The DX-Adventure JW0X | JW100OQ Svalbard DX-pedition was successfully completed. During the Christmas holidays of 2022, we get dreaming together at a video meeting, asking ourselves, ‘Where do we go next?’ Staring at the ‘Most Wanted DXCC’ list, asking, what is feasible for us. After some pondering and wild dreaming about faraway places, we ended up with the Nicobar and Andaman Islands, a destination high on the Clublog Most Wanted List, at number 53. In North America, it is listed at number 28. We knew immediately that this was not going to be an easy venture. But we agreed with each other and thought ‘let’s give it a try…’.

Very quickly a new team was assembled consisting of: ON4AMX Marc | ON4HIL Patrick | ON5UR Max | ON5RA Pascal | ON5TN Karel | ON6CC Marc | ON7FT Jonas | ON7USB Geert | ON7RU Franky | ON8AZ Francis | PA3EWP Ronald | PA9M Marcel.

We could now start the first preparations ‘ getting our licence’. A few months later, we had done a lot of work and sent our application registered to the Ministry of Communications in New Delhi in India, a bundle of more of 500 A4 pages (you read it right). Just a few days later, Max ON5UR received a message from India asking if everything had been sent yet. There were rumours that from now on everything had to be done digitally and these were confirmed. It looked like the Monopoly game and we pulled out the ‘go back to start’ card…

Obtaining the necessary permits proved to be a very tough job indeed. It required no less than 18 months of patience, perseverance and extensive communication with the Indian authorities. Hereby, we would certainly like to thank ON8AZ Francis immensely for his perseverance. There were times when we wanted to throw in the towel for less, but we persevered and our hard work was rewarded, and we finally received the long-awaited positive news. Our thanks go to the Ministry of Communications and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who helped us get this permit finalised.

 

The planning of the trip has been an adventure itself. With so much equipment and personal luggage, we had to be creative, because we were not allowed to travel on the TGV train because we had too much luggage. In the end, we decided to adjust our itinerary.

We will now leave on March 8, 2025 by touring bus from Kortrijk, Belgium towards Paris CDG airport, where we will take our first flight to New Delhi in India. From there we will fly to Kokotha in eastern India where we will later continue to our final destination Port Blair | Andaman Islands. The one-way travel time is more than 45 hours.

On Monday morning, March 10, we will land in the capital Port Blair. The amount of luggage will not go unnoticed at customs. Let’s hope we don’t run into too many problems and that we can move on quickly to where we need to go on the western side of the island.

Our location is on the west coast of South Andaman Island

Our location is on South Andaman Island on the west coast of the island in the middle of nowhere. We deliberately chose this location because it is far away from everything, also hoping that the noise level will be very low. There is also enough space to place a lot of antennas. We also have a piece of private beach, where the low-band antennas will be placed, hoping to put down good signals.

We are doing our utmost to organise a successful DX-pedition. The goal is to be active with six stations 24 hours a day for 11 days. We will do our best to make as many contacts as possible in SSB, CW, FT8, RTTY. Our team, consisting of very experienced contest | DX-pedition operators, is ready to give everything.

The cost of extra baggage is huge

The expense of transporting the necessary equipment runs very high. We pay more than 600 USD per suitcase. We are not saving money and efforts to make this DX-pedition as successful as possible, so we have already booked 37 suitcases of 23 kg to transport all the equipment. We fear that this will still not be enough..

 Clublog Most Wanted DXCC list | N° 53 Nicobar and Andaman islands

How do we see the world from Andaman Islands

For us in Western Europe, it is always a big challenge to make QSOs with radio amateurs | DX-peditions in the Pacific. For the east coast of America, it is equally difficult to reach this part of Asia.

In North America (east coast), Andaman & Nicobar islands is currently ranked 28th in the ‘Clublog Most Wanted DXCC list’. We will definitely pay a lot of attention to this and try to offer at least one QSO to as many radio amateurs in the region as possible. Our location is on the west coast of Andaman Island, not the best location towards North America. But we use beam antennas Spiderbeams at 10 | 12 | 15 | 17 & 20 Mtr.

But there is also good news, if we go the other way, i.e. via the long path, we have an ideal situation. We will place a VDA for 15 metres on the beach right by the water. We will pay a lot of attention here daily and use the openings to work NA. Even though the signals from Europe | Asia are very loud. We hope for your understanding on this.

We receive a lot of questions about 50 MHz | 6 Meter band…

Every week we receive a lot of questions about 50 MHz | 6 Mtr. Many radio amateurs wonder why we do not announce anything about 50 MHz | 6 Mtr anywhere and beg us to bring an antenna.

It’s not that we don’t want to, we would even very much like to be active on 50 MHz | 6 Mtr during this DX-pedition. But unfortunately, legislation decides otherwise. On Andaman Island, 50 MHz | 6 Mtr is only allowed with a maximum power of 25 Watt | FM.

We have been asking permission for an exception for a very long time. Hoping to get temporary permission to use more power and different modes. There have been several contacts with the Ministry of Communications. Currently, we have not yet received a final decision or positive response. But we keep asking the question and together with you hope for a positive answer.

The first DX Foundations confirmed their financial support for our DX-pedition. NCDXF | Northern Californa DX Foundation is currently our largest club sponsor. We appreciate all the support we were honoured to receive. More info can be found on the DX Foundations page.

Organising such DXpeditions often involves very high expenses. We are very happy with the financial support we already received from several radio amateurs. Also you can support us and give us a helping hand.

We also thank all our main sponsors for their trust. You help DX-Adventure enormously in organising this and future DX-Adventure DX-peditions.

•  DX-Engineering | USA
•  4O3A | Montenegro
•  RF Guru | Belgium
•  Weepee Telecom | Belgium
•  Meditrans | The Netherlands
•  Wimo | Germany
•  Spiderbeam | Germany
•  Messi and Paoloni| Italy
•  RigExpert | Ukraine