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Hamcom 2008 - June 13-14

We are pleased to announce that the DX Dinner and the Hospitality suite will be at the Holiday Inn Express this year. This is also the official hotel for Hamcom. Eric, K3NA the co-leader from VP6DX will be the keynote speaker for our DX Banquet this year, obviously presenting the excellent VP6DX dxpedition.

JX9JKA - Jan Mayen

Svein, LA9JKA will be operating as JX9JKA until October. This IOTA EU-022. Svein says he will be active from 160-6 mtrs using SSB and Digital Modes.

My computer shows the beam heading as 22° / 202° from Dallas. 

QSL JX9JKA via LA9JKA.

Jan Mayen has been pretty hard to work. I know the LSDXA DX Wizard (Jack, W5SVZ - SK) was on the DXCC honor roll and still needed JX in the log. I think he did manage to work Per, JX7DFA eventually. JX7DFA was active during 2000 & 2002. It sounds like Svein won't be helping the CW only operators though.

Jan Mayen belongs to Norway. It is located in the north Atlantic ocean. A  crew of 18 people are here during the winter. This can double during summer. They are running the Loran-C navigation station, the meteorological station and maintaining the infrastructure - buildings, roads, airstrip, power station and so on. There are no ports or harbors.

Jan Mayen is pretty large, covering 144 square miles. The island consists of two main parts joined by a narrow strip of land (called an isthmus). The north part of the island is a round shape, dominated by the active volcano, Beerenberg (2277m), which had its last eruption in 1985. The volcano is partly surrounded by glaciers The southern part of the island is flat and featureless. The living station are located on the south island. There are no natural resources on the island, only fishing around it.  

Jan Mayen website HERE

Glorioso DXpedition delayed

From F5OGL, Didier the team leader Glorious 2008....

The operation for Glorioso 2008 must be delayed for some weeks. The HQ of the south zone of the Indian ocean announced us due to the fact that important works of facilities will take place on the island. During two and a half months, at the beginning of June, shelters anti cyclonic will be build to protect the military personnals and some equipment for the weather station.

Due to the number of persons who will be on the island during the same period, we decided with the HQ of force of the south zone of the Indian ocean to do this DXpédition when these works will be ended.

The exact dates will be define according to the operational occupation of the military transport in this region but we hope to accomplish this operation to the end of September or the beginning of October.

This leaves us the time to improve our preparations and, we thank you all those who contribute to the realization of this plan and firstly the military authorities of the Reunion island and our financial and equipment sponsors..

Glorioso DXpedition website HERE

VU4 / VU7 - Another Chance...

The National Institute of Amateur Radio (NIAR) will be celebrating its "Silver Jubilee" in Hyderabad, India, between October 18-20^th 2008. To help celebrate this event, look for some special amateur radio activities to take place between October 24th and November 3rd from many Indian locations which will include operations from the Andaman & Nicobar Islands (VU4) and Lakshadweep Islands (VU7). NIAR will be assisting foreign amateurs in regard to reciprocal licenses or operation permits for the VU4 and VU7 activations. 

To receive details about license requirements, fill out the registration form at: http://www.niar.org/sj/form.html

More information is available at: http://www.niar.org/sj/index.htm

ZS8T is on Marion Island

Petrus will be on Marion Island for a year. He is setting to camp set up now, so it is expected that he will not be on the air until the end of April. The great news is he will have an Icom IC-7000, an Ameritron AL80B Amp, a Spiderbeam, A Steppir vertical and a Bencher paddle. Maybe my dreams of a CW contact with ZS8 will be fulfilled.
  

ZS8T web page HERE

3YØE web page HERE

Excel Spreadsheet by Jari, OH2BU - The "Mega DX Peditions Honor Roll".

MEGA DX PEDITIONS HONOR ROLL. Jari, OH2BU, has put together and maintained an interesting Excel spreadsheet over the last 12 years called - The "Mega DX Peditions Honor Roll". This Honor Roll listing currently includes data of 114 DXpeditions that have worked 30,000 or more QSOs since 1979. This unique listing includes data on:

• A summary on the DXpedition (dates, length, QSOs, stations..etc.)

