Hopen Island (Svalbard) still active with c/s JW2US
Erik Sommerseth LA2US returned on EU-063/Hopen Island early Dec 2016 for a 6 months stay. He is active on CW on/around IOTA frequencies or at the lower band edges. As before, this is a spare time operation, Erik is in the shack only as often as work and other tasks permit.
Operational from EU-063 / Hopen Island Dec 2016 – May 2017 as JW2US
Now some informations about Hopen Island and Hopen Radio MF SSB
General: Hopen is a small, remote island in the far southeast of Svalbard and part of the Southeast Svalbard Nature Reserve. Hopen is 37 km long and mostly less than 2 km wide. It is often difficult to visit because of the exposed coastline, where waves are often breaking heavily. Offlying shallows don’t make it easier, and traditionally, Hopen was surrounded by dense drift ice for most parts of the year. Today, the summer drift ice does hardly reach the island anymore. Fog is frequent, because different water- and airmasses meet in the area.
Hopen Island Meteo and Radio Base
History: Possibly already sighted by Rjip in 1596, otherwise certainly by other whalers during the early 17 century. The discoverer could have been Thomas Marmaduke from Hull in 1613, who named Hopen (‘Hope Island’) after his ship, the ‘Hopewell’. Thor Iversen, a Norwegian fishery consultant, did systematic research and mapping early in the 20th century. In those days, Norwegian trappers wintered several times on the island, sometimes with rekord polar bear catches.
During the second world war, the Russian freighter ‘Dekabrist’ was torpedoed near Hopen by a German submarine. Most people drowned instantly, only a few managed under great difficulty to get ashore. It was December, the most difficult time of the year with constant darkness, cold and heavy storms, and very few only survived the coming months until the remaining handfull (including a woman) were rescued. 1943-44, the German air force established the war weather station ‘Svartisen’ on the same place where the Norwegians have their weather station and coast radio station since after the Second World War, which is still operating today, permanently staffed by 4 persons. And today, they do of course have their website, which is well worth a visit (if you read Norwegian) and even their own newspaper, the Hopen Times.
Hopen Radio c/s LMR on MF SSB working frequency 1750 kHz
73’s
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