[South Florida DX Association] DXpedition to East Timor

[Scott / W4PJ]

Announcing DXpedition to East Timor

The Union de Radioaficionados Españoles, URE, the Spanish Amateur Radio
League, is proud to announce a project in East Timor to take place in June
2008.

URE's Radiosolidarity Department will organize an Amateur Radio DXpedition,
combined with activities to promote Amateur Radio including the donation and
setting up of a complete amateur radio station at the University of Dili. It
is hoped that by operating alongside students and teachers of the Electrical
Engineering and other departments it will be possible to sow the seeds of
future amateur radio activity of a permanent nature in East Timor.

During the last few years URE's Radiosolidarity has been involved in
projects in the following countries:

1998-TJ2RSF-Cameroun [ in collaboration with RSF] 1998/1999-Cuba [campaign
of donation of material] 1999-HU4U-El Salvador 2000-HQ0R-Honduras
2001-TG0R-Guatemala 2003-ZA1A-Albania [an IARU project] 2004-7W0AD-Algeria
2004-T42R-Cuba 2005-TZ6DEL-Mali 2007-T42R-Cuba 2007-HQ2R-Honduras

This new project will take place in cooperation with the University of Dili,
located in the capital of East Timor. We don't yet know the callsign that
will be used; whether it will be a special one for the occasion, hopefully
4W6R, the callsign of the University (4W6UTL) or the callsign of one of the
operators (4W6ERC).

The group that will take part in the activity is made up of the following
experienced operators:

EA1QF Angel (team leader)
EA3CUU Pere
EA4DB (ex-EA4BPJ) Jose
EA4KA Eugene
EA5BWR Txema
CT1ERC Jose

QSLs will be via EA4URE.

A complete station (Kenwood TS690 + Mosley TA63M + G5RV + rotor) will be
donated to and installed at the University of Dili for use of the students
and teachers of the Electrical Engineering Department or anyone else who
might be interested in Amateur Radio. Another station will be set up,
temporarily, at the team´s lodgings in order to have two stations (CW and
SSB) operating permanently during the 15 days of operation. Time will be
spent on other modes (RTTY, etc) and special attention will be paid to
operation on six meters.

The majority of this project's funding is provided by the Alicante
Provincial Government and by URE. The rest of the budget, at this time, will
be down to the operators although we have already received news of some
small but useful donations. We would be very grateful if individuals and
organisations could consider making contributions to this project at any
time, including after the operation. Please bear in mind the following two
considerations.

The objective of this project is to contribute to the development of a very
young country and to promote amateur radio activity by East Timor nationals.

The DXpedition is part of the activity is intended to achieve 30,000 plus
QSOs in spite of the limitations imposed on us. We feel able to achieve this
due to the very considerable experience of our six-man team of proven
DXpedition operators