Jamaica DXPedition 2007 (October)

Hi everyone;

I'm Rick, NØNJY, and I'll be your tour guide here for a bit.

What this is all about:

In August this year, my wife JoAnne (KBØIRW) and I have celebrated our 30th anniversary together. We're both Ham Radio Operators, and we're going to Jamaica in October to spend a week in the sun, at a cool little resort we found on the northern coast in St. Ann's, in a little area called Runaway Bay.

Being that we're Amateur Radio Operators, and this is a vacation for us, we're taking some ham radio gear with us. If you're reading this, you're MOST LIKELY an amateur too, so please bear with me while I explain what a DXpedition is to the non-Hams among us.

DX is a term we use in Amateur radio and shortwave listening to describe "Distant Listening". Pretty much anything you listen to on the shortwave is very likely "Distance" and thus, you are usually listening to a far away location.

Hams like to collect QSL cards, post cards, confirming contacts -- which many use just as "cool collector items". Many use them for awards, like "Worked All States" in the US, or "DXCC" which means they worked a WHOLE LOT of countries found on a DXCC listing.

Jamaica just happens to be on the DXCC list, and though it is not rare or anything, it is a DX location that European and American, as well as other countries Hams want to talk to.

So, JoAnne and I are going to try to oblige a few lucky people around the world on 12-14 October.

Currently, we're awaiting confirmation of our Jamaican operating permits, and I was in contact with the Spectrum Management Authority in Kingston this very week, who assured me we should very well have our permits in hand within the next couple of weeks.

I'll be posting operating information on this blog, as well as information for other hams should they want to do something similar in the future.

So -- basically this blog is a place for us to post information about the trip, and contact information for those of you wishing to make contact with us while we're in Jamaica this October!

I'll post more information later this week, or weekend regarding what we're planning and so forth.

Anyone interested in contacting me regarding the DXpedition can certainly write to me via my callsign @ arrl.net and I'll respond as soon as I can.

Until the next post,

73,

Rick