RA9USU pisze:

Several friends were asking me about the reason for my dropping out from 3Y0J Bouvet 2022 Team. I will do my best to clear things out. Sorry for the delay – the end of the year is a nightmare multiplied by a hundred in Russia. Because of the long New Year holidays - every Government contract should be closed by the end of the year and there is almost absolutely no time to do anything besides the work. Sleeping no more than four hours at night for the last month or so.
Unfortunately, even though Ken, LA7GIA, and I usually had no issues communicating in the past, I found about me “quitting team for personal reasons” from the DX-world website. I know that you need balls to tell someone in a face that you are fucking him over.
Asking around cleared things a bit, but I was really confused by the Team Leaders decision.
It’s all started back in 2016 and I was in touch with Ken when I was working on my 3Y0H plans to operate from Bouvetoya. After failed attempts by 3Y0Z and 3Y0I, it was clear that collecting the funds from the Clubs will be very damaging to them and I was working on the budget-friendly operation. I had a plan and a way to exercise it but failed to collect the money in two weeks, which was almost impossible to do during the pandemic, but that was the condition from the vessel owner to keep the price down.
Then it was the 3Y0J announcement and I saw Ken joining the N6PSE-lead team. It was surprising to see because I had an experience in the past with that “leader” in action, but everything for the cause.
On August 4, 2021, I received the message from Ken, inviting me to join 3Y0J, where there were already eight Team members (including Axel, DL6KVA). Later I found that Axel was not yet on the Team that was just a dirty trick to make me agree to join. Later the very same trick was used to other members to join 3Y0J. Anyway, in the end, the Team was really looking promising and worth traveling with.
Therefore, I paid my dues and the required installment was all done…
On October 15, I received a revised Team Agreement from Ken. The deadline for signing the paper and second round of payment (which I already paid in advance) was on October 25. The next payment is in February 2022. That a little collided with my 3A3A road trip, which lasted during half of November, along with arranging most of the equipment for that operation, but my dues are paid in advance and I would read the agreement later upon my return, no biggies.
Then I read the Agreement.
I was puzzled, to say the least.
First of all, how is Team Agreement regulate the OQRS payment fee? 15 USD per card? I understand that DX-peditions like Bouvet requires a lot of money, but fixing the cost of confirmation to 15 USD is something I really don’t want to see before the expedition is even started!
Second, Team members are “expressly prohibited from soliciting funds from anywhere, which otherwise could donate to the Team account”. That means that I can no longer ask my friends from Expert Electronics (SunSDR) to support me because The Team could use that support for themselves (although everyone is bringing their own Elecraft K3’s with them anyway).
The third was absolutely something I can not accept. I did try to negotiate that but failed to find the understanding from Leaders. I never saw any Team Agreement (and I saw many of them) regulating the operating style before in my life, but this one went further.
This Agreement prohibits me from utilizing the Russian Language! I am mostly a CW operator and was invited as an operator, who pays 20,000 USD to join the operation. Not versa! I am not an employee and was not hired, requiring me to speak only English is unlawful and discriminatory!
Linguistic diversity is a reality, observance of which is a fundamental value in the European Union. Also regulated by Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), Article 165(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) (while fully respecting cultural and linguistic diversity (Article 165(1) TFEU).
The Treaty of Lisbon prohibits discrimination on grounds of language (Article 21) and places an obligation on the Union to respect linguistic diversity (Article 22).
There is absolutely no sufficient justification for this requirement to be on the Agreement!
Just to remind Ken, that “Amateur Radio DXpeditions” is registered in European Union and required to obey the Laws.
I asked Ken why is that demand is on the Agreement and he replied that he “will not allow any QSOs in Russian or whatever” and “it is not allowed to give instructions in Russian on CW that no other people can understand”. This is coming from a person, who erased the TZ4AM from the TL7M/TL8AO log on 160m, just because he did not act the way instructed by the operator.
For real? I consider myself a decent operator and was never blamed by any DX-pedition leaders for my ability to operate in my native language. Quite the opposite – they insisted that I operate the radio when propagation was favorable to Russia and East Europe. I know best how to maximize the number of contacts and how to operate the specific areas of the World, propagation dependent.
The agreement also prohibits direct call of a specific area (i.e. Asia, Pacific, or else) and only allows to call CQ without designating the World area.
Fourth, as of now, we had not confirmed the port of departure and therefore I could not accept the Cancellation policy. I do not have to obtain a visa to Argentina, Brazil, or South Africa. However, should the port of departure change to Stanley (Falklands) I will have to get the BOT visa. Taking into account that British Embassy in Moscow is mostly closed – there will be additional challenges to get it, especially if that happens a month before the DXpedition.
One part of the Agreement says, “If you denied entry, we will consider you to have voluntarily dropped out and your payments will not be returned”. I know that visas are my responsibility, but a visa does not guarantee entry to the country. It’s an immigration officer’s decision on whether to let you in or not. Government employee’s decision, not mine. It cannot be considered as a Voluntary dropping out. Period!
Fifth – Part 10 Misc A(a) states that “Team members are encouraged to provide their own IridiumGo!, Garmin InReach or Iridium Satellite phone for personal communications”. Then (c) states “Team members shall not use their personally owned devices to post to Internet activities while on the island”.
Ken later added, “During the DXpedition, no operator can post anything from the operation on Internet… or post stuff on DX-World, post videos on your Facebook page from the operation, on reflectors, etc. while you are on the Island”. While it is technically challenging, to begin with, this kind of censorship is unlawful, unjustified, and unacceptable.
All that led to our few weeks long correspondence, where I ask Team Leaders to acknowledge my disagreement with several paragraphs of the Agreement and received an ultimatum from Ken, where he stated that he does not accept any disagreements and if I want to be kept as part of the Team I should immediately sign the Agreement and accept all discriminatory and unlawful requirements.
Ken, your entire Agreement is serve only one purpose – protect the interest of the three Team Leaders from any liability before 3Y0J Team Members, leaving the members themselves vulnerable. I do understand that treating members as your employees, dictating them how to use their free time and how to behave is maybe something you do in your field of work, but in no way does this in the Team’s interests nor the Agreement in general. This is the Declaration. We are supposed to be a Team of friends, going together to DXpedition, but instead, we end up being a Dictatorship, earning the way through…
How many people on the Team have sailing experience and how many of them are good operators, capable of reaching your goal of 120,000 Qs? Can carry 70 kg generators to the shore? I can easily survive without being on Bouvet (my wife will definitely love the idea of not spending 25,000 USD), does it really serves the purpose of this DX-pedition? I have experience in delivering results under the heavy pressure of Antarctic operations. Do you? I was raised as a DXpeditioner by Italian, German, Serbian, Russian Teams. Did you? How many actual team operations have you had before?
Just a note – failed 3Y0Z DX-pedition was budgeted 700,000 USD with two helicopters on board and twenty operators, plus the entire vessel crew, while your two-crew man’s sailboat operation is 650,000 USD. Sure that’s exactly the reason your Agreement requires to keep the DXpedition accounting books private.