brainwagon

On Saturday afternoon, I was tuning around with my FT-817, and heard VP6DX calling CQ on 20m SSB. He was working split, transmitting on 14.190 and listening on 14.245 (from memory, have the split frequency wrong). It turns out that he’s part of a DXpedition: a trip by a radio amateur to go to a remote location and operate from their. It turns out that VP6DX is operating from Ducie Island, a small member of the Pitcairn islands in the south Pacific, with a total area of less than four square kilometers and no permanent inhabitants. Whacky! I wasn’t really setup for transmitting, so I didn’t bother trying to call him. Indeed, since the FT-817 only puts out five watts and my antenna is hardly optimal, I’m pretty sure it would be pointless, but I thought it was kind of neat to hear him.

VP6DX Ducie Island 2008 :: About Ducie Island