Last updated 2003-03-26

The Prince Edward islands are South African territory, but are considered a separate DXCC entity because of their distance from the mainland. The group consists of two islands, Prince Edward and Marion. As Prince Edward is uninhabited, Marion is the DXer's only hope of a contact with this country.

Marion is home to a weather and research station. It is manned year-round, with crews staying for a year. The annual supply ship comes around April and stays for a few weeks to take care of resupply and base refurbishment.

The island is administered by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, the agency responsible for weather services in South Africa.

Amateur Radio on the Islands

During the Sixties, the club station on the island could be operated by anyone. The station was on the air daily, as there was very little other entertainment available. The station used the huge Rhombic antennas, and was easily workable around the world.

I'm told that the Seventies brought a restriction to only licenced amateurs, and the station suddenly became very rare. Only if a licenced operator happened to be on the crew would there be any activity. All the operators during this period continued to use the club callsign ZS2MI. It was clearly important to retain a single callsign, as all other ZS2 callsigns were on the South African mainland.

1989 brought another dispensation, when the ZS8 call area was allocated to the Prince Edward Islands. The block was no longer being used for Bechuanaland, as this entity had become a separate country as Botswana and had been given the A2 callsign series. The way was now open for individual callsigns, but for some strange reason, the first three operators of this era continued to use the callsign ZS8MI.

Petr Sykora ZS6PT used ZS8MI from 1989 to 1990. He used Dave Burstein ZS5E as a QSL manager. He was very active, and made around 17 000 contacts. He operated CW, SSB and RTTY. He also had considerable success with 50 MHz, working almost 500 Japanese stations on this band. After Peter's return, he handled his own QSL cards via his home callsign. He now lives in New Zealand.

Gerard Everett ZS5AEN was next. He took over from Peter's crew, and continued Peter's success on 50 MHz. His activity was mainly confined to SSB, but he did make some contacts on RTTY and CW. His mother handled his QSL chores, via his home callsign. Gerard no longer appears to be active.

There was a short pirate operation by Jannie Groenewald ZR6AOJ. He was actually on the island, but did not obtain permission and would in any case not have been authorised to use HF with his restricted VHF-only licence. He is said to have made a few hundred contacts during a changeover.

Christie de Kock ZS1CDK came next, on the 1993 to 1994 crew. He made 9000 QSOs, with around 800 on CW. His parents handled his QSLing chores via his home address. He is now ZS6CDK in Pretoria.

When Chris de Beer ZS5IR asked me to be his QSL manager for his 1996-1997 stint, I agreed on one condition: That he get his own callsign. I had been QSL manager for many other stations, and was getting a steady trickle of requests for ZS8MI QSL cards. The reason appeared to be that there was considerable confusion. The practice of periodically re-using a callsign with different QSL managers is not common, and few knew exactly where to send a request. It also appeared that some of the QSL managers had lost interest in answering QSL requests. I was not prepared to become entangled in this mire of never-ending work, and Chris obtained his own callsign: ZS8IR.

ZS8IR was the first personal callsign to be used from Marion Island. Chris was hampered by poor high-band conditions, at the bottom of the sunspot cycle, but managed over 18 000 QSOs. Around 6000 of these were on CW, with over 600 on RTTY. He also made a significant effort on 1,8 MHz, with over 350 QSOs in the log. Chris is now ZS6RI, and has operated from ZD9IR, 5H4IR, 5H9IR and 9G5CB in the intervening years. He has also lived in Saudi Arabia and Cameroon without being licenced. He was also a member of the 1997 DXpedition of the Year, ZK1XXP from the North Cook Islands.

Chris's departure saw the end of an era. The HF backup link had been replaced by satellite, and the huge Rhombics were torn down. The island sports a unique variety of bird life, and the Rhombics had been killing birds throughout their existence. With satellite facilities, the Department decided to scale down the HF facilities to a single dipole.

