Hello, fellow DXers! I hope you are enjoying the great HF propagation! I’m also looking forward to the upcoming summer 6-meter activity! I have been recovering from shoulder surgery. I am grateful for my friends who have helped provide us all with a variety of articles for your reading pleasure. Working long periods on the computer keyboard is pretty difficult for me right now. But hopefully I’ll be back to normal soon. Meanwhile, I’ll see ya in the pileups.
This month, I am turning over the keyboard to an old friend to tell us about the YJ0A Vanuatu DXpedition. I hope you enjoy Al, K7AR’s, article about his South Pacific adventure!–73, Bob, N2OO
For the last three years, our DXpedition activity has been shut down due to the pandemic. Since travel restrictions are being lifted, we have traveled twice in the last three months. The bottleneck has been lifted! In November, 2022, we had a successful expedition to American Samoa as K8H, and in February, 2023 we activated YJØA in Vanuatu. The goal of this expedition was to participate in the CQ WPX RTTY and ARRL DX CW contests, as well as operating DXpedition-style during our two-week visit.
Vanuatu is an island nation in the South Pacific Ocean, consisting of 13 principal and other smaller islands. The archipelago is located about 500 miles west of Fiji (3D2). We operated from the main island of Efate. Figure 1 shows the location of Vanuatu on a Pacific map.
Customary Customs Complications
As usual for international travel, immigration forms were distributed on the flight to Port Vila. Going through immigration when landing was easy and simple. Where are you staying? How long will you be there? And so on. Going
