VP6T Pitcairn Island 2012
After their successful operation from French Polynesia in February 2010 as TX4T, three of the four operators, joined by two new operators, are pleased to announce a new major DXpedition to CQ Zone 32 and to the famous and mythical Pitcairn Island in the heart of the Pacific Ocean
This DX operation from Pitcairn has a target of more than 30,000 QSOs. With good propagation forecast for early 2012, efforts will be made to give this extremely rare entity to deserving DXers on as many bands as possible, but especially on the low bands. The rarity of VP6 ensures that all operators will be kept fully occupied during our nine full days on the island. We will be travelling there by boat. We are planning to have three stations active round-the-clock.
Travelling to Pitcairn is not easy. There are only limited travel opportunities to get there. January has been chosen as the optimum time for HF propagation to the major centres of amateur radio activity, at the heart of winter in the Northern hemisphere.
VP6T Plans – Reminder
Since we got many requests asking for 6m operation, EME, SSTV, 60m, etc .. we would like to clarify the following:
We are a small team of 5 operators, and we were very limited in baggage weight and size, mainly on the Air Tahiti domestic flight. So we had to make choices. While most of us are 6m operators, we had decided to not spend much of our precious time and effort on this band.
No antenna will be taken for 6m, as well as no time slot is booked for 6m in our operation schedule (it will already be very hard to keep 3 HF stations running 24/7 with 5 operators).
On the other side, we are aware there is potentially an old 5elts Yagi 6m antenna (left by OH2BR probably). If time permits, we will try to locate it and if it is still in good shape after 12 years spent on the island, then we may install it and make some tests on 6m, using conventional modes (CW and/or SSB). In that case, it will be announced on this web site, or on air by the HF operators.
So to summarize, 6m operation from Pitcairn has not been on our agenda since the early planning stage, as well as all others bands/modes that are not specified on this web site. Thank you for your understanding.
Soon on Pitcairn !
Some VP6T ops arrived safely in Tahiti. Don’t miss the photos with local tahitian hams.
According to their Pitcairn host (Andy Christian) the VP6T team should arrive on the island tommorow, Thursday, Jan 19th !
They should leave Mangareva Tuesday afternoon. Flight arrives in Mangareva @ 11am, cross the lagoon to the main island, get cleared and processed by customs, then they should get a chance to strech their legs after the 5 hour flight from Tahiti. QRX !
Plans, DATES and OBJECTIVES
20th January to 04th February 2012, DXCC entity = Pitcairn Island, all 9 HF bands, 160-10 m.
After their successful operation from French Polynesia in February 2010 as TX4T, three of the four operators, joined by two new operators, are pleased to announce a new major DXpedition to CQ Zone 32 and to the famous and mythical Pitcairn Island in the heart of the Pacific Ocean
This DX operation from Pitcairn has a target of more than 30,000 QSOs. With good propagation forecast for early 2012, efforts will be made to give this extremely rare entity to deserving DXers on as many bands as possible, but especially on the low bands. The rarity of VP6 ensures that all operators will be kept fully occupied during our nine full days on the island. We will be travelling there by boat. We are planning to have three stations active round-the-clock.
Travelling to Pitcairn is not easy. There are only limited travel opportunities to get there. January has been chosen as the optimum time for HF propagation to the major centres of amateur radio activity, at the heart of winter in the Northern hemisphere.
The principal objective is to offer DXers worldwide the chance to make at least one contact with this remote DXCC entity that hasn’t seen any large-scale amateur DX-pedition operation for the past decade.
All nine HF bands will be activated to offer new band slots to the DXCC Challenge chasers. The team will make a particular effort to focus on contacts with Europe and the US East Coast. Openings to Europe will be short. We will pay special attention to sunrise and sunset times. We count on the discipline and fair play of US West Coast operators to give a chance to the propagation-challenged continents.
OPERATING MODES AND FREQUENCIES
Band CW SSB RTTY
160 1831.5 down
80 3503 3790 down EU / up USA
40 7003 7085 up
30 10106 10144 up
20 14035 14180 up 14088 up/down
17 18083 18150 up 18108 up/down
15 21035 21295 up
21098 up
12 24903 24960 up 24928 up/down
10 28035 28490 up 28108 up/down
Note : The CW listening frequency will always be up (except on 160m), starting at just 1kHz or 2kHz up depending on the pile-up size. However on 160m CW where the listening frequency will be down, the actual split will be announced.
