A Look Inside the 2025 E51MWA Northern Cook Islands DXpedition

In October 2025, a small group of active DXpeditioners—Rob, N7QT; Robin, WA7CPA; Brian, N9ADG; Jack, N7JP; James, KC7EFP; and myself, Violetta, KN2P—made our way across the globe to activate #68 on the DXCC most wanted list, the Northern Cook Islands. The destination was Manihiki, a small atoll in the South Pacific which is home to 200 Māori, the indigenous Polynesian people of the Cook Islands. The 1.5-square-mile island is located over 800 miles from the main island of Rarotonga, making Manihiki one of the most remote inhabitations in the South Pacific.

The team traveled separately from the U.S. and met on the main island of Rarotonga, where the capital of Avarua is located. On Tuesday morning, October 7, we loaded our gear and baggage onto an Embraer 110 aircraft and took off for Manihiki. The total flight time was about three hours, including a short stop in Aitutaki to refuel. The only way to reach the atoll is on a flight operated by Air Rarotonga, the inter-island airline that runs both scheduled and charter flights. The service to Manihiki runs every other week on Tuesdays. Once we landed in Manihiki, there was no way to leave until the next flight two weeks later.

After landing on the 4,800-foot coral runway that ran along the shore of the atoll, we were greeted by the villagers with ‘ei—garlands of vibrant flowers—and fresh coconuts that were harvested that morning. The villagers gathered in the airport, a small building with no walls, to say a prayer of thanks for our safe arrival. They loaded our gear onto a tractor that took it directly to a small fishing boat, which would take us across the lagoon to the other side of the atoll. Our accommodations were two small bungalows sitting directly on the shore of the lagoon.

By the time we unloaded the boat, it was noon local time. We got to work unpacking the equipment that we had shipped there prior to our arrival and started assembling the station and building antennas. The assembly continued into Wednesday until we were hit with storms that brought severe winds. Aside from losing valuable setup time and having to rebuild an antenna that had blown over, we were very fortunate that there was no major damage.

Thursday was full of antenna work, repairing the small damages from the storm and building the rest of the VDAs (vertical dipole arrays). By sundown on Thursday the station was assembled and the antennas, aside from the 30m and 160m, were set up and tuned. We positioned the 10, 12, 15, 17, and 20m VDAs as close to the salt water as possible, placing sandbags in the coral reef to anchor the guy wires. CrankIRs covered 30, 40, and 80m, and we used an inverted-L for 160m.

The two main stations that would be on the air around the clock consisted of Elecraft K3s with FlexRadio PGXL amplifiers, with a third station of another K3 with a KPA500. The 6m station was a KX3 running 10 watts.

The experience level of our team varied widely. Rob, N7QT, has been on over two dozen DXpeditions, while I was on my very first and learning everything from the ground up. From discovering the strategies of antenna placement to a whole new propagation chart, every moment offered a unique learning experience.

We spent Friday morning troubleshooting issues with the network and equipment. By early afternoon we were QRV. We ran into our first issue when we found that the high-power band pass filters for 12m and 17m were bad. It was impossible to operate on those bands without causing immense interference to the other operators. It was possible to work FT8 on 12m and 17m at the same time, but CW and SSB were not viable options.

Other than a few network issues with Starlink and a mishap when one of our power strips caught fire, the first few days went smoothly and the number of contacts in the log steadily grew. All three stations were in constant use, while the fourth station monitored 6m for any possible openings.

Halfway through Friday night, the village power plant lost power. We had experienced several days of rain and overcast skies, and the backup generator for their power plant was not functioning properly. Unfortunately, the technician that usually services the power plant had just left for vacation in New Zealand. After half a day of troubleshooting, they found a temporary solution and our power was restored.

During the outage, we finished assembling the 30m VDA and set up the 160m inverted-L, which immediately proved to be a popular band. On Monday, Murphy’s Law struck again. We lost all audio on one of the K3s, meaning we were down to two stations plus the 6m monitor. Our operating schedule was built around two stations running 24/7, with the third station available for anyone to use during their off time. Although it was not a critical issue, it significantly slowed our QSO rate.

After another day of cloudy weather with more rain, the solar power bank was running low. One of the villagers went out early Tuesday morning to turn on the backup generator and then went home. An hour or two later, they discovered the backup generator was on fire. This included the building that also held the transformers which fed the village grid as well as the switch that controlled the power source—either the solar panels and batteries or the backup generator—that was feeding the grid.