Working a Bouvet on all low bands in CW? From your small lot? Yeah...whatever...

 Well, that was sort of responses I got when I prposed that I would like to challenge myself into working a Bouvet Island on all low bands from my small lot.....ok, I should not cal it small lot as I do cheat and I use fields in the winter and have access always to at least a single beverage in 120 / 300 deg, but all my TX antennas are still there. 

And spoiler, I did actually heard 3Y0K on 160m and 80m on the TX arrays and on LZ1AZ Loops (two phased) so I would be able to work them / heard them without dedicated BVG, but it just made it much more easier.

On the first night they meant to b on, i heard them weak, but heard no 40m CW. It wasn't promissing though...349-449 in peaks....oh boy, if 40CW is that weak, I don;t know how i can even manage to hear them on my favorite 80m band not to mentione 160m. What I got myself into? I managed to work them, heard clearly OK2IT 5NN and was told afterwards by those, who are always right and tend to know everything, that that was 100% fake, pirate etc... turned out it wasn't, it was Vadym and we worked 3Y0K (those who did) outside of massive pileups which fllowed, just because they wanted to go on air ASAP so ran 100W into 10m vertical, no RX ants...!!!  So thinking back I was both lucky and at good time on right QRG. Later on, when 1K power was used, pileups turned out to be massive, 40-50k wide. I would stand little chance.

Anyway, I didn't mention what I used - at my end, pair of verticals 1/4wl spaced with broad-side phasing, so not gain, nor directivity but RXing on 190m VLB (Very Low Beverage...not BOG, more like BNOG). PWR - around 1kW from old trysty LVS6/GU43b PA.

Few nights later I remember Saturday morning I woke up early as usual and went onto 160m, as I saw a mssage on KST Chat that they will be on, already some folks reported to work them. To my surprise, I heard them clearly and loud, I didnt have the beverage up, it was luckily left out in the field and I was in hurry so I left it on the ground and didnt pack it up, so fully extended, just on the ground. It still worked, probably not as good as slightly raised, but diversity RX with left ear switched betwen pair of phased LZ1AQ AAA1C ( 2 x  dia.loops, 16m spacnig in N-S line) and right ear with BVG / TX ant I got a reply with under one minute of calling. I had to sit down to fully take it in. 

I was robbed of staying late/getting early number of nights in a row, frustration.....but did I complain? Naaah. hihi. So focus was now on 80m. I did have 80m on FT8 but since FT8 is not my thing, and I worked them to have a band slot in case I can't work them on CW, I focused on getting the last low band "ticked". 

This was harder than 160m from my point of view due to constant DQRM, jamming, people making mistakes and over-reacting. I clearly heard the .#%#$%$.IT  IT 5NN, so I replied CFM 5NNTU and got TU UP. And was in right sequence, but was it SP5IT or someone with 2NIT, WB4IT? Oh god, I decided not to call again as pileup was enormous and I was hoping that in case of busted QSO I would have another chance....I think that we should all treat things like that the same way.

Ayway, long story short, next day 80m CW ticked. So I could focus on trying higher bands. I did purchase year/two ago a 21m circumference delta loop, so essentially 14MHz monoband rotary deltaloop, fed with balanced line and tuned with symetric tuner. 

With such a modest setup I managed to work 3Y0K on 10m to 20m including WARCs.