Update June 19, 2024: The FT4GL operation led by Marek FH4VVK ended yesterday evening, its last evening of traffic having had to be interrupted due to internal technical problems on the island. The adventure was difficult for Marek, the support team and all the pilots led by F8FKI. However, the majority of our objectives have been achieved: more than 60,000 QSOs, the last of which is IW4EGP, an overall unique contact rate of 25%, Asia represents 21% of the log, NA 20% of the log, all bands/modes announced were used, only the 160m was not satisfactory. We will return later to the more complete assessment of the FT4GL operation, while awaiting continued work, with the repatriation of equipment from Glorieuse to Mayotte then to France, QSO verification requests by F8CRS, QSL management by F4FTV of which we will soon present the model to you which will be sent to the printer. Finally, the entire team warmly thanks all the sponsors (clubs, associations, professionals, individuals) without whom nothing would have been possible. 73 to all Team FT4GL.

Update June 16, 2024: FT4GL will QRT early on Tuesday (June 18th). 
Marek received the order to leave the island on June 18th @ 0300UTC. More info later on FT4GL blog. Today (June 16th) was his last day operating SSB, and there will now be only one station on the air until the 18th.

Update June 14, 2024: Thank you to everyone who sent us messages of encouragement for this ATNO day, which allowed some to have at least one QSO with FT4GL. The operation was carried out in SSB and FT8, the propagation was not as expected unfortunately. Marek will continue to do SSB until 7 pm UTC, then he will make another attempt on 80m FT8 as announced and in parallel with RTTY, before taking his usual break. Stay tuned....Team FT4GL

Update June 13, 2024: Marek was on 80m FT8 last night as planned, but unfortunately a pirate appeared shortly afterwards, as many of you noticed. The 10m FT8 also seems to be open today, and he’s taking advantage of the opportunity to make a number of contacts, notably with Asia. Marek continues to monitor 6m every day, and our pilots continue to be harassed to find out whether he is really listening to this band. We can assure you that he is, and we ask you once again to stop harassing pilots for the 6m band. Some NA regions are still finding it difficult to contact FT4GL, and we’ll be making an effort to do so on 17 and 30m at the most favourable times. Tonight there will be a new attempt on 80m, sorry if there are still pirates – this is beyond our control. The team would like to apologize for the delay in uploading the logs, thank you for your patience. We remind you that tomorrow, June 14, is the first ATNO day…please respect the instructions that have been previously transmitted.

Update June 12, 2024: As you know, Marek is active in his free time, which means during the day, but also in the evening and has been for two nights in particular. There is no hotel with on-site home service, the rooms are not numerous and you have to share them with other occupants. Marek installed an outdoor station so as not to disturb his colleague in his sleep who occupies the usual room. In order to give the chance to the NA who have an opening at night in the direction of Glorieuse, he takes his sleep capital for YOUR PLEASURE, before starting a day of work. Marek also made good contacts in SSB over 10m despite the disruptions, and was able to make people happy in Asia and Oceania, even though the spread was not at its best.
He has already been present two nights on 80m in FT8 and will try to concentrate traffic on the 80m for 2 or 3 additional nights. The conditions are not the best in this season and we also have to deal with TAAF restrictions, the antennas must not exceed 8m high, the installation required an inverted L arrangement, and these rules with the authorities French are non-negotiable. Thank you for your understanding. Good luck to everyone and hope to see you in the FT4GL log.

Update June 12, 2024: As usual, lots of discussions on the two ATNO days proposed by Marek. It will try to find the band which will be the most open at the moment T.
Of course if the band is closed it will switch to another. So listen carefully and turn your VFO. This activity will start from 11 a.m. UTC and in SSB and depending on availability. Here too you ask yourself why the SSB? Quite simply because some only use this mode, it is within everyone's reach, unlike digital modes which require a computer, interface... Moreover, on clusters and networks we read everywhere that we need more “human mode,” so ON YOUR MICROS.....
   FT4GL Team

Update June 11, 2024: Marek has just communicated the two days he wishes to dedicate to ATNO. It is for people who HAVE NEVER CONTACTED FT4GL — on Friday, June 14 and Sunday, June 16 from 11 a.m. UTC.. Thanks to the stations who already made the QSO to play the game and give the LITTLE PISTOLs a chance. If this turns into a nightmare, blame the troublemakers and not Marek who wants to give everyone a chance. 

