With permission from the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the 10-operator CY9C DXpedition team is scheduled to put St. Paul on the air August 26 to September 5 from the windswept and treeless Northeast Island site, just off the coast of Nova Scotia.

The team of experienced hams, many of whom participated in the highly successful CY0S Sable Island DXpedition in March 2023, plan to be active on 160-6M, employing Yagis on 20-6M and elevated sloping dipoles and verticals on the low bands. There should be a good mix of modes available for filling bands (CW, SSB, RTTY, FT8, EME, Satellites), with an emphasis on Morse code contacts. Uninhabited and rarely visited St. Paul Island is approximately three miles long and a mile wide.

The island features an automated solar-powered lighthouse built in 1962—the third lighthouse which has served watercrafts between the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Cabot Strait. Lighthouse chasers will be hoping to add this to their conquests (STP-002), as well as POTA (CA-0122) and IOTA (NA-094) enthusiasts.

The island is encircled by foreboding rock-faced cliffs, which will require the CY9C team to use two helicopters to transport gear and team members to the operating site.

Find updated information at CY9C’s official website. St. Paul Island ranked as the 52^nd Most Wanted DXCC Entity as of May, per Clublog.

***

DX Engineering was a proud sponsor of the CY9C 2016 St. Paul DXpedition. The company provided a range of gear used on the island, including the Butternut HF9V 9-Band Vertical Antenna.

Two operators from that DXpedition, Jay, K4ZLE, and Murray, WA4DAN, are also scheduled to operate in this latest venture. For CY9C 2024, DX Engineering has provided the following equipment for a Beverage antenna system:

DX Engineering Beverage Antenna System: This single-wire, single-direction beverage feed system (100 kHz to 30 MHz) designed by W8JI is immune to the strong signal overload and core saturation common in multi-transmitter environments, making it ideal for low-band DXers. It employs an isolated-winding matching-transformer system to significantly increase the signal-to-noise ratio in Beverage and other high-impedance antennas.

DX Engineering RPA-2 Modular Receive Preamplifier: This preamp delivers low internal noise and is optimized for the 300 kHz to 35 MHz range. The device is designed to help you hear the weakest signals without artificially raising the noise. Robust components allow this preamplifier to withstand high signal levels while providing superior dynamic range and third-order intercept performance that equals or exceeds most receiver and transceiver front-ends.

DX Engineering Beverage Termination Resistors

Check in with OnAllBands for more articles on the CY9C 2024 St. Paul Island DXpedition as the date nears.

The post DX Engineering Lends Support to Upcoming DXpedition to St. Paul Island appeared first on OnAllBands.

FT4GL Automation. So how can it be this automated FT8 operation from Glorioso (FT4GL) has been approved for DXCC?

There is a major expedition planned to Jarvis Island in the middle of the Pacific in early August 2024 and their planned operations include some 50 MHz activity.

Press release

***

Dear Fellow DXers,

In March the Dateline DX Association was pleased to announce that it has received permission from the USFWS for a DXpedition to Jarvis Island National Wildlife Reserve this August. Jarvis is ranked nr. 18 on Clublog's global most wanted list. It is number 9 in Europe.  In some EU countries Jarvis is ranked as high as second most wanted on phone and digial.  Jarvis is ranked higher than Bouvet (16) in Europe. It is 450 miles from Palmyra Atoll and 1500 miles from Hawaii.

Because it’s been over 34 years since last activated it is one of the highest ranked IOTA and POTA targets among the hams who chase those awards.   We were pleased that both program administrators have altered their rules to allow for their awards to be credited by working one of the 5 operators who are remoting from the ship just offshore (and still in the reserve).

An experienced team of five consisting of George, AA7JV, Don, N1DG, Tomi, HA7RY, Adrian, KO8SCA, and Mike, KN4EEI, will install 6 RIB stations on Jarvis.  The at-island team will be augmented by 24 remote operators from Asia, Europe and North America.  All phone, 160 and 6 mtr operations will be done locally.   The local ops will also operate CW and FT8 on all bands.  The remote operators will operate on 80 to 10 meters using CW and FT8 modes. We are permitted 12 days of operation but the permit is good for the whole month of August to allow for weather issues.

