Only 3 months to go and we should be active from Chistmas Island.

Lee VK3GK was lucky enough to work VK9AA on 40m SSB on the 28th of June from VK3 at 1400z….its even a difficult path for VK as most operations happen on the NW side of the island and there is a big mountain in the way between Christmas Island and Australia.

I expect we should have similar signals from VK9XI as we will be running similar equipment, antennas and operating from the same area except our low band antennas (160m/80m and 40m) may be more efficient..

This expedition began planning in early 2017 as the brainchild of Chris VK3FY, Lee VK3GK and Tony VK3TZ. The idea was to activate each island as part of the Oceania DX Contest in either the SSB or CW divisions.

Both Christmas Island (OC-002) as VK9XI and Cocos Keeling Island (OC-003) as VK9CI will be active each for a week.

• Christmas Island from October 2nd – 10th (coincides with Oceania SSB Contest weekend)
• Cocos Keeling Island from October 10th -17th (coincides with Oceania CW Contest weekend)

In addition to the original three operators they will be joined by Luke Steele VK3HJ and Peter Dernikos VK3FN (K3BV).

The on air plan will the team mainly work Split. Please do not call on their transmit frequency, (unless specifically asked). SSB split will start most of the time 5 KHz up from their

transmit frequency.CW/RTTY will start 1 KHz up from their transmit frequency. The team intends to try and keep splits as narrow as possible. Also, if they are not listening UP, they will listen DOWN. Always listen to and follow the operators instructions. No specific frequencies has been choosen as yet. Keep watching the DX clusters or spots.

NOTE: the team will be specifically making provisions to work within the US General band plans.