Regarding the 6m band: We are receiving far too many requests for 6m, and this situation is no longer tenable for pilots to respond privately. For this reason, Marek will be on call 18/24h on 50.313 and when he hears signals, he will switch to 50.323 in order to start calls. Thank you for your understanding and for spreading the word.

FT4GL Team

Update June 7, 2024: After consultation, and given the number of requests for ATNOs, the team and Marek have decided to give LITTLE PISTOLs and more modestly equipped stations the chance to contact the Glorieuses at least once. Two days of activity will be scheduled, to be announced at a later date. The operation will be carried out in SSB, so we’re asking the international community to play along and give this unique opportunity to those who aren’t yet in the log. We’re counting on you to share as much information as possible, so that the community is informed and the operation can be a success.

Update June 7, 2024: Press release of June 6
 
Marek's trafficking continues, through his profession he has acquired strong experience in physical endurance for many years, his abilities are above the majority of humans, like a high-level athlete. This allows him to be active to the maximum of his physical capacities since the start of his activity by sleeping very little each day in the radio station, which is also his workplace, hence a constant presence due to his professional responsibilities at Glorious.

Since yesterday and as planned, Marek has slowed down his activity in order to recover his strength, to be at maximum capacity again during the last week of traffic. This will result in longer outages each day, night and day.

The 6m traffic finally paid off, yesterday 139 QSOs validated, for the low bands the efforts continue without giving satisfactory results, concerning the other bands an effort will be made on 40m and 17m in the NA direction, for Europe no difficulties major on all bands, the same for Asia except the 40 and 30m bands.

Following various questions received concerning the fact that FT4GL would use the remote, we confirm that there is no operator who controls the station remotely, for the simple reason that Starlink does not work on the island and that the only means of communication in Glorieuse is Marek's professional satellite telephone and cannot be used for amateur radio activity. Furthermore, if we had wanted to do remote with an available Starlink connection, we would have announced it and members of the support team would have used this means to do CW that Marek does not know, to satisfy the international community in this mode.

Update June 3, 2024: After a little over a week of traffic, here is an update on the situation.

As of today, more than 34,000 QSOs in the log with 32% unique and there is a little more than two weeks of traffic remaining. As a reminder to a certain number of DXers, Marek is at Glorieuses for his job, and it is his priority before any radio activity, which requires QRX. This is his first experience and he is doing his best, because let's not forget that he could have simply not activated Glorieuses for the community...

Concerning the FT8, its traffic is done only with WSJT, following feed-back indicating a problem with validating contacts with the RR73, despite resets of PCs, software, settings... and numerous regular power outages also at origin of some of the problems. Still on the subject of FT8, unfortunately there are pirates who install themselves on the same Marek frequencies and send frames in the wrong period, and we cannot do any thing about this behavior.The 80m antenna is installed, the tests have yielded nothing so far. For the 6m despite the five elements this is identical, the ACOM 1000 amplifier planned in particular for the 6m suffered damage during a power outage, however Marek will continue his efforts on these two bands for which there is a strong demand.

Marek will strive to do more SSBs with windows for the "Little Pistol's" which we ask you to respect in order to give everyone the chance to do at least one QSO with FT4GL, note that the SSB is not possible at night because the radio station is where other people sleep.

Communications with the island are difficult and we do not always have information in real time.

Thank you DXer's for stopping sending emails to pilots to know when Marek is going to be on what frequency or mode and at what time.

For query requests on QSOs, please send them to f8crs@protonmail.com or f4ftv@orange.fr and wait for the day's log of the QSO concerned to be downloaded before sending an email.

Update May 27, 2024: It's been four days since Marek started his trafficking. Upon his arrival, the location planned for the station had to be changed due to a problem
with the building's air conditioning making it impossible to operate there.
Another more cramped air-conditioned room was found, modifying the initial antenna installation plan with difficulties in optimizing the choice of locations in view of the structures present...

