I would like to thank Alex Jamar ON6AJ for his tremendous efforts in our JW QO-100 project.

From the moment the plans were known, Alex was interested in our QO-100 DX-pedition and especially very helpful in building the station.

The SG-Lab UP-Transverter and PA were prepared and fitted with the necessary cooling fins. The combined feed was completely built by Alex, and good was not good enough. Alex kept making the necessary adjustments to make the station better and better.

Also today, Alex came by and fixed the last problems and everything was thoroughly checked again. We really don’t want to leave anything to chance.

Ibrahim Mohd Alshahri A71UN | A71BI knew for a very long time that we wanted to make an attempt to activate QO-100 during our Svalbard DXpedition.

As a frequent Es’hailsat-2 QO-100 user, the satellite has no secrets anymore for Ibrahim. He was also very enthusiastic and surprised about all the efforts we are making to successfully complete this first JW QO-100 DXpedition. He showed his confidence in our DXpedition with a very generous donation for which we are very grateful to Ibrahim.

Besides being an active ham A71UN | A71BI, Ibrahim is also the owner of Alfa Telecom in Doha Qatar. His company is specialized in: Two-Way Radiocommunication systems | IT solutions | IT Consulting | IT infrastructure provider.

Max: Ibrahim I hope to be able to thank you in person one day in Doha | Qatar for your cooperation on this DXpedition.

We are at 78° north, with a very low elevation angle of only 3° on the edge of the QO-100 footprint. With this info we had to look for a location for the first QO-100 DX-pedition ever from Svalbard.

The many mountains surrounding us in Longyearbyen made it totally impossible for us to reach the Es’hailSat QO-100. So we had to look for a better location. After a long search our eye fell on Kapp Linné, an open space, no mountains or peaks in the vicinity and also the location where Isfjord Radio is based. In Kapp Linné we have the best chances of reaching the satellite.

In the search for a location to stay, we ended up with Basecamp Explorer – Isfjord Radio. More than one year ago we sent our first email messages and soon we got in touch with Malin Stark and Birgitte Tautra Vegsund.

Malin and Birgitte asked us why we wanted to come to Kapp Linné and stay at the Isfjord Radio camp. After some emails with additional information and data we got very good news: “we were welcome” to make an attempt from there to be the first ever to reach the QO-100 satellite.

A few days later even more good news arrived, Basecamp Explorer even wanted to support our DX-pedition!

Svalbard is for us a country with 1001 questions and still so much ignorance. But lately Malin and Birgitte spontaneously answered our many questions. For that I would like to thank them, because without the support of Basecamp Explorer and their cooperation, our QO-100 DX-pedition would be much more difficult. We look forward to thanking them in person in.

It was late November when we received the question from Patrick ON4DCU whether there was any possibility to participate in the QO-100 DX-pedition. A question we could not answer immediately. The arrangements had already been made, new arrangements had to be made and an extra snowmobile and extra security were needed.

But thanks to the good cooperation with Birgitte from “Basecamp Explorer” and Stefano and Anja from “Poli Arctici” we could tell Patrick a little bit later that everything was arranged and he could join.

An extra operator gives us more possibilities and pretty soon we asked ourselves if a second QO-100 station could not be part of the possibilities. We would give even more radio amateurs the chance to work this new QO-100 prefix.

A few days later we sent a new application to NKOM “Spectrum Department Norwegian Communications Authority” in Norway with the request to obtain a special callsign for the first QO-100 DX-pedition in Svalbard.

We had a plan and so many questions, but was our plan achievable? It took weeks of searching on Google and many emails to find the right person or company. With some we communicated for weeks and finally received a negative answer. The disappointment was often great and we had to start our search again from scratch.

We always kept hope that somewhere there had to be someone who was willing to put his shoulders under our project, someone who believed in our plans and wanted to go for it 200%.

We came into contact with Stefano Poli who started his own company “Poliarctici” in 1999 on Svalbard. Someone with more than 20 years of experience in this region and who gave us a good feeling very quickly.

After a few email messages Stefano sent, “My dream is, that your dreams come true and lets go for it together”. It felt good and we noticed very quickly that Stefano had a lot of experience and was very driven to reach our goal together.

Stefano emphasized that we needed to be aware that in the month of April it is still winter in Svalbard and the weather can be very inclement. We have to travel 100 km on a snowmobile in temperatures of -20° to -25° (wind chill may be even lower). In good weather this trip will take five hours, in bad weather we will quickly take more than 7 hours.

During this trip we will need for our own safety three guides, three snowmobiles with sled to transport the equipment, weapons, extra security etc. At our location we are not allowed to go outside to place antennas without extra security because we are in a “Wildlife area”.

Six months later we can finally say that we have a good plan and we are actually going to realize it. We have good agreements, contracts and the first advances have already been paid.

Alex ON6AJ knew for a long time that we were planning a QO-100 DX-pedition to Svalbard. We still had so many things to get done and that in itself was quite a challenge. But Alex was confident that in terms of organization, things would turn out just fine. He discussed this with his friends from SG Laboratory in Bulgaria. They were immediately willing to support us in this new challenge.

Thanks to Alex ON6AJ for negotiating and SG Laboratory from Bulgaria for their trust in our JW0X QO-100 DX-pedition.