UBARoyal Belgian Amateur Radio Union

slideshow 1

Photo: Couloir

Santa Claus is now active

Date Until: 
01/01/2013
Santa
Santa lives at the freezing North Pole, leading a harsh but exciting life under the Northern Lights (Aurora Oval). But no one has actually thought about Santa's specific location – there is no such DXCC entity as North Pole in the world – at least not yet.

Now much to everyone’s delight, Santa’s location is clearly marked on all maps. Santa lives in the Santa Claus region of Finland. That is Lapland, OH9 district, situated north of the Arctic Circle, only a stone's throw away from the Radio Arcala operating site amid the barren tundra where reindeer run wild. In December, the locals do not see daylight – it is dark all day. As compensation Mother Nature has created a distinctive polar path on 20 meters to North America.

Santa Claus Airport is the region's busiest while many of the world's leading carriers fly in with their jets, bringing young and old alike to sense the Christmas spirit and to enjoy many activities in beautiful nature, forgetting about their otherwise busy lifestyles and going with the mind-set of children – such small children reside within all of us. More than 300.000 spirited people come in every winter.

The OH9SCL radio station will be active in December from the heart of Santa Claus Land, but adding to it and making it more visible, Radio Arcala will utilize their most advanced technology and remotely driven station, signing OF9X to test their technology, ride the Polar Path and employ a 100 meter (330 foot) rotating tower with a 6-over-6-over-6-over-6 20M array. OH9SCL at Santa’s workshop is based on a smaller array.


OH9SCL & OF9X QRV from Muonio Village, 200km north of Santa Airport (Location N 67.55.98 and E 23.39.37)
Santa Claus radio operators will open shop for Christmas on December 7, 2012 and you will hear these stations on and off during December, both domestically and remotely. For the opening ceremony, five (5) frozen radio operators will be physically in Muonio, Lapland to test the technology and hand out QSOs: Martti, OH2BH; Rami, OH3BHL; Juha, OH8NC; Kimmo, OH9MDV; Ja Aaro, OH9RJ.


Listen to your own signals as they sound in Lapland.

The OF9X station is expected to be active for the first time from December 7 until December 10 and you may listen to your own signal to hear how it sounds at the offices of Santa Claus. You can also find their operating frequency on their station camera. On 20M they typically try to be in the vicinity of 14.225 kHz.


Incentive for working both Santa stations.
If you contact both OH9SCL and OF9X during December 2012, a slick Santa Claus certificate and a fact sheet will be sent to you as per your of9x [at] sral [dot] fi (email request). The certificate can be issued also in the name of your children or grandchildren and used as an entry document with a discount program on your potential visit to our radio location at Harriniva.