JW: I told you we’d make it!

Here’s a story about two foolishly naive operators that went to Svalbard, not knowing what they threw themselves into. Saddle up and prepare for a roller-coaster of emotions! Witness the diet that makes Dr. Now from “My 600lb life” break down in tears! Experience the pain from sleep deprivation and stress!

Wait, am I selling this story right?

Oh, t’was an early winter morning, Friday January 24th. The alarm went off at 03:45 in the morning, and Kristoffer was on his way to pick me up for a ride to the airport. Luckily, I went to bed just before midnight, so I had a solid foundation of four hours sleep.

Time for “take two” at attempting to conquer Svalbard, and at this point I had already made it perfectly clear to everyone that if I, for whatever reason, would fail again, I would move to another country to start a new life there, in shame.

Admittedly, moving abroad sounds like an awfully lot of work. Instead, we made an extra effort to ensure that the luggage was within the airline tolerances this time. We carefully measured our suitcases in every possible way – width, height, depth, and weight. Even time.

In case you didn’t figure it out: by “we” I actually mean “me.”

Let’s not bury ourselves in details and dwell over the past, because we made it! Look!

We collected our bags and took the shuttle bus to Longyearbyen, which is just 10-15 minutes away. The bus driver happily let us off near the JW5E shack, so we didn’t have to drag our suitcases for a long distance. We threw our bags in the shack and went shopping for everything we needed to survive. You know, snacks, potato chips, beers, microwave meals, and energy drinks.

We had already been warned by experienced operators of the risk with radio conditions from Svalbard, especially at this time of year. We should expect anything from awesome to gruesome.

Upon arrival we bravely dug our way through the snow into the shack.

You see, sometimes it snows on Svalbard.

About an hour later we had our gear installed and was ready for operation. We started out with a quick sked with some friends back home, in mainland Norway. This would be a ballpark test of the current conditions, and just to get us started.

Turns out that everything worked great, and it didn’t take long before all Hell broke lose.

They heard us allright, and so did everyone else on the planet!

The pileups grew exponentially, minute by minute! It didn’t take long before we were swamped with callers on every band.

*In this photo: Minutes before our innocence was ruined*

*JW5E mast, 26 meters tall.*
*Aurora not guaranteed.*

Turns out the conditions were no less than amazing!

Consequently the pile-ups went crazy, as in good kind of crazy.

It would be unfair to compare a DXCC like Svalbard (most wanted #185) to, say, Market Reef (#148) which I have also operated from. In all seriousness, I would say the pile-ups we had were maybe 3-4 times as massive.

This was unexpected and took me by complete surprise.
I was mentally prepared to call CQ for a long time.

It also dawned upon me that our planned stay at Svalbard was way, way too short.

Let me tell you. Even with 5-10 split up, the SSB pileups might as well have been simplex, from my point of view. I couldn’t hear a thing, not able to catch a single letter or digit. Not because my reception was poor, which it wasn’t – and not because my hearing is bad, which it is – but the amount of callers turned into a long “woosh” similar to brown noise. Obviously, the QSO rate dropped, as I had to work a long time to catch a callsign and ask multiple times due to other impatient operators piling over.

It was as exhilarating as it was exhausting. Watching the log entries pour in flooded the brain with all the good chemicals. We kept on going, to the best of our efforts.

“Well, certainly CW must’ve been easier?” you ask. Even on CW the pile-ups stretched far above 5 up. The story is similar to SSB, where the callers find the QRG and just have at it. I had to use a graphical waterfall to aid my ears in decoding the signals, or else the number of CW QSOs would have been.. like, I dunno, five.

Even on digital modes like FT4 and FT8 things got crazy. One RR73 spawned two new callers. Fox/hound or MSHV multi-stream barely sufficed, we had no chance working everyone quickly enough.

*The shack got really hot, so we installed an air filter – get it? GET IT!??*

The shack had antennas for all bands between 160-10m, but unfortunately 160m and 80m were close to unusable for various reasons. It didn’t really matter, though, we had more than enough with the other bands, including 60m and WARCs.

*“30m? Oh, I’m sorry, that band is mine now. But you can have it… for a price…”*

After being awake for nearly 38 ours, we both decided to take a well-deserved break and head out for dinner before throwing in the towel.

I do not regret this decision. Good golly, I needed that.

During our stay I only slept once, for just four hours. I think Kristoffer got two hours more.

After the nap we kept on going, jumping between the bands, following the propagations. We focused on human modes like SSB and CW, but there were periods at night where only FT4/FT8 would do. Digi modes were also used during food breaks, while having a beer or two, or simply during mental breaks. Standard modes, F/H, and MSHV multi streams were used with varying success.

We kept maximum pace until it was time to leave.

Well, maybe not just yet… hang on.. just one more QSO…

“Stian, we have to start packing, the taxi will be here any minute!”
“Allright, just a second, I’m up, I’M UP, okay?!“

After cleaning up and restoring the shack to its initial state, we took a taxi to the airport and headed home. Holy jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, I was so exhausted and tired at this point.

As if being tired wasn’t enough, our flight was delayed to Tromsø and we had to rush through the security check in order to catch the next transfer. Unfortunately, some luggage got lost in the process. Some of it has already been found and returned, but some is still missing.
_{[Edit 1: All the missing equipment was returned shortly after]}

To make things worse: I foolishly brought with me a couple of beers. “That’s not all bad?” you say, until you learn that I’m a genius and put them in the same suitcase as my radio. I don’t think there’s need to elaborate any further.

At the time of writing it’s been drying for two days. I’ll pop the lid for inspection very soon.
_{[Edit 2: The radio is fine, except for a few sticky buttons on the front panel]}

*High up in the air, and we could finally catch a glimpse of the sun again.*

All QSOs for JW2T and JW/LB5SH have been uploaded and synced with LoTW. Kristoffer will take care of his logs for the activations of JW/LBØVG and JW1K.

If you suspect a busted call, get in touch and I’ll see what I can find. In your request, please state the callsign used, UTC time, and frequency. Given the size of the pileups and the lack we had of sleep, it’s far from unthinkable that we’ve made some mistakes.

Conclusion time!

We logged more than 4,000 QSOs during our stay. Just 40 hours on the air.
About 50/50 human modes and digi modes.

Are we happy? Yes!
Do we want more? Oh yes!
Do we want to go back? Heck yes!

Finally, a quick word from our sponsor:

Just kidding.

We paid for everything ourselves. Still, I would like to give a proper shout out to the JW5E club for letting us rent their shack.

But guess what? You can rent it, too! Yes, YOU!

If you want to go to Svalbard and experience this insanity in person, I highly recommend renting the JW5E shack.

The club house is clean, neat and warm, even when it’s freezing outside. They have equipped each band with a dedicated high-power filter, and all bands are automatically switched, making radio operation a breeze for two operators.

There’s a small living room with a kitchenette for breaks and meals. It’s worth mentioning that it’s not permitted to sleep in the shack due to strict regulations concerning fire and safety.