It’s All in the Cards—May the 4th Be with You on the Air!

Welcome to the OnAllBands May 4^th edition of “It’s All in the Cards.” From all of us here, May the Fourth—and the Force—be with you in your DXing pursuits.

This leads us to a question we can only legitimately ask on this day: Are there connections between “Star Wars” and ham radio?

Kind of. Here are a few dubious examples we brainstormed:

• Sci-fi enthusiasts and hams may note that gold-plated protocol droid C-3PO carries Andorra’s DXCC prefix of C3. (They get worse from here.)
• When he’s not busy ordering the destruction of planets (Alderaan, Episode IV, “A New Hope”), Darth Vader can be seen communicating locally through a device in his helmet. His method of breaking through pileups (lifting up those in his way by the neck) is not considered proper operating etiquette.
• According to Wookiepedia, long-distance communications in the Star Wars universe is often provided by “subspace transceivers,” devices used for instantaneous, faster-than-light communications between systems. The site says that the Imperial Star Destroyer had a communications range of 100 light-years—a bit more than propagation allowed during Solar Cycle 24.
• Fanatics will tell you that “Dadita” is a secret, non-verbal Mandalorian system of communicating through dots and dashes like Morse code.
• Finally, and this one’s a major stretch, both Yoda and Yagi have four letters and begin with Y.

With that out of the way, thankfully, let’s move on to some DXpexditions to put on your calendar for May:

South Cook Islands

The E51TLM DXpedition from Rarotonga by K7TLM and KD7YZE is scheduled to start today and run until May 9. This a QRP 10M operation on QRSS CW (28.060 MHz) and SSB (28.385 MHz).

What is QRSS CW? This refers to ultra-slow Morse code transmissions that are useful for making long-distance contacts with low power—in this case, 5 watts using an end-fed 10M wire antenna. May the Force—at QRP levels—be with you!

Located north-east of New Zealand between American Samoa and French Polynesia, the 15 islands that make up the Cook Islands are separated into the northern and southern groups, covering 770,000 square miles of ocean (about the size of Mexico). Rarotonga is the largest and most populous of the Cook Islands, with a population close to 11,000, or about 75% of the country. Other than Aitutaki (population 1,700), the remaining Cook Islands are either uninhabited or have populations of fewer than 500 people.

Tom, KB8UUZ, DX Engineering technical writer, worked the 2015 E51RAT activation from Rarotonga on 15M SSB.

Tonga

The A31AA activation by JH3QFL from Nuku’alofa is set to run from May 14-22. You can try to make contact on 80-6M FT8.

Nuku’alofa is the capital and largest city (population 27,600) of Tonga. It is located on 100-square-mile Tongatapu, an island of around 74,600 residents, or roughly 70% of Tonga’s population. Tongatapu is one of Tonga’s 171 islands (45 inhabited) in Polynesia surrounded by Fiji, Wallis and Futuna, Samoa, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Niue, and Kermadec.

The Pacific flying fox, locally known as peka, is Tonga’s only native land mammal. These large fruit bats are considered sacred and are protected by law in Tonga. In addition, they play an important role as pollinators and seed spreaders in native forests. Kolovai Village on Tongatapu is a popular spot to find the bats hanging in trees.

Dave, N8NB, DX Engineering technical support specialist, contacted the A35RK DXpedition to Lifuka Island (in the Ha’Apai island group) in December 2005 on 12M SSB. A35RK operated from the village of Pangai. It was on Lifuka where Captain Cook called Tonga “The Friendly Islands.”

Bolivia

The multi-operator CP7DX operation from Tarija is scheduled for May 26-June 6. You can attempt to make a QSO with this 160-2M (including 60M) operation on SSB, CW, and FT8.

Tarija, population 234,000, is a city in southern Bolivia which lies in a depression in the eastern Andes known as the Central Valley of Tarija, where you’ll find 80% of the wine and singani (Bolivian brandy) grapes planted in Bolivia.

Dave, N8NB, received the QSL card below from CP4BT in March 2013. It features a llama—Bolivia’s national animal. There are more than three million llamas in Bolivia, accounting for over 60% of the world’s llama population.

Visit DXEngineering.com for everything you need to upgrade your station to make sure you’re ready when entities like South Cook Islands, Tonga, and Bolivia are on the air.

You’ll find transceivers, antennas; a wide selection of amplifiers from ACOM, OM Power, Icom, and others; CW keys and paddles; headsets and speakers; and much more.

Editor’s Note: Every month, DX Engineering features QSL cards from our team members’ personal collections. To highlight upcoming DXpeditions, we’ll be displaying a few of our favorite cards along with details about what it took to make these contacts. We’re excited to share some of the special cards pulled from the thousands we’ve received over the years. We look forward to seeing your cards as well!

The post It’s All in the Cards—May the 4th Be with You on the Air! appeared first on OnAllBands.