Two contrasting "DX-peditions" have been active recently.
One has been a bunch of Belgians who've landed on Rockall, it's a bit much to actually call it an island, and it's 301km west of St Kilda off the Scottish coast. Somewhat of a challenge landing on it of course, and there isn't much in the way of anything on this piece of rock.
The other one is bit more like it. A nice tropical island possibly with a bit of an inappropriate name - Christmas Island or Kiritmati as the locals call it. It was discovered on Christmas Day in 1643 by the British, but I dare say the locals found it first!
Now the first one went without much incident, apart from the usual weather issues, but the second has had a few little problems. I only mention it as the Chairman and two of the members of the Ripon and District ARS are on this particular trip, namely David G3UNA and Mike G4IUF.
The container with all the intended kit has been delayed, it seems the ship broke down, and isn't going to arrive. The www.t32c.com website promises a whole host of nice equipment but that was not to be the case. Instead at short notice they've had to carry out their gear and it's sort of cut them back a bit.
With all the recent solar activity it doesn't help having a noisy polar path, they've struggled to work Europe, and the rest of the world's big guns are trying to get them in their log.
Oh well, they're not running PSK, and my CW is not up to data burst speeds, so I've got little chance of nabbing them myself unless I get very lucky or find someone with a big monoband yagi and a big linear.
