Wow! A DXpedition for EME – OJ0EME!

Wow! A DXpedition for EME – OJ0EME!

Today morning I was browsing my Twitter home page when I came across OJ0EME DXpedition focussed on EME. EME or Earth-Moon-Earth or Moonbounce, is bouncing your signal off the moon, using the moon as reflector for your Amateur Radio signals. Of course, it is a tough job due to the distances involved and requires high powers, high gain antennas and sensitive receivers. Moon reflects only about 6% of the energy it receives. Coming back to OJ0EME planned by Sebastian DG5CST, Roland DK4RC and Norbert DL4DTU, it is unique in other ways as well. The DXpedition which is currently on, would be focussing on EME on multiple bands from 144 MHz to 10 GHz. They carry Tropo equipment for 24 GHz, 47 GHz, 76 GHz and 122/134 GHz.

The DXpedition is to Märket Reef, an uninhabited region in the Baltic sea, shared by Sweden and Finland. An important humanmade structure there is a light house. The region used to be a navigational hazard before the lighthouse was erected, with numerous grounding of ships and shipwrecks. It can only be reached by boats as there is no deep harbour. It is a rocky region and landing is possible only with a helicopter at high seas. Finnish part of the Märket Reef is one of the most desired contacts among radio amateurs because of its special status and remoteness. The official prefix for the Finnish side is OJ0 and vanity callsign can be obtained for a fee from the Finnish Transport and Communication Agency.

Currently all the amateur radio activity is by DXpeditions. In late 1960s when the Finnish part of the reef was given its special status in amateur radio, the light house keeper himself had become a licensed amateur radio operator! 8S9M has been listed as a callsign used from the Swedish side of Märket Reef on qrz.com. According to the current OJ0EME DXpedition webapge, they have the first and last ever permission for the 23 cm band! They are planning to work CW and Q65 on all bands. Q65 is one among the 11 protocols in WSJT-X. The setup they have listed is mind boggling for any radio amateur, and includes 2 x 9 element for 2 m with 500 Watts, three meter dish for 70 cm band with 500 Watts, three meter dish for 23 cm band with 150 Watts and so it goes.