Ohio Geological Society Honorary Member - Constance G. Eirich (1888 - 1973)

Ham Radio in Antarctica

Introduction

I got my Novice license in 1975 while I was a teenager, eventually in a few years getting my Advanced license and my Radio Telephone 1st Class license, all the while I was in High School in New Jersey. My first job after graduating from High School was as television engineer for WKBS-Channel 48 in Philadelphia, PA. In college at the University of Delaware, I was the Chief Engineer for WXDR (now WVUD) during my Freshman year in college.

I was very active as a ham from 1975 through 1993.

Since the death of my father in 1993 (call sign N2AIV), my activity on the air has been very minimal. I finally purchased a new HT, Yaesu FT-70D for my birthday (December 2021). So, I am finally back on the air.

Antarctica

In the mid to late 1980s, I was in graduate school at Ohio State University, studying geophysics. While in graduate school, I went to Antarctica twice (December 1987-January 1988, and October 1988-January 1989), and Greenland once (May 1989-June 1989). Right before my second trip to Antarctica, a few members of my local club in southern New Jersey (where I grew up) (Gloucester County ARC), got excited about my trip to Antarctica. One of the members (Jack, K2ZA) graciously lent me his QRP rig, which I never used in Antarctica because I was too busy. K2ZA has since passed away, but his son John now has his callsign.

When working in the field, we worked 12-14 hours a day, six to seven days a week.You only have a limited time in the field, so time was never wasted. Traveling out to remote field sites, collecting data, coming back to camp, analyzing the data, repairing equipment, etc... We were always extremely busy, so I never got to use the QRP rig. But I did get to operate on two different days out of the 2.5 months in Antarctica..

Thanksgiving Day, 1988, we took the day off. Our field party was operating out of Byrd Surface Camp (the location of the abandoned Byrd Station, 80 degrees S, 120 degrees W). The U.S. Navy personnel allowed me access to their radio and I made a few QSOs. Not many, possibly due to propagation or the entire United States was in a Thanksgiving food coma. I personally lean towards the later explanation. But, I accidentally did get to QSO with one of our club members, who had recently moved to Atlanta, GA, Harry, WB2GSF.

The next time I had some free time was around January 11, 1989. We had not had any flights come in from McMurdo Station for over 3-4 weeks (i.e. our last supply flight was mid-December). We were well supplied, but getting a little isolated. We had about 25-40 people in our base camp, which was called Upstream C and was about 500 miles from the South Pole. Unfortunately, we had a few newcomers to field work in Antarctica, so a few of them were getting homesick. When the LC-130 (a U.S. Navy C-130 Hercules cargo plane with skis) came into our basecamp for the first time in 3-4 weeks, not only did it have supplies and mail, but it also delivered a monster of a radio. Towards the beginning of the field season, we had some solar storms, which caused some communications difficulties with McMurdo Station and South Pole Station. All field parties are required to check into McMurdo Station everyday, otherwise a Search and Rescue (SAR) operation is sent out to find you. So one day in November we had a bad solar storm. My graduate advisor freaked out and demanded better radios. Well, two and half months later (and a week before we left the field), it shows up. No one in basecamp knew it was coming. It was an amazing radio, ultra low frequencies to ultra high frequencies. I swear this thing was top secret and came off a Navy submarine, lol. 

That evening, I looked at one of the graduate student electrical engineers from the University of Wisconsin (who worked on ground penetrating radar on the ice sheet) and said "Let's put this thing on the air and make some phone patches". I had him cut a 20-meter dipole during the day, with the idea we would make phone patches on Sunday evening. I was too busy during the day, doing surveying in the field, to make the dipole. That evening was our evening off. 

At dinner time, I stood up in our mess hall/lab space and told the 25-40 people in our basecamp that we would be doing phone patches to the United States after dinner. As I said, there were a few people who were homesick, and their attitude was affecting the morale of the entire basecamp. After I made the announcement, I pushed the sign up sheet in front of the person who was suffering the most from homesickness. He was a newlywed, who has gotten married right before he left for Antarctica. He missed his wife terribly. I made sure all the homesick people signed up, plus anyone else who wanted to make a phone call. We eventually had about 10-15 people sign up for phone patches.

So starting with the newlywed, I called "CQ, CQ this is WB2AOL/KC4 Antarctica". Eventually, I got someone from Hawaii. After exchanging RS and our names, the conversation went something like this:

Me: "I need to make a number of phone patches for the staff and scientists in our basecamp"

Ham in Hawaii (HH): " I can do that for you"

Me: "I want to do something different. I want you to call my father and tell him to get on the air, so he can handle the phone patches".

Silence, and then:

HH: "Your father's a Ham?"

Me: "Yes, his call sign is N2AIV, and his phone number is XXX-XXX-XXXX"

More silence while he calls my father in New Jersey. About a minute later, the HH comes back and says

HH: "Your father is driving down to the clubhouse to use the radios and beams" (it is a far better setup than what my father had, which was a vertical with a 100w radio. Plus my father had a Technician license. The club radios had a tower, and a beam for 20m, and he certainly had some of the other club members help out on 20m phone)

The drive to the clubhouse takes about 20 minutes. During the drive, my father got on the club 2m repeater and told everybody in the club that I was on the air. At that point, the members got on the air and acted as traffic managers for the pileup I was just starting to create. The late John Fisher, K2JF, was the primary traffic manager for me.

I made contact with the following GCARC club members:

John Fisher, K2JF (SK in 2008)

Ed Sumek, W2GSN (SK in 1992)

Ray Martin, WB2LNR (W2RM, SK in 2022)

James J. McDonald, Sr., N2AIV (My father, SK in 1993)

It was a very good evening. I made all the phone patches, which raised morale among the basecamp staff and scientists. I got to talk to my father. I got to talk to a number of club members, and they enjoyed acting as my traffic managers. Finally, I got to give QSOs to a number of other Hams who always wanted to work Antarctica.

 

Current Equipment and Activity

I just purchased a Yaesu FT-70D HT (2m & 440 MHz). Don't have much of an office space, but here is my personnel office in the spare bedroom.