Sixty days on a ledge in the Atlantic to raise money for military charities
A British Army veteran who then spent more than 20 years training Bristol University Royal Naval Unit students, is to join forces with two highly skilled radio operators to take on a fundraising challenge on what he describes as "the remotest, loneliest and most desolate place in the British Isles".
In June, expedition leader Chris Cameron and amateur radio enthusiasts Nobby Styles and Emil Bergmann will live on a ledge measuring just 4m by 1.5m in a tiny land pod on Rockall Island, an uninhabited islet more than 200 nautical miles from the west coast of Scotland.
Chris, who plans to live on the tiny island with his team for a week and then stay there by himself for up to two months to raise £50,000 for charity, said: "My team and I intend to radio broadcast from Rockall, the remotest, loneliest and most desolate place in the British Isles.
"Once the radio mission is complete, I intend to inhabit Rockall for 60 days to raise money for the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity and ABF The Soldiers' Charity."
Both military charities do vital work to support serving personnel, their families and veterans.
The current world record for staying on the tiny ledge on Rockall is 45 days, a record held by Nick Hancock who achieved the feat in 2014.
Situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, Rockall is an uninhabitable granite islet, 200 nautical miles from the nearest permanently inhabited place – North Uist – an island in the Outer Hebrides.
Rockall was claimed by the UK in 1955 when, led by Royal Navy officer Lieutenant Commander Desmond Scott, two Royal Marines and a civilian naturalist raised a Union Jack on the islet.
The uninhabitable land is 17.15m above sea level at its tallest point and covers an area of just 784.3 sqm – not exactly a welcoming place to live.
Small change for someone with military experience like Mr Cameron who joined the British Army as a regular infantry soldier and served for six years with the Gordon Highlanders.
The husband and father of two trained as a marine biologist and oceanographer in Aberdeen and holds a PGCE.
He is also commercially qualified as a skipper and Yacht-Master Offshore and has been working professionally at sea since 1992.
His civilian life hasn't seen Mr Cameron stray too far from the Armed Forces as he now works as a senior trainer for Babcock International Group, providing specialist training to military personnel within the UK.
Experienced radio operators Mr Styles and Mr Bergmann will be running transmissions on SSB CW and FT8 24 hours a day for one week, with two radios transmitting simultaneously.
Some of the money will be raised by the team answering transmissions from radio operators around the world, before "granting them their own custom rockall postcard (or qsl card)... in exchange for donations for our great causes".
For Mr Styles, broadcasting from Rockall will be the highlight of his amateur radio enthusiast as it is "perhaps the rarest and most difficult of places to broadcast from in the whole world".
The Rockall expedition team have received support from fellow amateur radio fans, and iota chasers – fans of broadcasting between islands around the world – are equally as excited at the prospect of hearing broadcasts from such a unique location.
Donations can me made by visiting the team's JustGiving page.
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