Note 2 : VP6T’s proposed operating frequencies have been coordinated with HK0NA in order to minimise any possible mutual interference.
QTH, Pitcairn Island
The Pitcairn Islands group form the southeastern most extension of the geological archipelago of the Tuamotus of French Polynesia. It comprises the islands of Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno.
Pitcairn, the only inhabited island, is a small volcanic outcrop of 5km² situated in the South Pacific. It is roughly 2170km (1350 miles) east south-east of Tahiti and just over 6600km (4100 miles) from Panama. The Islands’ administrative headquarters are situated in Auckland New Zealand, 5310km (3300 miles) away. They belong to the United Kingdom by which it is administrated as an overseas territory.
Equipment
We plan to operate three stations (with a fourth station as a spare) close to the highest point on Pitcairn. Given the difficulties in getting large amounts of heavy equipment to the island, we plan to use lightweight but high performance K3 transceivers and a mixture of amplifiers including two lightweight medium power THP amplifiers.
Tranceivers
4 x Elecraft K3/100
4 x Microham MK2 interfaces
Amplifiers
1 x Alpha 76A
1 x Tokyo Hy-Power HL1.1Kfx
1 x Tokyo Hy-Power HL550Kfx
1 x Ameritron ALS500M
Antennas
20/17/15/12/10m: 2 x Spiderbeam 5 bands on 10m aluminium masts + 1 x VDA (Vertical Dipole Array) for each band
30m: 1/4 wave vertical (with 10m fibreglass pole)
40m: 1/4 wave vertical (with Spiderbeam 12m pole)
80m: 1/4 wave vertical (with Spiderbeam 18m pole)
160m: 1 x Inverted-L (with Spiderbeam 26m pole)
LF RX: 2 x Beverages for 160m and 80 (1 for EU/US, 1 for JA)
QSL Manager, G3TXF
LoTW : We intend to upload the VP6T log to LoTW regularly (via satellite-phone Internet) during the operation. However, if we are unsuccessful in doing this, we will upload the full VP6T log to LoTW immediately after the operation.
ClubLog : We will try to update our VP6T log on ClubLog several times a day during the operation. This will help you track your progress across the bands.
Nigel G3TXF will be handling the QSLs. In addition to the usual routes (Direct QSLing, QSLing via the Bureau and E-mail requests for Bureau cards to ”QSL at G3TXF dot com”) we will also be using the new Online QSL Request Service (OQRS) provided by ClubLog.
While DXpeditions to such rare locations as Pitcairn Island are certainly appreciated, I cannot for the life of me understand why the existing residents of this and other such far away places do not utilize their own amateur radio licenses and equipment, rather than require foreign visitors to spend an inordinate amount of time and money to do it for them.
ReplyDeletePlease correct me if I am wrong, but I seem to remember that Pitcairn had at least one resident ham operator who was quite active in years gone by. Must I assume that these operators have since passed away, that their equipment is broken, that they no longer have any inclination or patience to work massive pileups, or have simply lost interest in amateur radio in general? Is no one else willing to pick up the mantle or are the reasons more complex than that?
Remote islands notwithstanding, I furthermore find it incomprehensible that nations such as Bhutan (A5) rarely if ever activate their own club station from previously-donated equipment, or at the very least have an existing licensed ham or two fire up their rigs and call CQ once in a while. Querying emails to a select few A5 stations go unanswered. Have they too lost interest or is there some sort of "culture gap" which discourages any overt enthusiasm toward "western values"? Has the steadily-increasing, on-air bad behaviour turned them off?
Surely it must be an odd feeling for the amateur radio residents of these "most wanted" DXCC locations to witness teams of travellers from the U.S., Germany, Japan, France, etc., arriving with tons of equipment to put themselves on the air when the locals could presumably do it themselves--even if only to a limited degree? Indeed, doesn't the resident youth take any interest in ham radio or have they found other "toys" to play with?