Radiomercato.com

Pista HA5AO and George HA5UK leave Budapest for their South Pacific expedition on 8 January.

The operation will begin from Tuvalu on 12 January, as T2HA. Then a move to Fiji on 26 January with three days of operation expected as 3D2HA. Thereafter, they will leave for Tarawa, on 31 January. Operation from Kiribati, T30HA, will take place until 23 February.

Pista and George will attempt a trip to Banaba for 7-10 days within this period, but the exact time of T33HA Banaba operation will be announced from Tarawa only.

Two stations active on 160-10m CW, SSB, RTTY and some PSK / SSTV modes.
- Tuvalu, T2HA, 12 -26 January 2012.
- Fiji, 3D2HA, 27 – 30 January 2012.
- Tarawa, W. Kiribati, T30HA, 31 January – 23 February 2012.
- Banaba, T33HA, possible 7-10 days between 02 – 23 February 2012. [see above]

QSL info: http://ha5ao.novolab.hu/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=66&Itemid=130&lang=en

Website: http://ha5ao.novolab.hu/

Cancelled

HA South Pacific Tour 2012

Press Release II

We had two focuses on our announced January/February 2012 South Pacific DX Tour: T2 and T30 with possible operation from T33. We regret to advice that we had to cancel the operation from T2 and T30. That was the bad news. The good news is that our new target is C2, Nauru.

The reasons of these very last minute changes, which are out of our control,
are as follows:

1.We had to cancel the T30 as the flights from Fiji to Tarawa has been suspended since 12 September 2011, due to the air traffic dispute between Kiribati and Fiji. There is high risk to extend the flight disruption for even longer period. After the consultation with the airlines and our consulate in Canberra, we were advised that “there is high risk of not to get to Tarawa or can not leave Tarawa for a long, undefined period of time. This situation does not affect the flights to Tuvalu and Nauru.”

We were waiting until the very last minute hoping that the air traffic dispute between Fiji-Tarawa-Fiji will be solved, but the flights has not been restarted, yet.

2.. Tuvalu government declared a nation-wide state of emergency on 28 September 2011 due to critical shortage of drinking water. The state of emergency was declared after existing desalination plants broke, exacerbating an already dire situation. The water crisis is still serious on two of the worse affected islands, the capital island of Funafuti and Nukulaelae. The airlines still do not accept excess baggage at all, including hand luggage, because of the loads of drinking water containers by Red Cross. We could check in less than the third of our technical stuff, resulting significant and unreasonable limitation of the station set up. Due to this restriction we decided to cancel the T2HA Tuvalu operation, as well.

3. Due to the above detailed situation, we decided to change the target of our DXpedition to C2, Nauru. Operation is planned between 10 January and 6 February 2012 as C21HA with two stations on all HF bands. Log search and further info: http://ha5ao.novolab.hu

It was the first time that we asked support and received contribution from DX Foundations, DX Organizations and individuals. We appreciate these supports very much. However we will contact all organizations and individuals who supported us, and will pay the donations back if these changes would make them disappointed, despite Nauru is much better ranked on the most wanted DXCC list.

73’ Pista, HA5AO and George, HA5UK