Editor’s Note: Every month, DX Engineering features QSL cards from our team members’ personal collections. To highlight upcoming DXpeditions, we’ll be displaying a few of our favorite cards along with details about what it took to make these contacts. We’re excited to share some of the special cards pulled from the thousands we’ve received over the years. We look forward to seeing your cards as well!
Greenland QRV in December
There still may be some time left to contact OZ1DJJ, who will be operating on the HF bands from Greenland, the world’s largest island, until December 16. The OX3LX DXpedition has been QRV since the beginning of the month from Aasiaat Island (IOTA NA-134). Located on the island is the town of Aasiaat in the Qeqertalik municipality of western Greenland. If you’re thinking of vacationing with the 3,000 residents of Aasiaat, located in the heart of the Aasiaat Archipelago, you’ll enjoy whale-watching, dogsledding, kayaking, and, we assume, incredibly fresh seafood.
With a population of slightly more than 56,000—a third of which live in Nuuk, the capital city—Greenland is the least densely populated territory in the world, as about 75% of its 836,000 square miles is covered in a permanent ice sheet. There are 0.08 inhabitants per square mile, compared to the country with the least elbow room, Macau, which has 55,268 people per square mile. As of November, Greenland ranked as the 220th Most Wanted DXCC Entity according to Clublog.
How did this mostly glacier-blanketed island get its less-than-descriptive name? As pointed out by Tom, KB8UUZ, DX Engineering technical writer, the Vikings, in an effort to attract colonists, wanted to make the frozen territory more enticing, so it was coined Greenland (a name with more appeal than, say, Frostbite Falls). Conversely, legend has it that Iceland was so called by the Vikings to discourage settlers from moving there.
Here are a few of the Greenland QSL cards DX Engineering team members pulled from their collections.
Dave, K8DV, customer/technical support specialist, reached OX3PG on 20M SSB. Thule, Greenland, home of the Thule Air Force Base, is 947 miles from the North Pole. He contacted OX3XR on 40/30/12M CW.
Tom, KB8UUZ, earned the below QSL card from the 2013 OX5YL DXpedition from Kangerlussuaq on 20M SSB. The YL operating team (Chae, HL1KDW; Mio, JR3MVF; Kay, WA0WOF; Unni, LA6RHA; and Sun, SM6KAT) represented China, Japan, Sweden, Norway, and the U.S.
Mark, W8BBQ, customer/technical support specialist, made contact with OX3KQ/OZ0M in 2011 on 160 and 20M SSB.
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