The core of the Dateline DX Association is the team of operators from the highly successful Baker Island 2018 and Midway 2009 DXpeditions.  Both DXpeditions received the coveted DXpedition of the year awards at Dayton.  We have broad experience working from the Pacific and remote and environmentally sensitive areas around the world.  It was this experience that earned Dateline the first permission to activate Jarvis since 1990.  This will be the third ever operation from Jarvis.

Any DXpedition to a protected area is expensive and our externally financial need is over $200,000. We have a boat, approved by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, to safely carry us to and from the Reserve and not cause any harm to Jarvis Island or the surrounding reefs.   The budget would easily have been over $500,000 had it not been for the use of AA7JV’s vessel, the Magnet.  The $200,000 is required for fuel, USFWS permit fees, extra crew for the trip and data services and equipment.   Radios are not included in the budget as NCDXF contributed to the design and building of the RIBs.

NCDXF has also kickstarted our fundraising campaign with a hefty grant of $75,000.

Please understand the dates for our DXpedition were not our first choice. Rather, the exact dates of our DXpedition were specified by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  While top band opportunities are limited by the early August dates, 10 and 6 meters should offer ample opportunities to pick up new band counters.   Europeans (where Jarvis is number 9) should benefit greatly for ATNO QSOs during the peak months of cycle 25.

There will be extensive science being conducted on Jarvis by 3 biologists from the USFWS.  We will be providing free transportation and food for their team. 

You can follow our plans on our web site at: http://jarvisisland2024.com, and on Facebook. 

We are counting on help from DXers and DX organizations from around the world to help cover our costs.  Jarvis has not been activated for 34 years and we anticipate by demonstrating our RIB concept to the USFWS biologists accompanying us to Jarvis we can open the doors to other islands off limits to the ham community.

Please consider making a donation to the Dateline DX Association to help bring Jarvis Island on the air.   Donations can be made either through our paypal donate@jarvisisland2024.com or direct to our bank:

Checks made out to the Dateline DX Association should be sent to:

Dateline DX Association

PO BOX 1397

Duxbury, MA 02331-1397

We wish to thank you in advance for your support.

Don Greenbaum, N1DG and George Wallner, AA7JV

Jarvis Island 2024 and The Dateline DX Association

Website - https://jarvisisland2024.com/

I enjoy chasing DX. But operating a “Stealth Station” sometimes has its disadvantages when the pile ups are massive.

Often when listening you will hear the DX station giving out their callsign along with “listening up or up 5-10 or???”

Now the operators who can’t figure it out will toss their callsign out where no one is listening for it and then the DX COPS will jump in and scream at the operator for not following the instructions which now means the people who followed the instructions are not hearing anything but Lids and Cops…

Now here is the best video I have found (so far) that covers the topic so well that I wanted to share it with you.

Seems fairly simple and easy to understand… and although he is using a IC7300 for his example…. Most (if not all) of the newer HF Radios will work in the same way.

Thanks to Matt K0LWC for the video. If you like it head over to his YOUTUBE site more more content.

And that my friends is the view from the “Cheap Seats”

73bob

JD1BMH Ogasawara. Wow, a REAL DXpedition! "Harry" is churning it out on CW & Phone.

A friendly reminder for all you Lazy, Mindless, Automated Computer Scripted Text Messengers out there - you want to RR73 the virtues of FT8 from the rooftops

7O8AE & 7O8AD Yemen DXpedition. A two man low power DXpedition from a rare DXCC Entity with an emphasis on CW & Phone with the CW Op running FT8 on the side.

DXpeditioners have figured out they can turn on their automated FT8 computer scripts and make more money than actually operating their Ham Radios on Phone or CW

The massive Bouvet pile-ups have begun! 3Y0J trimmed their camp back to two stations, 100 watts with wire antennas, but they made it on the air around 1600Z!

3Y0J Bouvet - They Have arrived! From their Facebook Page today: 3Y0J Bouvet Island 2023 Update: "3Y0J Team Co-Leader Ken LA7GIA reports, “We are at Bouvet"

I'd say we're well on the way to having a major part of Ham Radio become nothing more than lazy, computer scripted text messaging - FT8.