Saturday, January 01, 2011

Bouvet & Heard Island most remote islands in the world

The thrill of talking to a remote location via Ham Radio is an everyday adventure. I remember working (talking) to Bouvet Island a few years ago and it was a thrill that I remember to this day. Another far off location was an Island called Heard. These two locations are just about as far away as a Ham in North America can talk to. Would you like to become a Ham? See our local radio web page.

Bouvet Island was first sighted Jan 1, 1739 by Charles Bouvet. Bouvet Island is an uninhabited Antarctic volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean, 2,525 km south-southwest of South Africa. It is a dependent territory of Norway and, lying north of 60°S latitude, is not subject to the Antarctic Treaty. The center of the Island is an ice-filled crater of an inactive volcano, known as the Wilhelm II Plateau. It is the most remote island in the world. Despite being uninhabited, Bouvet Island has the unused Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) .bv. It also has an amateur radio prefix, 3Y, and a few amateur radio expeditions have travelled to the island to use it. There is no telephone country code or area code, no telephone connection (except through satellite) and no postal code nor postal distribution. Bouvet Island is according to Norwegian law in the UTC+01 time zone.
Read more about Bouvet.
Read more about how to get a Ham License.