Christmas comes a few weeks early for ham radio operators everywhere!
The VK9XY Christmas Island activation—featuring young operators from around the world—is scheduled to run Nov. 16-Dec. 4, 2026. That’s great news for CQ World Wide DX CW competitors who will be trying to put Christmas Island in their logs during the contest, which runs Nov. 28-29, 2026. The VK9XY team will be operating on 160-6M in SSB, CW, and FT8.
In addition to the on-island team, an equipment grant from the Northern California DX Foundation will make it possible for 30 to 40 young hams to operate VK9XY remotely via NexGenRiB2 (radio in a box) stations.
From the VK9XY website: “This becomes one of the largest hands-on training grounds our hobby has ever run.”
The on-island team is led by Max Freedman, N4ML, who earlier in 2026 operated on Bouvet Island. Longtime DXpeditioners Gregg Marco, W6IZT, and Glenn Johnson, W0GJ, will join the team as advisors. View the team here.
To read full details and make a donation, visit the VK9XY website.
About Christmas Island
Fifty-two-square-mile Christmas Island (IOTA OC-002), so named because of its discovery on Christmas Day 1643, is an Australian external territory in the Indian Ocean about 220 miles south of Indonesia and 960 northwest of Australia’s mainland. It has a population of around 1,600, plus tens of millions of bright red crabs which annually march en masse from the island’s rainforests to the ocean for breeding. Watch the video below:
DX Engineering Onboard
As part of the company’s ongoing commitment to support the future of amateur radio, DX Engineering provided a wide range of equipment for VK9XY, including:
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- (Image/VK9XY)
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- This seven-section mast achieves a maximum height of 46 feet and collapses to a highly transportable 7.5 feet. (Image/DX Engineering)
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- DX Engineering Ferrite (DXE-CSB31-750-5); five Mix 31 snap-on beads, .75-inch I.D. (Image/DX Engineering)
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- DX Engineering Ferrite (DXE-TC31-24-4); four Mix 31 2.4-inch O.D. toroids. (Image/DX Engineering)
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