioritized for future dxpeditions. 3Y0J chose not to operate an automated FT8 station, and I believe that was a mistake; the sheer volume of hams attempting to contact 3Y0J could have been alleviated using an automated FT8 system. Further discussion of the role of FT8 is definitely warranted (again, I don’t have enough expertise to comment one way or the other).
Fifth and finally, the dxpedition advanced other fields besides radio. For example, as I mentioned, the team noted that the glacier on the island had shifted significantly from the last time it was viewed (as an aside, you may think “what about satellite imagery”, but given Bouvet’s relative unimportance and routine fog cover, it was last imaged clearly by a satellite in 2009), and did not match the projections. This is tremendously useful information for the scientists who study oceans, the arctic, climate, etc. The radio amateur team that actually went to the island gathered data and improved scientists’ understanding of our planet’s climate by reporting that data and gathering on-the-ground/sea images of the state of the glaciers.
Indeed, I think the goal 200,000 contacts, while laudable, was not actually the main goal; as I mentioned earlier, the goal of any dxpedition is to use the callsign, not to meet an arbitrary goal of contacts with it. I believe that goal of making 200,000 contacts, particularly for those of us not in the middle of the South Atlantic, is one of the “dividends” I mentioned earlier. Would I, and many other people, like to tick the box next to “Bouvet” in the list of DX entities that I’ve contacted? Absolutely. But that is an ancillary benefit, a nice thing I’d like to have, a trophy for the case, and not the main goal of amateur radio.
The team met the main goals of radio by advancing the art & science thereof (as I enumerated above), improved human knowledge of remote island landings and the climate of the South Atlantic, and did so at great personal risk. They also provided average hobbyists around the world a dividend of getting that rare contact. 3Y0J is, judged by the principles I elucidated in the prior section, a success. We are not entitled to a cool certificate because of our involvement in this hobby, or if we contribute money to a dxpedition; we can only hope to better our society and planet.
Bad Actors during the Event
Another, unfortunate point (which I hinted at earlier) that must be mentioned about 3Y0J is it illustrated the surprisingly wide prevalence of bad actors in the amateur radio community [globally]. I don’t necessarily just mean stations that didn’t follow the established contact procedures; many of those I’m willing to chalk up as inexperienced (barring other evidence), and while harmful were generally not malicious. I’m referring to folks who did know better doing significant bad operating, such as calling when they couldn’t hear the distant station. Those acts significantly hindered the capacity of 3Y0J to make contacts, as it generated significant background noise (“QRM”, in ham radio parlance) or drowned out 3Y0J’s relatively weak signals entirely.
I can’t say one way or another if bad operating like that was done maliciously, but regardless, it was still folks who should know better instead significantly hindering the task. Furthermore, there was definitely malicious activity during the dxpedition, and at a significant clip. The 3Y0J team was routinely actively jammed by multiple unknown stations throughout their time at Bouvet, which hindered – if not blocked outright – 3Y0J’s radios. Additionally, there was a still-unknown quantity of stations pretending to be 3Y0J (often called “pirates” or “bootleggers”) operating as well. Based on my review of forum posts, etc. the quantity of deliberately malicious activity was shocking, even to veteran operators.
3Y0J was actively hindered to a significant degree for the majority of their time on the island, which is a real shame; the 3Y0J team carries no blame for these bad actors, which is why this is a separate section. I’m certainly not the first person to note this – HRCC has a good video on it – but I felt it warranted a discussion. I don’t know what the solution is, but something is rotten in the state of radio right now. There have always been bad actors but the sheer volume during 3Y0J was shocking and illustrates – to me, anyway – that the rot is a lot deeper than expected. I could even cast this as a paradoxical benefit of the 3Y0J dxpedition: it illustrated the depth of the rot in such a way that would not have been likely to occur otherwise.
Regardless, the bad actor problem is clearly getting worse, and future dxpeditions can expect to be hindered in a similar way if action is not taken to clean this behavior up. I will make one final point here: we are a self-regulated community. If the government catches wind that the community routinely misuses the frequencies we’ve been allocated (i.e. lets these jammers, pirates, etc. slide) and decides to take action themselves, at best we face some additional legal requirements & regulations, while at worst they could reallocate the frequencies from amateurs to the telecoms corporations (who are currently chomping at the bit for them).
Concluding Remarks
I recognize my position[s] here may be somewhat controversial. I understand quite a few members of the community hold strong opinions about the 3Y0J dxpedition; for what it’s worth, despite all the ink I’ve spilled here, I do not actually hold a particularly strong viewpoint one way or the other. This is a hobby, and hobbies should not be something to get inflamed about. I wrote this because it’s something I found interesting and I enjoy posting my stupid opinions on the internet (it’s one of my own infrequent hobbies). The 3Y0J dxpedition was, in my opinion, a success, and while everything did not go as planned, much valuable information was gleaned from it. The community should laud the team for their efforts.