HF DXpeditions
A DXpedition is an expedition to what is considered an exotic place by amateur radio operators, perhaps because of its remoteness, access restrictions or simply because there are very few radio amateurs active from that place . This could be an island, a country, or even a particular spot on a geographical grid. “DX” is shorthand for “distance” or “distant”.
There are numerous DXpeditions on the air all the time. They range from multi-station, multi-op, visits to rare DXCC entities and IOTA islands, to “holiday style” activity where someone fits in a few hours operating around other holiday activities. There are several sources of information on these DXpeditions (and on the activities of resident amateurs) but the two most popular free ones are:
• DX World which provides a website and a weekly bulletin
• 425 DX News which provides a weekly email bulletin and a website.
The two main DX Awards programmes in the world are DXCC run by the American Radio Relay League and Islands on the Air (IOTA) now run by an independent management team but formerly by the RSGB. The RSGB’s own awards are listed on the appropriate award section of the RSGB site.
Propagation path information is available from a number of sources including VOACAP.
Solar information (Imagery, Solar Flux Number, A and K indexes, etc) is brought together at Solar Ham.
To maintain a record of your own contacts, operate a club league table, check historical propagation, track DXpedition performance, and order QSL cards from participating stations, Club Log (created by G7VJR) is an absolutely indispensable tool.
CW and data activity can be monitored using the Reverse Beacon Network which aggregates information from stations using automatic decoding software around the world.
More general “cluster spots” can be monitored via G7VJR’s DX Lite page.
The RSGB HF DXpedition Fund can provide modest financial support for expeditions to rare DXCC and IOTA locations and can also assist young people to join such expeditions.