dx

I got into a bit of a twitter exchange yesterday with some people. It started because Rich Holoch KY6R made his own blog post with the title "The Future of DXpeditions?" and my response "Expensive hobby + expensive trips = lots of old people on DxPeditions. Nobody else can afford it." got several retweets and a favorite or two, and a couple of responses. I have trouble fitting what I think about this into 140 characters, so I'll post it here.

ON6DX will be in Curacao from June 28, 2013 to July 7, 2013 as PJ2/ON6DX.

XR0ZR will be QRV from Juan Fernandez Island sometime in late 2013. The Web site http://www.juanfernandez2013.com/ is under development. It's got a countdown on it now that ends on July 27, but I expect that it'll be updated as soon as there's something to put on it.

Juan Fernandez Island is in the South Pacific off the coast of Chile. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Fern%C3%A1ndez_Islands

After months of wondering if anyone was using 80m at all, and finally shifting the frequency of my Ft. Tuthill 80, I have at long last heard strong signals aplenty. I must have copied at least two dozen calls around 3.530 MHz all frantic to work somebody. Unfortunately, I don't know if I could hear that other station or not. I certainly didn't copy any call that I would think would be rare.

I conclude from this that my antenna needs improvement. Since I already knew that and am planning to do something about it, that's a convenient conclusion.