Today Marek was able to complete the installation of the second Hexbeam SP6CYN, so for the moment there are two Hexbeams, a vertical from 40 to 10m, a vertical 30m, and the 5 element beam 6m, remaining the verticals 160 /80m to be assembled soon.

Two stations are active as planned, some electrical problems have been reported with the inverters, resulting in some temporary outages, as well as interference linked to equipment external to our installations, which is being resolved and a problem with an amplifier.

For the logs, they are posted online every day, either the morning or evening following the previous day's traffic. For all requests, contact who is responsible for checking and possibly validating the requests. As of May 26, more than 16,000 QSOs, the dupe rate is decreasing.

You can consult the log at the following link: https://clublog.org/charts/?c=FT4GL

His activity is intensive, which he carries out in Spartan conditions at the station, which is also his workplace and place to sleep with very little sleep.

We receive various requests for low bands, 6m, RTTY.... We ask the community to be patient, the operation has just started, it will last three weeks, as a reminder Marek is alone and cannot respond to all requests, the priority is immediately to ATNO, the time to resolve our last technical problems.

Our pilots are starting to give us feedback in order to direct traffic more precisely to satisfy the greatest number of OMs. 

Update May 24, 2024: Early this morning, Marek started installing the stations, then setting up one of the two Hexbeams and the vertical from 40 to 10m in order to be on the air as quickly as possible. Traffic started on 15m FT8 with F8FKI (Chief Pilot) as the first QSO, and the signals on this band are satisfactory towards all continents, then 20m in SSB, where we notice indiscipline and impoliteness of some. Tomorrow (May 25) he will continue the installation of the second Hexbeam despite a temperature of more than 30° degrees in the shade. The first log which already contains 3500 QSOs will be put online quickly by F8CRS.

Update May 24, 2024: Activity has started on 15m FT8 at about 11z. The station on 10m FT8 was pirate.

Update May 24, 2024: Marek is busy this morning setting up antennas. He should be QRV soon.

Update May 23, 2024: End of the morning Marek took off from Mayotte towards the Grande Glorieuse and confirmed his arrival around 4:00 p.m. local time. Tomorrow morning it begins as planned, the installation of the three stations and part of the antennas, the start of traffic will take place at the end of the afternoon.
The drivers are ready, please go through them if necessary at the following link PILOTS (https://ft4gl.blogspot.com/p/pilotes.html). As with any operation of this type, we ask operators to be respectful of the instructions and comments made on various networks as a mark of respect for all the work carried out by the entire team over many months, thank you.

Update May 22, 2024: F5RQQ and F5TVL returned from FH on May 18 after an intense week, and today everything is ready for the adventure that Marek FH4VVK will be leading alone. Take-off for Glorieuses tomorrow, with stations and antennas to be installed on May 24, with traffic expected to start on Friday afternoon. 

Update May 12, 2024: Today F5RQQ and F5TVL finalized their bags with the last materials which could not be sent in mid-April. 
Tomorrow they will go to Paris, for a night flight, direction Mayotte where Marek FH4VVK awaits them for a week.

Update May 10, 2024: The following is excerpts from the FT4GL Web page

This week final preparations, including PC configurations, receipt of the latest F5CYS band filters, packing with those from DX ENGINEERING

Nicolas, F4IPL, from the F4KLW radio club, has prepared common mode filters for us, for those who are interested you will find the technical article from GM3SEK

Monday May 13th, F5RQQ and F5TVL will go to Mayotte for a week to help Marek who is very busy with his professional activity.

In terms of QSL, as announced OQRS will be available, please consult the dedicated page

Manu, F8FKI, our chief pilot was able to free himself from his job in order to be available 100% of his days, from the start of the operationuntil June 3rd, in order to better help and direct traffic according to feedback from other drivers.

