EX/OH7O - DXexpedition 3 to Issyk Kul Lake, Kyrgyzstan, 2025.Sep.27-30
Pre-history
This is my third visit to the Issyk Kul Lake with antennas. The previous one was in 2024, May 1-5. Without hesitation, I explicitly asked for the exactly the same yurt as before – right on the lake’s shore – where I am currently sitting and writing …
Meanwhile, FT8 coins station after station in the 15m band with the propagation favoring it… And I need the 10m Moxon ASAP 🙂
Route
We didn’t risk and drove the same route as before. We spent about 1-1.5 hour on the border but passed it without problems, which is always nice. A DXpedition may end without starting with too many questions about the wires, radio and electronics, permits, and other dangerous, time-consuming, and money-losing and mood-destructing questions on the border 🙂
Overall, it took us about about 9 hours from point to point, which is fast. Usually, we drive 10-11 hours. But we departed at 5 am this time and came to the place around 3pm immediately jumping to the antenna installations.
But we plan driving to the east side of the lake on the way back and cross the border there. We have never done that before. The distances in both paths are about the same but the road quality and speed as well as the border crossing experience may be very different. Let’s see.
Location and grid
Grid: MN82me – the same as before since the camp is the same.
Rig and antennas
- Moxon for the 10-meter band – about 10 meters above the ground
- VDA for the 20-meter band – right on the shore – worked very well
- 1/4-wave vertical with resonating radials for the 40-meter band – also nicely resonating on 15 meters
- 1/4-wave vertical with resonating radials for the 20-meter band
- The 20-meter vertical: the bottom is 8.5m above the ground
- The 20-meter vertical: the bottom is also 8 meters above the ground
- Icom-7300
- Solid-state PA for 500W, which is half-killed by, presumably, lighning and operating rather unpredictably and depending on the band. For example, it self-protects itself on a perfectly tune 20-meter band and works OK with the 15m on SWR=1.68 in FT8
- 2025.Sep.29 noon update: the PA died without warnings. Sad
2027.09.28 (morning)
- Nice, calm, peaceful
2027.09.29 (afternoon)
- Still very nice, calm, peaceful. Sunny
2027.09.30 (afternoon)
- Sunny and calm
2027.10.01 (we are already home but our friends are still driving from Bishkek)
- +0…+5C, grey, rainy
2025.09.28
- The last night, many DXs on 40 meters: the US, LU, CE, CX, PU in FT8
- USA until about 9 am on 15m in SSB and FT8. Upper bands antennas at not ready yet
- Very few and not too loud SSB USA stations in general. But the antenna is still only a vertical
2025.09.29
- Very impressive propagation to the Americas on 20 meters S9+ to many stations in both directions. But started with a complete silence… – I thought, the antenna broke during the night. It was still dark – about 5:40 am. Then, a call to KE5EE to warm up the ionosphere after 30 minutes or so and then the pileup for 2 hours
- Very encouraging propagation on 10 meters as well
2025.09.30
- Originally, we planned to stay 3 nights and operate 3.5 days, but it was a subject to propagation, weather, success with border crossing, etc., many moving factors
- Propagation yesterday was perfect from zero silence on 20 meters to S9+ from North America and back to oblivion
- Today, there was only one lucky Oregon SSB operator. That was it
- I did practice CW a bit, though
- If there is no exciting propagation, it was time to wind the antennas down and head home … However, a new adventure was ahead
- I woke up at 5:30 am or around with a hope for a propagation to the Americas. The whole point of being on the southern shore is to enjoy several tens of kilometers of semi-salty water of the Issyk Kul Lake in the north, i.e., towards the North America and Europe
- First, it was a complete silence. We do enjoy low noise here. Then, we warm up call with KE5EE. After the ionosphere was warmed up enough, the pileup for 2-3 hours – just before breakfast
The highlight of the DXpedition is that I finally tested and compared a VDA on 20 meters (design by https://oh1tv.fi/VDA.pdf) with a 1/4-wave vertical with elevated resonating radials. The vertical is nearly perfect with the bottom of the radiator on 8-meter height. Results:
- VDA gives about 1S-level stronger signal than nearly a perfect 1/4-waver vertical
- ~1S-level noise reduction
- ~3S-level front-back ratio
As a result, up to 2-2.5S-levels improvement for weaker stations because there is always noise on the band.
