Majuro, Republic of the Marshall Islands - February 12th, 2025
V73WW - QRV
After many hours of travel, the team touched down in Majuro at 23:00 UTC on February 10th — local time 11:00 AM, February 11th. We saw Johnston atoll from the plane as well. (It’s easy to remember the UTC time here, as we are exactly on the opposite side of the globe from Greenwich, in UTC+12.)
We were picked up by our host, who rented an extra pickup truck for us. After a supply run, we took a boat to our small island within the Majuro Atoll, hauling all our equipment ashore and unpacking.
We have sent out certificates of appreciation to our supporters and updated our website to include the callsigns of all our donors. A huge thank you to everyone who contributed to making this DXpedition possible!
Yesterday and today have been sweaty, labor-intensive days, setting up antennas in the humid heat and strong sun. We have a clear takeoff to all directions, especially Europe, Japan, and North America. Some antennas were installed directly in the water current along the beach, which remains submerged even at low tide, requiring creative solutions to secure them properly. All planned high-power stations are now operational, and full operation is expected soon. We are also preparing for the ARRL CW contest. RX antennas will be set up before the weekend as planned.
So far, we’ve built a 1/4 wave for 40m, raised 2.5 meters above the water with four elevated radials. We also set up a 30m vertical dipole and a 1/4 wave 80m vertical directly on the beach, supported by an 18m Spiderpole. Unfortunately, the 80m feed box was damaged during air cargo transport, so it’s currently working for CW only. Other antennas include a DX Commander, a 4-element 10m Yagi, a 10m 2-element VDA, a 12m 2-element VDA, a 15m 2-element VDA, and a 6m 4-element Yagi.
We became QRV about two hours ahead of our originally announced 00:00 UTC start time and had already logged 500 contacts on two bands by then. Since that moment, Europe has been coming in strong during the evening hours. Naturally, Japan and the USA are loud on the higher bands during the day. We’ve also received multiple audible reports from home supporters.
There is currently no internet access in the shack, we will upload logs to Clublog when time permits, at least once a day. Clublog livestream expected to be online very soon.
Our Marshallese hosts have been incredibly welcoming—one even climbed a coconut tree to help us mount an antenna. We’re cooking for ourselves and settling in, making this island our home for the next two weeks. Hope to see you in the log!
