[PVRCNC] portable antenna advice needed / New DXCC countries

[Roberts, Will]

Hi Wes,

There will actually be 2 current countries deleted and 4 new countries added as I understand it. I don't believe there has been an official announcement from the ARRL, but this is what we believe will happen on October 10, 2010...

Because of changes in the government of the Netherlands, the following changes will take place:

PJ5/6/7/8 - St.Maarten /Saba/Statia will become a deleted country
PJ2/4/9 - Netherlands Antilles will become a deleted country

PJ5/6 - Statia and Saba will become a new DXCC country
PJ7/8 - St. Maarten will become a new DXCC country
PJ2/9 - Curacao will become a new DXCC country
PJ4 - Bonaire will become a new DXCC country

What this means is that we need to work the soon-to-be deleted countries now as they will go away forever in October.
I am planning to operate from PJ5 and PJ7 beginning October 10th. There are large operations planned for PJ2 and PJ6 as well. Since it's been a while since any countries were added, I expect a huge feeding frenzy for a week or so as everyone adds these four new countries to their DXCC  and tries to get the confirmations so it will count for their 2010 year end totals.
Curacao, Bonaire, and St. Maarten will be common DX by the end of CQWW this year. Statia and Saba will remain rarer since there are no local hams, and they are not common tourist destinations. What remains to be seen is whether the PJ prefixes will go away and they will get their own ITU allocations similar to Aruba's PJ3 to P4 change after independence in 1986. My understanding is that Statia and Saba will likely stay under the Dutch government umbrella and will not change. The others likely will get new callsign allocations, but it will not happen soon.

I'll post this to the reflector to spread the word or in case anyone has any updates. The  dates on these changes have been postponed twice already, so nothing is cast in stone. Getting good information on this has not been easy. I have been in touch with PB2T who works for the Dutch government and writes their telecom. regulations and even he has been unsure of the details and timelines!

73,

Will AA4NC


From: Wes Quinn [mailto:wes_quinn at yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2010 9:43 PM
To: Roberts, Will
Subject: Re: portable antenna advice needed

Hi Will,

Sorry I can't help you with antenna ideas, but what new DXCC country is happening this October?

Thanks and 73,
de k4Wes

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Message: 1
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:58:19 -0400
From: "Roberts, Will" <Will.Roberts at pgnmail.com<mailto:Will.Roberts at pgnmail.com>>
Subject: [PVRC] portable antenna advice needed
To: "pvrc at mailman.qth.net<mailto:pvrc at mailman.qth.net>" <pvrc at mailman.qth.net<mailto:pvrc at mailman.qth.net>>
Message-ID:
    <4EF4D948E6A28741B97C52CD529347910EA3BF6F15 at WN000075.oak.zone1.progress-energy.com<mailto:4EF4D948E6A28741B97C52CD529347910EA3BF6F15 at WN000075.oak.zone1.progress-energy.com>>

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I am planning a low-key DXpedition to the PJ islands to coincide with the upcoming new DXCC country status taking place in October. Since I will be flying everything down with me, SMALL is the keyword here. I'll be running 100 watts and since I'm just handing out new DXCC countries and not operating a contest, wires or a  vertical should suffice. I'm focusing on 40-10m for maximum rate and since my signal will be puny on the low bands with most any antenna I can erect.

I will be in multiple unfamiliar locations and will be improvising an antenna setup. I have a Spiderbeam fiberglass pole (40') to use as a support or it could be used as a vertical for one of the infamous 43' multiband verticals. Anyone have any experience with these? I have a 4:1 balun and a K3 with a tuner, so that could be all I need. I know an 88' doublet works pretty well if I can find some suitable trees. At max, I'll be 2 miles from the ocean so that will help. Any thoughts or experiences from the assembled PVRC bank of knowledge would be appreciated.

TNX/73,

Will AA4NC