VDA for 20 meters
Moxon for 10 meters
1/4-wave vertical for 40 meters with elevated radials. Also used for 15 meters
1/4-wave vertical for 20 meters with elevated radials
Since there was no good propagation in the morning, we started disassembling antennas right after breakfast leaving a 10-meter Moxon still operating in FT8. Disassembling everything and packing easily would easily take 3-4 hours.
However, around 11 am, two guys came by a Niva and approached me, while I was dismantling the 40-meter vertical…
Unwanted guests
They quickly introduced themselves – a long name in a foreign language that I couldn’t remember anyway – “national security” guys – and showed some ID and all this is in a flash of a second that you still have no idea who they are but they immediately start interrogating you:
- What is this?
- What are you doing?
- Are these antennas yours?
- What are they for?
- Are those your friends?
- Please come with me
- Show all the equipment that you have
Questions are asked by a guy in 40-50s and everything is recorded by a guy in 20-30s on the phone. Both are in a civil dress – not in uniforms. The second guy has never introduced himself.
Of course, I showed my EX/OH7O license immediately. However, it didn’t satisfied them at all and they continued questioning everything around.
After 30 minutes of touring over our QTH, asking many questions from me, my wife and friends, and recording everything, taking pictures of ours and XYLs’ passports, taking detailed pictures of antennas, electronics, they took me and my friend Alexei (UN7GOD) with them for “a few questions that will take 10-15 minutes” – to the local city about 15-20 minutes drive.
We spent about a half an our in the office of the “national security” guy:
- He continued questioning us about our operations: whom we contacted over the air, where we work, where we leave, which countries we contacted over the air, how I got the license, the contact name of the EX ham who was my contact in getting the license – many questions. He tried to repeat the same question two times… – a kind of silly approach questioning whether were told the truth …
- The younger guy continued recording everything on his phone
- Both behaved seriously like they are doing something important or serious – “defend the Nation” …
- There was not aggression and the older guys explained himself a couple of times that “they received a message from concerned citizens that foreigners install some antennas and the citizens feared of their security” – the end of quotation… so “I hope you understand that we are doing our job and respond to the concerns”
I have seen that and being in similar situations in the past and that is boring but very disturbing since a pleasant noon could turn to anything in minutes… – from “thank you for your cooperation” to “you are arrested for violation of national security” with all the range of the options in the middle: “your license is a fake”, “you operated in a vicinity of our secret military facility”, “your equipment will be confiscated, because …”, “you are banned to enter the country for the quadrillion of years”, etc., etc.
The range of options of the outcomes of such discussion is very wide. It is truly very wide since there are many examples of strange political hostages nowadays: “You took our nationals in your country for whatever reason. We will press (and exchange) tourists from your country”.
My plans didn’t include to be a pawn or an exchange coin in such games. However, when you are with radio and antennas sticking out 15-meters to the blue skies, you are always close to that, though, you may fool yourself that you are not.
So, after writing a couple of A4-pages of explanations, leaving our contacts, addresses, etc., we were driven back to the QTH, but only because it was a lunch break and bosses or whoever were behind the phone lines couldn’t be reached. My information, license, and other details had been checked.
Though, we were brought back to the QTH, nothing was over. We were asked not to leave the location. The “national security” people were on the phone most of the time. We continued disassembling antennas and packing everything.
It took two very depressing hours. I nearly finished with the antennas, cables, and a lot of other stuff we brought with us. Alexey and Oxana packed already everything and even prepared the lunch. At the moment, clearly happy “national security” guy came and said everything was OK.
The news was clearly a positive one, because it could be anything. It was a relief.
So, altogether, it was about 3 hours of very unwanted uncertainty, though, you have all documents and licenses in place … I can’t imaging their actions, if they had any reason to catch us on anything …
Way back
Driving back was easier and faster than the way to Issyk Kul, mostly, because we chose another border for crossing, which took about 45 minutes only. Though, I was again questioned more because my car has Russian plates.
We were home slightly after 10pm, well, 11pm Kyrgyzstan time.
It was a nice and reach for experience DXpedition. Hopefully, not the last one 🙂