During the period after Chris's operation, I continued to receive hundreds of requests for help with ZS8MI cards. I eventually obtained the logs from the three QSL managers, and obtained assistance from the Northern California DX Foundation (NCDXF) to have cards printed. I have subsequently handled several hundred requests for ZS8MI cards, both directly and through the bureau.

Deryck Yelverton ZS6DIY was next, on the 1999-2000 crew. He made around 2000 contacts, with less than 50 on CW. He has subsequently returned to the island for another year, but elected to play with pirate CB rather than with amateur radio.

Deryck's stay marked the first attempt to get permission to erect a personal amateur radio antenna on the island. Considerable research led to a proposal that was presented to the Environmental Management Committee. The avian specialists from the Fitzpatrick Institute at the University of Cape Town, who maintain a full-time researcher on the island, agreed that the trial was well-conceived and supported it, but the Department unilaterally turned it down. Unfortunately, other factors made it difficult to pursue the issue further with the Minister at the time, and I decided to leave the effort for when the next operation happens.

During 2004, I was phoned by Ludwig Combrinck ZS6WLC. He had proposed some space geodesy experiments to be based on Marion Island, and would be going down for the changeover. He had taken the callsign ZS8MI into the custody of his department at the Hartbeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory, and was going to operate the radio during his off times. He declined my offer of equipment, and is instead taking antique radios with no split-frequency capability, and wire antennas. He was unaware of the problems with bird life. I explained the confusion around ZS8MI, and strongly recommended that they select a new callsign. I even made arrangements with the regulating authority ICASA so that the callsign could be changed within a day. However, Ludwig insisted that they would retain the old callsign. Indeed, he started a propaganda war against me by stating on his Web site that I had masqueraded as the QSL manager for ZS8MI and that I was not the official QSL manager for ZS8MI.

I find this behaviour strange, as I had proposed that we cooperate to ensure that there would be minimum confusion. Ludwig has had little exposure to DXing, and underestimates the confusion that will result. Indeed, they intend announcing on the air that QSLs had to go to ZS6M, a callsign that has been assigned to its current owner for less than a year. I anticipate considerable fun and games.

To put matters into perspective, I need only refer the reader to my QSLing policy, where I explain the situation exactly and certainly do not pretend to be the manager.

I intend to return all misdirected QSLs for the 2004 operation to their origins with an explanatory note.

The Future

The situation is now that the callsign ZS8MI will be resurrected. I'm sure we're all happy with the prospect of seeing the island active again. Marion now hovers around the Top Ten of the Most Wanted lists. However, there are some downsides.

Firstly, on their official Web site, the operators have indicated that they will insist on US$ 5 per QSL card, and US$ 2 for ZS6WLC/MM contacts. This insistence is ostensibly to cover the costs of printing. I do find it strange that the printing costs are so much higher for the ZS8MI cards than for the ZS6WLC/MM cards, but there's obviously something I'm missing. Especially since international postage rates in South Africa are well below US$ 1.

Secondly, given the equipment and the experience level of the operators, I do not expect that they will make more than a few hundred contacts. In return, we will revisit the confusion of the Nineties, with much wasted time and effort by all concerned.

Thirdly, with them using vintage and military radios, I anticipate that they will struggle with split operations and with the ensuing monstrous pileups. It will be interesting to see how many QSOs end up in the log. When we first spoke about the possibility of the Marion trip some years ago, I offered my station as a training venue. I also offered the use of the equipment, mainly NCDXF-funded, that I have in my possession. The offer for equipment was re-iterated recently. For some reason, it was not taken up.

Finally, and perhaps the most worrying, is the environmental impact. I have offered them a storm-resistant tribander, but they appear hell-bent on using wire antennas and telescopic masts with multiple guy lines. They are virtually certain to upset the bird lovers, and possibly precipitate another heavy-handed ban on amateur radio antennas. With the Rhombics gone, such a ban will not bode well for ZS8 as a DXCC entity.

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