My turn to brag -- but not about me

If I were the "cluster crab" type, about 30 minutes ago I would have posted a spot on the packet cluster showing that I'd worked VP6DX on 80M with a comment like "Easy!" or "100w into dipole!" or even "Bingoooooo".

Fortunately, I'm not one of those. In fact, I did manage to work VP6DX on 80m CW using just 100w into a G5RV (posting that here is OK; the whole purpose of a blog is to be able to express onself), but the real bragging is about what an absolutely amazing job the guys on Ducie Island are doing.

At the time that I'm writing this, one of the recently posted news items on their web page says:

After 1,5 days of operation they have now about 28,000 QSOs in the log (about 17,000 after the first 24 hours!)

I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to look at their website and try understand the difficulties about putting on a DXpedition like this, but I'm amazed that they not only seem to be on pretty much every band that I can hear (and those that I can't, judging from the spots on the cluster), but that they are working stations rapid-fire endlessly. Yesterday I worked from home due to the inclement weather, and while I didn't have time to actually transmit very much, I was able to listen to the radio now and then, and between the early morning and late evening I heard the VP6DX team on every band from 17m through 80m, usually on more than one mode, working stations like they were a big-gun contest station.

But here's the really awesome part: Tonight, when I saw them spotted on 80m, I tuned to the reported frequency and heard them working stations. (Here's what it sounds like from the K2DBK station, recorded about 10 minutes after my contact with them.) Regular readers will know that I have just a G5RV and run barefoot at 100 watts, but I figured that I'd give them a try. It took about 10 minutes of listening to who they were working, and trying to place myself in the right place within their listening range so that they could hear me, but the fact is that they did hear me amidst all the much louder stations out there. They are not just peeling off only the big gun stations, but listening for us little pistols as well.

Bravo, VP6DX!