Shackleton Field Camp (aka Shackleton Glacier Camp SHG) is located at 85°05’24” South, 175°19’48” West and lists on WAP-WADA Directory as WAP USA-NEW.
Recently Olivier FEPN-Spratley Woody has found a rare and old QSL of W8IJK/KC4 operating from Shackleton Field Camp, on Queen Maud Range on the Transantarctic mountains.
Shackleton Field Camp is a small research camp on a glacier in Western Antarctica.
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A Youtube video (Jan 2017) shows Shackleton Field Camp on western Antarctica in the area of Queen Maud Range, a beautiful place surrounded by epic mountains and endless blue sky.
The QSL of W8IJK/KC4 has captured our curiosity since it could be included among the references assigned in the WAP Directory.
In light of the facts, it seems difficult to get in touch with the operator W8IJK PhD James Collinson to get more details on the activity carried out, apparently several years ago.
We asked Bob, K4MZU, one of the world’s leading Antarctic Hunters, for help.
Bob wrote:
In my effort to discover additional information about W8IJK/KC4 resulted in limited answers. While in Antarctic, operator James W. Collinson worked with the Institute of Polar Studies and Department of Geology and Mineralogy, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio in 1986-1991.
Go to americanpolar.org/about/leadership/james-collinson/ for more info.
No e-mail is listed on QRZ.com and there is no listing as to any cell/telephone registered. I will try to send snail mail to him. however, it has been a long time since the operation took place.
We hope some of our readers might be able to help us to get more info about this rare one!
It remains the fact that W8IJK/KC4 seems to have really operated sometimes in the past from Shackleton Field Camp.
So, the Field Camp exists, a QSL exist, W8IJK exist, what is missed is the date of operation and the number of contacts made. From WAP stand point, while pubblishing this spot on WAP website, we intent to highlight the possibility to have a new WAP reference for Shackleton Field Camp which for the moment remains WAP USA-Unnumbered.
When more details will come up it will take a moment to issue a reference number.
TNX Olivier F6EPN who found this QSL, and TNX Bob K4MZU who works to get more info about!