As A35JT enters Week 2 things are going well. We are hugely appreciative of the kind feedback we have recieved and wish to thank everyone for your contacts with us from Tonga. We continue to explore different band openings and times looking for the unexpected. We also are capitalising on greyline openings on 160m and will do more on 80m in the next few days.

At the same time we will as far as resources allow target the main EU 20 and 17m openings (noting we cant operate 40-20m together and we cant operate 20-17m together). 30m will receive more attention in the next couple of days as well.

Finally, we have been alerted to some potential 12m and 10m openings to South America around 17-18z through our pilot network. We will attempt to exploit those if they are there tomorrow.

ATNO Friday (UTC)!

We also want to open up some lesser used slots and bring some RTTY back to expeditioning. We continue seeking to target more ATNO QSOs for first time contact with Tonga and will call for CQ ATNO (All Time New One) on Friday looking for the smaller stations seeking their first contact with this DXCC.

Team Member Departs – Week 2 More Relaxed

We also said goodbye to one of our team members last night. Steve VK5SFA was unable to stay for the entrie expedition so we are down to 3 operators. The second week will be more relaxed as a result. We have been working ~1500 stations a day with the full team. We expect that to decrease as we take some time to also explore the island a little. Team leader Grant VK5GR has also been joined by his family and will be taking some time off during the day to be with his wife and daughter. We will still try to maintain 1 station on air for as many hours as we can in the second week so keep looking for us here in the South Pacific.

Contesting Plans

We are also planning an effort for the Oceania DX contest, but may not be able to run the entire event. The problem we face is the contest finishes at 0800z which is 9:00pm local on Sunday. We fly out at 1.40pm Monday so packup will be starting during the contest.

Our effort in the CQ WW RTTY contest was more to provide multipliers in the end. Too many other demands on the station meant a full RTTY effort was unable to be mounted. We will submit our log as a CHECKLOG due to the number of broken contacts unfortunately caused by DQRM. At least some of the contesters will be able to get verification of working A35JT this way.

Thanks and see you on air!

Finally thanks again to everyone who has donated to the expedition! It is hugely appreciated! Your support both in terms of encouragement and financial is humbling. We are not a big expedition and many of the team members are new to expeditioning. The feedback received has had a huge impact on the team and for that we say thank you!

73 and see you on the air!