• VP6D Ducie Island 2018 DXpedition Receives ARRL Colvin Award

    From ARRL de WD1CKS@VERT/WLARB to QST on Tue Aug 7 23:41:24 2018
    08/07/2018

    The pending VP6D Ducie Island[1] DXpedition has received a grant from ARRL's Colvin Award Committee that the VP6D team is characterizing as "significant."

    "We appreciate the confidence ARRL has shown in the VP6D project and the team," a statement on the DXpedition's website said. The Perseverance DX Group (PDXG[2]) is sponsoring the DXpedition, set for October 20 - November 3.

    Funded by an endowment established by Lloyd D. Colvin, W6KG (SK), Colvin Award[3] grants support Amateur Radio projects that promote international goodwill in the field of DX.

    The DXpedition has also announced an addition to the VP6D team - Rob Fanfant, N7QT, a DXpedition veteran and participant in the 2017 VK9MA Mellish Reef DXpedition. Fanfant was also a member of the VK9WA Willis Island, E51MQT Manihiki, TX5Z Austral Islands, and VK9AN Christmas Island DXpeditions, among others.

    Currently in northern California preparing the equipment for shipment to M/V Braveheart in New Zealand, the VP6D working group accepted eight complete Elecraft K3S stations for use at VP6D and were also given a tour of the Elecraft factory. The gear is the same equipment that operators on the recent KH1/KH7Z Baker Island DXpedition used to rack up nearly 70,000 contacts. Elecraft had the gear to refurbish it for the second DXpedition.

    "Today, we are continuing the tasks of integrating the radios, computers, software, configuring the network, and preparing the shipping cases," the DXpedition members reported. "We plan an end-to-end test, from the keyboard, to the [satellite internet antenna], to the log server in the Cloud. We expect to have the equipment ready for the customs broker by August 7."

    The VP6D team reported in late July that plans to activate Ducie Island this fall are on schedule. An uninhabited atoll, Ducie Island is a British Overseas Territory in the Pitcairn Islands in the South Pacific. The last Ducie Island DXpedition was VP6DX in 2008. Ducie is currently the 21st most-wanted DXCC entity, according to ClubLog. It's believed that this would be the fourth DXpedition to Ducie.

     


    [1] https://vp6d.com/
    [2] http://pdxg.net/
    [3] http://www.arrl.org/colvin-award-grants

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