Update May 7, 2024: Announced band plan.  Notice that no CW operation is planned:

In the event of frequency restrictions, particularly for Asia, please contact Pilot F8FKI who will transmit the message to Marek and the FT4GL team. You can also send a cluster spot, but be aware that it will not be seen live by Marek because he has a very limited internet connection. The pilots will be responsible for transmitting the information to the operator as quickly as possible.

Update April 25, 2024: The two pallets of equipment arrived in Mayotte on April 23. Still need to receive the band filters which will be supplied by F5CYS, DX ENGINEERING and RA6LBS – will have them at the end of the month. The departure of F5RQQ and F5TVL to Mayotte to help Marek FH4VVK / FT4GL has been brought forward by a day (May 13).  There will be OQRS and this will be clarified shortly.

Update April 18, 2024: All the material deposited and grouped at PROSIC by F5RQQ and F4FTV on Saturday, April 13 was taken care of by our carrier DHL yesterday. The two packages will be sent by plane in a few days to Mayotte, which Marek FH4VVK (FT4GL) will receive.

Update April 14, 2024: On March 15, 2024 we officially announced the FT4GL operation after receiving the license from TAAF, despite a first refusal in 2023. In less than a month, the team in charge of supporting Marek FH4VVK, succeeded in its objective of mobilizing international aid, by individual, associative and professional sponsors, in order to acquire the equipment, test it, organize the logistics..a lot of work in addition to our jobs, stress, questions, joy… but we have arrived at this new stage. Yesterday, Jean-Marc F5RQQ and Fabrice F4FTV went to our main sponsor PROSIC – F5HPE, who supports this operation with dedication. Their trip consisted of bringing the rest of the equipment, part of which was already at PROSIC, in order to crate 90% of all the stations. The material will be sent tomorrow by plane to Mayotte, which Marek FH4VVK will receive in the coming days. F5RQQ and F5TVL will go to FHN in a month to help Marek finalize certain technical points and give the last organizational instructions before his flight to Glorieuse. Thanks to everyone who trusted us and helped us so far, the work is not finished.

Update April 11, 2024: This week F5TVL and F5RQQ created and tested the 160 and 80m low band vertical antennas, a great day of work to cut the many radials of the two antennas which will be installed in an inverted L.

Update April 8, 2024: Last weekend F5RQQ, F4FTV, F5TVL as well as other members of F4KLW; F4FHV and F4IPL came together to prepare and adjust the vertical antenna planned covering 40 to 10m. This week the 160 and 80m vertical antennas will also be tested and at the end of the week the majority of the equipment will be sent to our carrier.

Update March 29, 2024: FT4GL will be also QRV on 6m band.

Update March 16, 2024: We are pleased to announce to the international community, the agreement of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, the future amateur radio activity which will take place from May 24 to June 19, 2024 on the island of Grande Glorieuse with the callsign FT4GL.

This operation carried out for more than a year of effort has finally been rewarded,

it will be atypical and difficult, because the Glorieuses are ranked 7th in the DXCC

Most Wanted List, and the amateur radio traffic carried out exclusively by a single radio amateur, Marek FH4VVK in parallel of his professional activity.

We will inform you regularly about the progress of preparations.

FaceBook page : https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557262192352

X (Twitter) page: https://twitter.com/FT4GL

Update October 30, 2023: The team decided to postpone Operation Glorioso 2023 scheduled for December. The reason for this postponement is due to the advisory committee of the Glorieuses des Terres Australes et Antartiques Françaises (TAAF) nature reserve, which was unable to comment due to a schedule incompatible with our initial request, an unfavorable opinion was given. therefore been returned. Even if it is a disappointment, the operation is not cancelled as Marek is planning to return to Les Glorieuses in 2024 as part of his professional activities. The operation is therefore postponed until March 2024. A new file will be created and represented, as soon as we have reliable information, we will keep the DX community informed.

Update September 9, 2023: Marek is still waiting for permisions. No more information or dates available so far.

Marek, FH4VVK is planning to be QRV on HF bands as FT4GL from Glorioso Islands, AF-011.
Exact dates will be released at the Friedichshafen ham meeting. More information when available.

QSL via F4FTV and LOTW.