ZS8W Marion Island By YL2GM.
According to DXNews.com, “Yuris, YL2GM will be active as ZS8W from Marion Island, Prince Edward Islands, IOTA AF – 021, 21 April – 16 May 2025. He will operate on 160 – 6m, CW, SSB, Digital modes.”
Normally I’d be excited at the chance to work ZS8W but there’s a couple items that have tempered my enthusiasm on this specific activation.
First of all Yuris/YL2GM doesn’t work much CW and he barely works SSB, if at all. This DXpedition has all the signs of being just another lazy computer scripted text messaging activation. Secondly he’s a solo DXpeditioner. There’s no “team” here – it’s a one man operation.
Here’s data I pulled from a few of YL2GM’s latest DXpeditions. The percentages:
ZD9W: 11% CW, 4% Phone & 85% FT8
K8K: 4% CW, 0% Phone, 96% FT8
VK9LA: 2.5% CW, 0% Phone, 97.5% FT8
VK9CY: 26% CW, 0% Phone, 74% FT8
VU7W: 10% CW, 1% Phone, 88% FT8
I seriously doubt much will change with his upcoming Marion Island activation as ZS8W. My guess they’ll be a little CW, almost no SSB and over 85 to 90% lazy computer scripted text messaging. Anybody that thinks different would you like to place a bet (or two)?
For all the real Ham Radio Operators left in the hobby we’ll have to take our chances his computer will lock up and become useless forcing him into actually communicate via the “human modes”. For the lesser non-communicating Text Messengers best hope his computer virus software is up-to-date so you can pretend you (and not your computer) actually worked Marion Island.
On the off-chance there’s a CW or SSB pile-up I hope to see you real Hams in the mix!
N0UN
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Updated, Edited To Add 1500Z 30/April/2025
I saw on Club Log yesterday evening ZS8W had started working some CW on 40 Meters. 281 Q’s of 7,241. With those 281 CW Q’s his overall CW count went from 0% to 3.9%. Sad to say there were NO CW Q’s with North America on 40 Meters, zero.
From past experiences working ZS8M, ZS8C and ZS8Z in the early morning 20 Meters Long Path from Colorado, before I hit the rack for the evening I pointed my GXP 18-4 Beam to Asia at 298 degrees and tuned up the amplifier in the CW portion of 20 Meters on the chance ZS8W would recognize our North America Long Path window.
And when I woke early this morning guess who was there to greet me with a booming signal?
N0UN working ZS8W 20 Meters CW
I have to say that pile-up at OVER 20 kHz wide was absolutely BRUTAL!
But yet, so sooooo satisfying when you finally break through!
Hopefully we get more Human Mode pile-ups! I’ll see you there!
N0UN
–.- … –
Updated, Edited To Add 0400Z 6/May/2025
As of the latest log update a few hours ago ZS8W has worked 0% SSB, 9% CW and 91% FT8 overall.
Quite dismal for North America as only .75% of his Q’s s are NA CW.
Yes, not even 1%! .75 CW, 0% SSB – The 108 that actually earned their Q:
DX Bulletins on the Internet are also reporting ZS8W is off the air for the next 3 days (again). Even more news on the Internet show a couple disgruntled Hams from South Africa and Australia that are reporting the coworkers of ZS8W want Yuris and his Ham Radio’s sent back to the S.A. Agulhas II Supply Ship, and his entire operation disqualified for DXCC.
These are the same self-proclaimed “experts” that tried to derail the 2025 Mount Athos DXpedition (13,500 Q’s) and 2023’s successful Bouvet DXpedition (18,500 Q’s). Both are valid for DXCC. They’re also after the 2026 Peter I Island and 2027 Bouvet DXpeditions. All I can say is good luck with that.
Like I’ve said before, if on the off chance there’s some Human Mode pileups after his 3 day break and before he leaves Marion Island – that’s where you’ll find me. Hope to see you there!
N0UN
