FT5W - Crozet Island

Crozet was added to the list in 1964.

I was lucky in 2005 to work Jean-Paul (F5BU) when he was doing research at the French Alfred Faure Base on Possession Island in the Crozet Archipelago.

Jean-Paul is a Marine Biologist who was on the island from February 5 – March 23rd, and his mission was to study the King Penguin colony. I was very lucky to be one of his 2114 contacts with 1912 unique stations. He was running an inverted ground plane and 500 watts and I was running a dipole with 200 watts. I am sure that both the better conditions in Cycle 24 and also that being during the Vernal Equinox that this entity – which is 13,000 miles away, was the reason I was able to work him with only a few calls. This is one of those QSO’s I can remember clearly – I don’t think either of us had more than a 5 x 5 SSB signal – but I remember I could hear every word.

There is a fisherman, Gildas (TU5KG) who is maritime moble in and around Crozet and Kerguelin and who signs FT5WQ and FT5XT, but he is very allusive – usually /MM – with short unannounced landings on each island. You will be very lucky to work him.

As is the case with all of the French “TAAF” research bases, we are very lucky when a scientist or biologist is assigned to study and stay long enough to give the entity out to “the deserving”.

Here is a good Wikipedia article explaining TAAF:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Southern_and_Antarctic_Lands Here is the CIA World Factbook entry for Crozet:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/countrytemplate_fs.html

And my favorite collection of all of the French outpost entities:

http://lesnouvellesdx.free.fr/

Here is a list of Crozet activations:

1964 – FB8WW

1972 – FB8WW

1973 – FB8WW

1977 – FB8WE

1982 – FB8WG

1983 – FB8WH, FB8WI, FB8WJ, FB8WK

1984 – FB8WI, FB8WJ, FB8WK

1986 – FT8WA

1991 – FT4WC

1996 – FT5WE

2005 – FT5WJ

2008 – FT5WO

2009 – FT5WO

2013 – FT5WQ

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