• Information on Logs, Web site, QSL routes and if it is in LoTW

• List of operators of the DXpedition

• QSO statistics per continents, modes and bands

• Also continental, band and mode records

The whole purpose of this listing is to help future DXpeditions in planning their next operation, and to understand the possibilities in making QSOs to different continents and to optimize their efforts.

The LSDXA would like to thank Jari for permission to reproduce his amazing spreadsheet on this site. Please Click on the "Files" link in our menu to access it.

CEPT says 'No' to U.S. Tech and General

U.S. radio hams who want to operate in countries that have CEPT universal licensing and want to use that reciprocal system had better hold an Advanced or Extra class license. 

The European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations which administers the CEPT licensing scheme feels that the United States Technician and General class licenses no longer meet the requirements to permit reciprocal operating CEPT agreement nations. 

The CEPT license was created to minimize the need for hams licensed in one nation to operate from another without requesting a reciprocal license in each country.  The decision to disenfranchise United States General and Technician class hams from CEPT licensing came at a January 29^th meeting held in Basel, Switzerland. 

At that gathering the CEPT's Radio Regulatory Working Group re-evaluated current United States license standards versus those of the other CEPT signatories.  It apparently found the recently revised US licensing standards for Technician and General no longer have any equivalent in the European community of nations.

This change dopes not mean that United States Technician and General class license holders cannot operate from Europe.  It does however require that a US Tech or General may have to apply for a reciprocal operating permit in that nation.  Its also suggested that this be done well in advance of departing on that trip because some administrations are very slow in responding.

One last note.  The decision by the United States to drop all Morse testing had nothing to do with the CEPT decision.  Most CEPT signatories dropped Morse testing long before we did here in the USA

BS7H and ZL8R DVD's now available

James, 9V1YC informs us that the BS7H and ZL8R DVD's are now available. Check HERE for information.

Your webmaster has the BS7H DVD in his hand. Great job James, well done.

3B7C Equipment Stolen

We regret to report that some of the equipment that was loaned for the Yaesu sponsored 3B7C DXpedition was stolen when the container returned to the UK. 
It would be appreciated if you could please look-out for any of the following being offered for sale or trade-in, and if seen then please contact the police quoting the following Incident Number.
Crime Incident number : 44070539181

FT-2000 100W Serial number 7D170271
FT-2000 100W Serial number 7D170459
FT-847 100W HF/VHF/UHF Transceiver 3C131053
FT-847 100W HF/VHF/UHF Transceiver 3C131054
VP-1000 Quadra Power Supply unit 7F920017

Yaesu UK is offering a reward for information leading to the conviction of the criminals responsible.

Current DX Cluster Spots - updated every 30 secs.

YV0, Aves Island

I was amazed to read about the damage hurricane Dean did to Aves Island in August 2007. Indeed, it washed 90% of the island away......  No, it's not an April the First joke, read about it, and see the photos on the YXØA website HERE.

Possible DXCC changes

The Netherlands Antilles are to be disbanded on December 15, 2008. The idea of the Netherlands Antilles as a state never enjoyed full support of all islands. Political relations between islands were often strained. After a long struggle, Aruba seceded from the Netherlands Antilles in 1986, to form its own state within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The desire for secession has also been strong in Sint Maarten.

On February 12, 2007, an agreement was signed between the Netherlands and every island except Curaçao. This agreement would end the Netherlands Antilles by December 15, 2008

The President of European DX Foundation (EUDXF), Hans, PB2T, who visited ARRL HQ in July 2007 and had a discussion about the DXCC status of Netherlands Antilles, feels after December 15th, 2008, it looks like four new entities will be added to the DXCC list in the future (Curacao, Sint Maarten, Saba, Sint Eustatius and Bonaire).