North Pole Trip

North Pole Trip 1993

The aim of the expedition was to celebrate Radio 1's 10th Anniversary by becomming the first commercial radio station in the world to transmitt directly from the NORTH POLE. Before I was hired for the job as responsibel for radio communication for Radio 1's North Pole Expedition in 1993, the planner thought it would be possible to use satellite communications from the North Pole directly to Radio 1's studio in Oslo, Norway. Following my briefing on radio conditions in Polar areas one of the recurring questions from my employer was "Can you guarantee our radio connection from the North Pole to our studio in Oslo?" Naturally I could not, but as we got nearer to depature date for the Pole and I had studied the propagation forcasts as well as AURORA Northern Lights (often a great problem for high frequency (HF)radio communication in polar areas) status for date of landing, I indicated a 70 - 75 % change of a possible connection. Luckily, I was not mistaken...... "Radiostudio" North Pole...... Two days after the visit to the Pole I attempted to do amateur HF radio operation from Resolute Bay, NWT, Canada (at about 75 North), but at that time aurora conditions were bad, and the result was poor.

On our expedition we used a short-wave radio with a 600 watts transmitter, inverted V dipole antenne and a transmitting/receiving frequency of 12,3/13,1 MHz via a Norwegian coast radio station Rogaland radio and from there by telephoneline to Radio 1's studio. We transmitted directly for two hours and had acceptable conditions for about 80 % of transmission time.

Picture 1

Picture 2

At Resolute Bay Airport on Cornwallis Island, NWT, Canada. Temperature minus 30 C. Lowest temperatur measured at my Svalbard home is minus 46,4 C from 1986 so this temp was not to bad for me.

Picture 3

Members of North Pole expedition team: Jill Bottolfsen, Gitte Larsen, Mathias Bjerrang, Jan Dalchow, Stein Johnsen, Jon Morten Melhus, Erik Saugerud, Roar Steen and Runar Wiik. Visitor since Jan 15th, 1999

Other Polar expeditions

: Mathias Bjerrang polar-ps@online.no