Photo of Saariselkä courtesy of DXing.info
A few years ago we mentioned Mika Makelainen and Jim Solatie, who make a DXing pilgrimage each year to the most northern region of Finland for two weeks of DXing bliss.
The small cabin is very remote, but connected to 14 wire antennas and contains all of the necessities one needs for serious, long-haul DXing. Indeed, they even rent their cabin to other DXers.
I was happy to see Mika and Jim’s annual DX trip recently mentioned in the Xinhua News. Check out Hunting for radio signals near Arctic Ocean, an article by reporters Li Jizhi and Zhang Xuan.
the report of MIka is here :
http://www.dxing.info/dxpeditions/aih29rep.dx
I would like to mention a similar listening site in Norway @70 degrees north.
http://www.kongsfjord.no/ check logs for reports.
I have observed the same effect DL4NO mention. I used to work HAM-radio from Jan Mayen.
On low bands (below 10MHz) its often difficult being heard due to auroral attenuation.
When signals both ways are e.g. attenuated 30dB, its easy to hear but nearly impossible to be heard.
A few things should be mentioned to appreciate such an activity:
First, it is dark around the clock as you are north of the arctic cycle. And it is *very* cold. But that sounds worse that it is as it is a very dry cold.
I have only worked from OH0 (Åland Islands) in summer but even there I was amazed about how calm the conditions were. DL5XL described this effect from his stay at DP0POL, the German Antarctica station: You hear *lots* of stations but they cannot hear you. For them you disappear in their noise floor. The answer to this problem to this has OH8X – visit them at YouTube!